Three decisions, and every cut is a combination of them

Decision one: how much length stays on top

This is the decision that sets everything else, because it decides how much styling the cut needs and how long it takes to undo. Side and edge work changes week to week. Length takes months.

Four bands cover essentially everything, and the names people search for cluster inside them.

• Clipped all over. One length, no styling, nothing to comb. The buzz cut is the whole band, and it is the only cut on this page that looks the same at the end of the day as at the start.
• Short enough to leave alone. Roughly finger length, enough to have a shape without needing product. Caesar cuts, French crops and textured crops live here, and so does most of what barbers call a short back and sides.
• Long enough to style up or across. The band that needs a few minutes and a product. Quiffs, pompadours and comb overs are all this length with a different direction of travel.
• Long enough to tie or let fall. Past the ear and heading for the collar. Middle parts, curtain fronts, shaggy cuts and a man bun are all the same length decision with different handling.

Decision two: what happens to the sides and back

Here is where most of the confusion in the whole category sits, because this decision has its own vocabulary and people use it as though it described a complete haircut. It does not. A fade is not a haircut, it is an answer to this one question, and it can sit under any of the four lengths above.

The question is really two smaller ones. How short do the sides get, and is there a visible line where they meet the top.

• Tapered. The sides get gradually shorter as they go down, with no line anywhere. This is what a fade is: low, mid and high describe only how far up the head the shortening starts.
• Disconnected. The sides are one short length and the top is another, with a hard line between them and no blending. That is the undercut, and the line is the point of it.
• Scissor cut and left longer. No clipper, no line, the sides shortened but still long enough to sit over the ear. Most longer cuts need this, because a tight side under long top is a different and much louder haircut.
• Shaped rather than shortened. The two block and its relatives, where the sides are cut away underneath but the surface length stays, so the shape is hollowed out from below.

Decision three: what happens at the edges

The third decision is the one nobody asks for and everybody notices. It covers the hairline, the temples, the neckline and whatever the beard is doing, and it is the part of the cut that changes how the face reads rather than how the hair sits.

It is also the cheapest decision to change your mind about, because every piece of it grows back inside a few weeks. If you are unsure about anything on this page, be unsure here rather than about length.

• Left natural. The hairline stays where it grows, including any unevenness or recession. The most forgiving choice as hair thins, because a sharp line is the thing that makes a receding front obvious.
• Lined up. The front hairline and temples squared off with a clean edge. Sharp for a week and then growing out against a straight line, which is the maintenance cost people underestimate.
• Temples taken down. The corners shortened without touching the rest of the sides, which narrows the top of the face and is the subtlest change available.
• Blended into a beard. The sideburn taken into the beard with no visible join, so hair and beard read as one shape. This is a beard decision as much as a hair one.

Putting the three together

Once the decisions are separate, the named cuts stop being a list to memorise and become combinations, and you can see which ones are near neighbours of each other.

A buzz is clipped all over with a taper and a natural edge. A French crop is short on top, tapered or disconnected at the sides, with a fringe left forward. A quiff and a pompadour are the same length decision with the hair going up and back in slightly different proportions. An undercut is a disconnection, so it can be worn with a short top or a long one and reads as two different haircuts. A two block is a hollowed side under a longer top. A mullet is a length decision that differs front to back rather than top to side, which is why it never fits the usual lists properly.

The practical use of this is in the chair. Barbers work from a starting height, a guard number and a finish, not from style names, and the same name genuinely means different things in different shops. Describing the three decisions gets you a predictable result from someone who has never heard the name you had in mind.

Which decision your face shape actually touches

Face shape advice is usually given as a list of approved haircuts, which is the least useful form it could take. It mostly bears on one decision at a time, and knowing which one keeps you from rejecting a cut you could have had.

Height on top lengthens a round or square face, which is why the quiff and the pompadour appear in every round face list. Width at the sides does the opposite, so a longer scissor cut side softens a long or narrow face. The edge decision is where a strong jaw or a weak one gets addressed, usually through the beard rather than the hair. Length on top is the only one of the three that is slow to reverse, so it is the one worth matching to your face carefully and the other two are worth simply trying.

The guides on this site go deeper per case: the round face guide works through the combinations that add height, and the thinning hair guide covers why the edge decision matters more than the length one once the front starts to go.

Hair type decides what is possible before any of this

The three decisions assume the hair will do what it is asked. Hair type is what decides that, and it constrains the options rather than choosing between them.

Straight hair holds a line and shows every edge, which makes lined up work look sharp and makes an uneven cut obvious. Wavy hair fights a part and rewards a bit of length, because too short and the wave reads as untidy rather than as texture. Curly hair carries shape without styling and shrinks when dry, so the length you ask for is not the length you get. Thick hair gets heavy fast and often needs weight removing rather than length. Fine hair needs the opposite: length kept short enough that it is not lying flat, and no line that draws attention to the scalp.

There is a guide here for each of those, and they are worth reading before the names rather than after, because a cut your hair cannot hold is a cut that looks right in the shop and wrong by Wednesday.

How to see it before you commit

The gap this whole page is working around is that a haircut is not transferable. A photo of a model shows that cut on their density, their hairline, their head shape and their hair type, and the only one of those you share with them is the haircut.

That is the specific thing Lineup does. You take one photo and the cut is rendered on your own face, so the question stops being whether a two block suits people and becomes whether it suits yours. The style catalogue carries a real before and after pair for every named cut on this page, which is what a list of names cannot assemble however long it gets.

The order that wastes the least time is this one. Pick a length band, because it is the slow decision. Try two or three side treatments against it, because they are fast and free. Leave the edge decision to the barber, because they can see your hairline and you cannot. Then take the three answers rather than a photo of a stranger into the shop.

See these on your own face

• buzz cut
• french crop
• caesar cut
• pompadour haircut
• quiff haircut
• undercut men
• comb over fade
• two block haircut
• modern mullet
• man bun
• middle part men
• temple fade
• beard fade

Questions