One of the most fundamental techniques you should know as a hair professional is how to cut a blunt bob. The scissor techniques needed to get a perfectly straight blunt line takes skill and practice. But once you master how to do a blunt cut you can use these skills to do different kinds of haircuts like a medium blunt bob or a short angled bobs.

Watch this video tutorial and follow along with the transcript below.

How to Cut a Blunt Bob

Welcome back to the Jatai Academy! Today we’re going to be doing an in-depth study of how to get a perfect solid one length line, all the things that you need to know, all the little tricks and all the habits that you need to practice to make sure that you can get a perfect one length blunt line and how to do a blunt haircut. So let’s get started.

Sectioning

The first thing I want to do is I want to go through and use a little bit of cutting lotion just to make sure that the hair has an even wetness, that it’s easy to comb and glide everything through the hair so when I’m taking my sections and combing, I’m not fighting the sections.

I like to use Jatai Blade Glide. It’s nice. It’s light and will not weigh down even the finest hair, but it constricts the cuticle and makes cutting so much smoother and so much easier.

I took a natural center part down to the occipital bone, occipital bone to the mastoid. If the hair is really thick I will separate this in half. Very rarely do I ever take this into thirds because most hair is not really that thick so that brings me to the first concept is you can’t have a section that’s too thick or too thin.

If the sections too thick then it’s going to create a whole lot of scissor push which I’ll get to in a second. But if it’s too thin as well it’s not going to give you a clean enough solid line that you can build off of and it makes subsequent sections harder to match.

So I want enough thickness to where I can’t really see through it but I don’t want so much thickness that it makes my scissors push. The next thing we want to focus on is having a very very sharp scissor. The sharper your scissor the cleaner the cut that you’re going to be able to make and also the thicker the sections that you’re going to be able to work with.

Choosing the Right Scissor when Learning How to Cut Blunt Bob

I’m using the Kyoto Scissor from Jatai. It has a nice fat blade. It has enough scissor weight behind it that I can really get behind and make sure I have a clean cut. What you’re going to see a lot of times when people cut hair is it’s going to look like I cut, I go in cut, and I go in.

So when I do it fast it looks like that, but in reality what I’m doing is I put the scissor in and as I close the blade I cut on the backstroke. This will compensate for the amount of scissor push that I’m going to get.

A sharper scissor is going to require less backstroke which will give you a cleaner cut line. Also, the sharper the scissor is the cleaner that it’s going to cut the ends of the hair. If it cuts it kind of jagged, it’s going to look kind of fuzzy so I want a nice sharp clean scissor.

Combing the Section

Now from here I want to focus on how I’m combing the section. You’ll notice when I hold the comb it’s two fingers on one side, a thumb and a pinky on the other side. So that allows me to flip the comb and control it like this which is important for building tension.

So I’ll go through, I’ll take a section right in the center. Each section that I take is going to be a flat section of head. So when I hold the comb against the head it’s going to be flat. So I’m not cutting across any curved sections.

So now from here I comb away from me so that I make sure I get all the hair at the scalp combed clean. If I don’t get the hair combed clean from the scalp it’s going to leave me an inconsistently cut line.

So comb with the teeth facing away from my fingers and then I rock and rotate and I put my finger in. I just hold, put the finger on top. I do not drag that finger through creating any kind of tension. The only tension that this section has is the tension that was created in the comb.

Now from here I want the comb to be perpendicular to the hair. I’m not going to turn this up and make it easier for me to see. I want to make sure that this is perpendicular to the hair where I want the line to be cut.

Making the Cut

Scissor push is compensated for. Cutting on the backstroke. Now we have a perfectly clean cut line. On a human I will comb that down, get that little piece out of the way, and then cut this on the skin to compensate for any graduation that I get from my fingers.

The next section, I will then with the head comb straight down. I’ll compensate. So this is the angle. It matches on both sides so I comb that section, T to my parting.

I do not put my fingers in, create tension and drag that section because then I’m going to have inconsistent tension throughout the section because my fingers are not going to be perfectly even.

I’m going to have gaps. And where I have gaps it’s not going to create the same tension. So I’m going to comb this down. The only tension that’s being created is from the comb.

Plant my finger. There’s my guide. Put my scissor in. Cut on the back stroke to compensate. Boom! Perfectly clean blunt solid line. And we’re going to do the same thing on the other side and match that as best we can.

Comb down, create my tension, there’s my scissor guide from the previous section in the center. Compensate. Check that out. Here I’m going to look and see if my sides are even and it looks like the left is a little longer.

So instead of freaking out and crying I’m just going to go back and cut that side a little bit shorter. And I will take that in baby steps. And there is my line.

Cut that down and through. Boom. A little nibble right there. Now let’s check and see and that’s looking pretty good. Now we’ve got our first section. So now we’re going to go through and take a parallel section to that previous section which was what we took in the very beginning.

Now we’re going to take the rest of this section that we sectioned off in the nape and I’m going to go through and do exactly the same thing that I did before.

Cutting on Top of the Previously Cut Section in this Blunt Shoulder Length Bob

Take the center section again. I want to make sure that it’s flat. Comb that down. The only tension I get is from the comb itself.

I’ll lay my fingers right there where the previously cut section was, find my guide underneath, go through, compensate for scissor push and we are going to do what is technically the hardest thing to do in cutting hair and that’s cutting this section directly on top of the previously cut section.

That’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do when you’re trying to cut hair. Everything else pales in difficulty compared to this section right here because I cannot be longer which this, if I’m like really neurotic about it is a little bit longer.

So I’m going to go back in and try to cut just a whisper of hair off. That brings me to the next point that we really need to pay attention to and that is consistency of technique.

So when we comb it’s consistent every time that we comb down and through. When I hold it it’s consistently the same and when I cut it’s consistently the same.

If it’s not I’m going to have a lot of difficulty. Let me cut this. I can’t talk and cut at the same time. I’m going to have a lot of difficulty repeating my cut line so I have to practice and comb and rehearse my skills over and over and over again just like a piano player would play, you know the scales and the chopsticks or whatever finger exercises that they have to get so that they can repeat the method every time and be exactly the same. That’s only going to come with practice.

Next section. Comb clean from the root all the way down through. There is my previously cut guide.

Cut on top of that and that actually looks pretty good. I’m impressed by that section there.

Wow. Don’t expect that level of quality every time I cut but sometimes you’re going to hit it right on top. You’re going to hit the nail in the head. Remember it’s not about being perfect on every little section. It’s about you’re perfect the majority of the haircut because there are going to be sections that I cut on this haircut that are not going to be right. They’re going to be a little too short. They’re going to be a little too long.

A little too long is easier to fix than a little too short because if I go a little too short then I have to go back and cut the whole thing again just a little bit shorter. If it’s a little bit longer it’s easy to go back in and clean that up.

So now we’re going to look at this, see how that’s looking and I got a little graduation right here. So I’m going to comb that down in my comb, cut that little bit off. Easy right? Easy.

It’s a simple concept but it’s not easy to execute. You have to practice and be diligent with your technique to get this really clean. So now let’s just continue on.

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Starting in the center again where it’s flat, get all this hair out of the way. Make sure the head is even and she’s not sitting all cockeyed. Comb clean from the root all the way down, flip the comb creates the tension, plant my fingers. There’s my guide.

Cut directly on top of my previously cut section. Not shorter. Not longer. Directly on top. We’ve got everything done up into the ear section. So now we’re going to bring this section down and I’m going to go through and do the same thing I was doing before just continuing to go up the head taking each individual subsection, combing everything down including the previously cut sections as my guide.

Compensating for the Ear 

And as I go up it gets easier and easier to see my guide. Now as I start to come around to the ear I have to approach that in a different way because I have this protrusion sticking out from the head that if I just comb the hair over it and pull it down it’s going to compress the ear and then when I let go the ears going to flip up and then it’s going to make this section get shorter.

So what I’ll do is I’ll cut all the way up to the ear, get the ear hair and the ear out of the way so I don’t have to deal with it until it’s absolutely necessary. There’s my guide.

Cut directly on top of that as best you can. Clean that up as best as you can. Now as I come to the ear the way I’m going to deal with that is…there’s a lot of different ways to deal with this section. There’s no one way that is the end all be all way because the hair is different.

Some hair is more voluminous and it gives you a lot more slop factor so it gives you more of a safety net that you don’t have to worry about it. Thinner hair you have to worry about it more because it’s more visible and it shows all the flaws of your technique. And if that hair gets shorter because I pulled it down, it’s going to spring up.

My line is going to go nice and straight and then have a nice little hole and continue straight again forward. So what I tend to do is I’ll take the ear section, I’ll comb everything down over the ear.

Make sure that I go underneath the ear as I continue down and once I get here I’ll gently hold the hair take the scissor and push under the ear so it starts to see the ear protrude from that section and it allows this hair right here to get pulled up.

And then I will hold that down and cut that straight across. So now when I comb this down you’re going to see how that gets a little bit longer right through there. I’m going to then ignore that because I have to cut it again once it’s dry to clean it up.

So that gives me a compensation over the ear so that when I dry it there I can fine tune it. Dry hair is not going to be as susceptible to graduation elevation from tension or through the protrusion of the ear as wet hair will be.

The next section comb that straight down, no tension. There’s my guide. Cut that straight and through. We’re going to check and make sure our sides are even and that’s looking pretty good.

Now we’re going to continue on until we run out of hair. Alright, so I think we got everything looking pretty good. So now let’s go through and blow it dry. I’m going to blow dry as straight and as smooth as I can so that we can reveal the cut line as cleanly as we can reveal it.

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Blow Drying & Styling the Short Blunt Cut Bob Hairstyle

So we’ve gone through and blown everything dry. Got everything nice and smooth. Now I’m just going to go through and comb everything down and its natural fall and especially over the ears here to see if my little ear push compensated enough or it was too much.

So we’re going to comb everything down and I’m going to look and it looks like I’ve got a little bit right through there so I’m just going to go through and just freehand and take anything off right through there that I feel like doesn’t really fit.

Get that out of your face. There you go. You look like a million dollars.

Thanks for watching. Please check out the Jatai Academy. There’s all kinds of great information on there that’ll make you better hairstylist and barber. Also let us know what you’d like to see in the future and until next time thank you for watching.

Final Blunt Short Hair Bob Look

Here is the final look of the mid length blunt bob.

When you look at pictures of blunt haircuts, you might see a blunt bob with fringe, a blunt bob with side part, chin bob hairstyles or short angled bob haircuts. Blunt haircuts have many looks. Creating that perfectly straight line can be a defining feature of the look you’re trying to create so it’s best to know proper technique so you too can have the perfect blunt line.

When it comes to hairstyles, doing a blunt cut bob for fine hair is pretty much the same as cutting a mid length bob for thick hair. The difference is that with fine hair you have to be more careful as you will see any flaws in your technique. Master this technique and you can do a blunt line on any type of hair with ease.