Mens Preppy Haircut Tutorial

A mens preppy haircut or Ivy League haircut is a timeless style that exudes a clean, conservative and professional look. Styling preppy hairstyles can give versatile looks. Using the hair's natural texture, it can be shaped like a comb over or slicked to the side. For a more natural look with some volume, it can by styled with less product for a looser, casual feel.

Watch this preppy Ivy League haircut tutorial and follow along with the transcript. 

Mens Preppy Haircut Tutorial:

Welcome back to Jatai Academy. I'm Russell Mayes, Director of Content. Today we're going to be doing the preppy haircut, better known as the collegiate. Collegiate is basically short back and sides where you have some length to comb. It's not a regular faded haircut. It's tapered, but it's real clean around the edges and still gives you some length.

This is the perfect haircut to transition from doing a skin fade into something a little bit longer, especially if your clients are trying to grow their hair out longer, which seems to be fashionable these days. Anyway, let's get started.

Clipper Cutting the Back

So, we're going to start here at the nape of the neck. I'm combing everything straight down. And then I'll put my comb right at the hairline and angle that up at whatever angle of graduation or tapering that I think that I want. And then I'll just go through and imagine my line as I go up.

There's no guide, so I'm having to create my own guide. And I'll just go up and take step by step by step. The more steps that I take as I'm cutting going up the back, the smoother that the transition is going to be.

After I cut the center, I'll move off to the left a little bit. And then I'll continue working that over towards the left side. Now, you'll notice as I get around the tendon of the neck, I start to angle my comb up a little bit on the left side. And that's because the head shape is a little lower in the back, meaning that it curves lower in the back than it does on the side.

Cuz if you look where the occipital bone is, where the head starts to curve forward, it's lower in the back than where it's curving at the recessions on the side. So, I want to maintain that head shape as I'm tapering it up in the back. And that also keeps someone from looking like they have a flat head if I leave the back of the head a little bit more rounder in its shape.

Now, I'll just continue to go through and fine-tune the shape and not be too worried about it being perfect. As I get around the edges, I want to make sure that the hairline around the edges is all ultra clean.

So, I'm taking my time and going through and trying to get it as clean as I can and being patient and methodical with my application of my cut. That's looking pretty good. Now, we got a little bit of a weight line right there at the occipital bone. We're not worried about that right now.

The problem is always the transition from where it's short to where it's longer. Where it's short, the hair tends to be a little pokey, especially on Asian hair or thick and coarse hair. As it starts to get longer, the hair lays down. So, there's always that transition area that gets you this pokey kind of halo that we have to make sure that we can fine-tune. And I'll show you how to fine-tune that later on.

So, as of right now, I'm just whittling my shape in. I'm taking a little bit off. I'm looking at the end result, going back and tracing my previously cut line to fine-tune it. So, as I'm going through and doing this method right here, I'm not looking for hair to be cut off. I'm trying to trace what was already cut.

So, sometimes I'll make a pass and I won't cut any hair. Sometimes I'll make a pass and I'll cut just a whisper of hair off. And that's what I'm looking for is just fine-tuning and whittling the shape in to where I get it velvety smooth.

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Just continuing to fine-tune everything. Making sure that my edges and my outline is clean as I start to fine-tune my shape. Now I'm going to add a guard. This is a 1.5. And I'm only doing this right at the very edge of the hairline and the nape. I'm not going to use this on the sides. I want to leave enough hair that's combable and keep it solid on the sides. But here in the back, just that last half inch, I'm going to go through and put a little bit tighter taper into it.

Clipper Cutting the Sides

Now, as I work into the sides, I'll lay the comb right at the ear. Keep the same angle of graduation that I was doing in the back and keep it ultra clean and short over the ear as I start to work that shape up and out.

So, I'm not trying to remove any length off the top. I want to keep the length on the top, but I want to fit this in really cleanly over the ear. So combing it down, I hit the ear. I pull the comb slightly to the left. I hook the comb and then angle it up and out as I start to fine-tune and continue my graduation up the side of the head.

As I get behind the ear, right at the mastoid, I'll start to angle. This is going to blend where I cut my line in the back and I cut the line on the side. This is going to blend the two. And I blend it at an angle. This is going to be the same angle that's going to be right behind the ear. And that angle right at the front of the recession towards the sideburn area. Comb the sideburn down.

Push the ear back. I'm not pushing it back. I'm just pushing it in. And by pushing it in, that opens that little bit of hairline right around the ear and allows me to get that really clean without white walling the sides, meaning that I cut the hairline too high over the ear and it looks kind of funky. So, I want to keep this very, very low.

And especially on finer textures of hair where the hairline may not be all the way down to the ear, if I cut it too high, it looks ridiculous. So, comb that down right at the front of the temple to make sure I get that clean right around the hairline at the front as well as the sides and the back. I want to keep the hair lines clean all the way around and taper that in nice and tight.

Graduating the Back

Now, I'm not worried about my weight line right now. I'll start dealing with that here. I'm going to separate the front of the head from the back of the head. Right at the high point of the head, just above the crown. Now, I'm going to take a center section.

I'm going to use my Jatai Osaka Scissor. This is a 5.5" scissor. It's very sharp, very clean. And I want to make sure that this line is clean. So, that's why I'm using this smaller scissor so I can fine-tune and detail it a little bit more. Combing everything down, cut the graduation that I had already cut underneath with the clipper. Continuing that up and out.

So, I'm just following that same angle of graduation that I started at the bottom up and out. I'll pivot my sections all the way around to the sides of the head. And you'll see I'm just taking that corner off right through there just to make sure that that graduation bevels a little bit and I don't have that real pokiness that's sticking out. I keep the weight, but I don't keep that center pokiness in that corner that sits there in between the two.

Now, here at the front, I'm holding that forward. Whatever the length was around the front, that's the length that I'm going to use as my long piece guide, and I'm cutting that down into my graduation that I cut underneath with the clippers.

So, whatever that angle happens to be, that's what I'm keeping. I just want to keep a smooth transition between the long hair on the top and the short hair on the sides. And this is going to go through and do a lot to remove that weight line that we started to build up with the clippers because the clippers, they can't cut hair controlled in a controlled method when the hair starts to get too long because the hair is going to sag. I can't keep any tension on it. So, this is how I keep tension on it as the hair starts to get longer. Then when the hair gets longer with the clipper, I can't control it as well. And you can see that's already looking pretty good right through there. I've removed that weight line.

Layering on Top

Now, we're going to go through and work on our layering on the top. Take a center section. Now, the front section right there where his bangs were his fringe was, I'm using that length as a guide and just cutting everything horizontally back so that I don't have any arcing of hair right at the crown or at the top of the head. I want to keep everything flat and curve that back into the graduation that I created in the crown. That's perfect. We've got that through there.

Now, I'll take that as my guide. I'll add one section to the left side of his head. I'll comb the center section and the section to the left side. That's two sections into one and the center of both of those sections, which makes one section. I'll comb that straight up and use the first piece as my guide and cut my second piece.

After I cut that all the way through, I'll remove the first section. That was my original guide. I'll remove that. Now I have the second section and the third section. I'll comb that straight up and cut through. And since I know that there's no hair that's really going to blend from the lower part of that third section, I'm just combing the entire side straight up into my second and third sections and cutting everything off. That looks good. We got that all blended through.

Blending

Now I'm going to use my Jatai Tokyo Scissor. This is the thinning scissor. This is the perfect amount of blend for going through and removing just enough weight without completely shredding it. Now, here it's key that I'm going through and just tracing the last quarter inch of the hair. I'm not going to try to go through and thin the hair, especially on finer textures of hair.

His is not necessarily a fine texture, but it's a strong coarser texture, but I don't want to go through and overly thin too deep because then I'm going to start to get pokies. So, I'm only tracing the edges. I'm just shadowing the edges a quarter inch in. And this is going to give me a blend more so than a thinning. And I'll just go through and methodically apply this as evenly as I can. Where it starts to feel like it's getting a little thicker, I might go a little bit deeper, but most of the time I'm just retracing the ends. Perfect. We got there.

We're transitioning the scissor over comb just like I cut it with the clipper over comb. Angle behind the ear, horizontal on top of the ear, and follow everything up and out.

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And that looks pretty good through there. I think that that transition works really, really smoothly. After I go through and shampoo everything, everything I've done so far has been on dry hair that I've just sprayed with a water bottle if I needed to control it a little better on top.

After I've shampooed it, I'm going to go through and blow it dry as neutrally as possible. I want all the hair that has the ability to stick up, especially in that transition area from short to longer. I want that to stick up now so I can deal with it. I don't want him to have to worry about that when he gets home and shampoos his hair. So, I'm going to exaggerate that.

After I've done that, I'm going to go through and take my Jatai Osaka Scissor and go through and just freehand like I was cutting hedges. I'm just going to freehand any hair that sticks out beyond the basic shape and I'm going to cut that off.

Now, when I do this, I don't want to hold my breath. As a tendency of me concentrating on something, I tend to hold my breath. So, I have to make a conscious effort to breathe out when I'm doing this because if I hold my breath, my hands start to shake. And when my hands start shaking, oh baby, that's going to be a disaster. So, watch out.

Just continue to be patient. Take your time, fine-tune everything like it needs to be and get everything fit in just perfectly. There we go. That's looking pretty good. And just work on it until it's done.

Final Look

Here's our end result of this short preppy haircut. And I think that it looks really, really good. I think it fits his hair perfectly. It gives him a very, very groomed look, but still keeps him stylish.

Anyway, check out the Jatai Academy. There's all kinds of fantastic information on there that will make you better hairstylist and barber. Let us know what you'd like to see in the future. Thank you so much for watching.