In this video you will learn how to thin hair with thinning shears using different techniques. Using hairdresser thinning scissors is an important tool for hair professionals to master as they are very useful for creating specific effects. This is not a haircut tutorial but rather education how to remove bulk, thin thick hair and create texture. Russell Mayes, Director of Content for JATAI, goes through each step of the techniques used. If you want to know how to use texturizing shears watch this tutorial and follow along with the transcript.

How to Thin Hair with Thinning Shears:

Welcome back to the Jatai Academy! Another technical deep dive today where we’re going to focus on the thinning or the texturizing scissor. We want to focus on how to properly use it and all the creative ways that you can use it to get different types of results. So let’s get started.

Now we’re going to start with our Tokyo Thinning Scissor and you’ll notice it has two tangs. That way I can have the cutting blade on the top or I can turn it over and have the cutting blade on the bottom underneath.

If I have the cutting blade underneath, I can take more cuts and it won’t force the hair into the teeth of the blending shears so I can thin it more repetitively without always having to remove the blade and go back in for a fresh cut. I can hit the same area at one time without the hair clogging up the blade.

Creating a Blunt Line with Thinning Scissors

So say for instance that I want to go through and cut a more bluntish line. We’ve done a technical deep dive where we’ve done point cutting versus straight cutting. And the point cut, while it’s not that much different, it gives it a softer line so it moves more.

So I can do a similar effect with my thinning scissor if I just put the straight blade underneath, comb down and now the teeth has come out and it has not clogged up the teeth of my thinning scissor.

So I can go through multiple cuts as I’m going across and cut that fairly blunt. Now it’s going to be a softer almost blurry type of line versus if I was to go through and point cut it or cut it straight across with a straight scissor.

So I get kind of a defocused line, but I still end up with a blunt line. So let’s go through and do that here to create our shape on the bottom. There’s my guide. It’s very easy. I put the cutting blade underneath and just go straight across. And I’ll move the scissor inward as I’m going through and cutting across.

Now you’ll say, oh my gosh, this is going to wear my thumb out. Well you do have to have a little bit of scissor dexterity but you pick that up pretty quick and I can go through and make a nice diffused soft line.

I can hear you saying now ‘Well when would I want to use this?’ Well there’s going to be instances where say that they have really really thick coarse straight hair whereas if I was to just go through and cut this completely blunt with a straight scissor I’m going to have a broom-like effect. It’s going to stack that line. It’s not going to have any movement. It’s going to be very very stiff.

Whereas if I go through and cut it with this thinning scissor, texturizing scissor like this, I can get a blunt-ish line but it’s defocused. So it has a little bit more movement. It has a little bit more softness to it and even though the hair is very very thick it won’t stack out like a broom. It’ll give it a little bit of bevel.

Whereas if I were to point cut it, it would bevel it a lot more so there’s a balancing act that goes on between it. Now another thing that I can do when I’m going to go through and texturize and thin hair because not always am I going to thin.

Texturizing Hair for Movement with Thinning Scissors

Sometimes I just want to texturize the hair to create movement. I don’t necessarily want to go through and just shred it all out and thin it. Sometimes I want to thin it. So how do you thin hair with thinning shears? And how does hair thinning work?

So say for instance I want to texturize this and thin this out so it’s not quite so blunt. So I’ll put the teeth underneath and just go through horizontally eight or ten cuts down. Now that goes through thins that section out and makes it much softer.

As long as you have a nice seamless thinning scissor like the Tokyo Texturizers here, you won’t see any kind of cut lines that go through here. It will just go through and thin it out.

So I’ll start a little thicker and then I’ll go down to where I get it as light as I want and have as much movement and as thin as I want.

Now you’ll say ‘Well how deep shall I go?’

I don’t like to go… now right here you start to see that getting a little thinner? So I will focus my texturizing on the right side of the section not on the left side of the section so I don’t thin this into oblivion.

So back to the other question is ‘how deep will you go?’ So if I have a section that’s this deep, I can push the hair and see where it starts to arc and then and I won’t go deeper than about halfway of that curve because if I go deeper than halfway of that first initial curve, that’s where the hair starts to get alfalfa and stick up.

Now here I’m going to move on to my next section and I’m going to incorporate a different type of texturizing. I’ll put my cutting blade underneath with the tooth blade on top, find my guide is about right here. So now when I go to thin I will go back and forth an area of about an inch. I’m not cutting everything blunt like I was underneath. I’m just going through and varying the depth across that whole section.

So now I’ve gone through and cut my section and you’ll see it’s much more wispy and more razor-like on the ends and that gives me a really nice seamless kind of blend without any kind of thickness and that’s just by varying my cut up and down about an inch.

So there’s my length I want to go. I’ll go down a little bit, up a little bit, up and down, up and down until I get it about the length that I want. If there’s any long pieces that hang over we’ll just go through and take those off as well. Now I’ve got a really really soft line without any kind of bluntness to it just by varying the interior cut.

Internal Texturizing with Hairdressing Thinning Scissors

So now say that I want some internal texturizing. There’s a couple of ways I can do this. I’ll pull out a vertical section. I’ll see where it’s thicker, where it’s thinner, where it’s thicker and thinner, and I’ll go through at an angle in about halfway.

Just go through and take some hair out. Where it’s thicker I may hit it a couple of times and this will go through and remove some weight and make that much more movable and pliable and livable so it won’t have that stiffness to it that these mannequin heads can get a lot of times.

And this will go through and evenly thin it because I’m taking a vertical section. I’m not going left or right. Everything is being held straight out. Before when I was cutting everything horizontally I was creating no movement left or right.

This, I’m not creating movement either. If anything, I’m creating an undercut with this because of the angle that the scissor is going into the hair.

You’ll also notice that as I hit it with a scissor, I don’t want to keep fitting the same hair so I’ll pull that out of the way so I don’t end up haphazardly thinning it more times than I want.

If the hair is really thick, I’ll open the scissor, leave the hair in my hand and then thin it again. But I want to be very very mindful about how I’m applying my thinning to each section of the hair.

So say this is thick, I’ll open it and then hit it again. Open it. Hit it again. Open it. Hit it again. Then pull it out here. I’ll just pull out, just pull out that way I start to thin the hair.

I give it a little bit more of an undercut a little bit more of a bevel because of where I’m thinning it from. So that’s another technique that we can use.

Side Swept Bangs

Now I want to go through and take some length off and build my shape around the face and then put some internal texture to create movement to where it flows back out of the face.

So we’re going to start in the middle. I’ll find something around our nose. I will go through and texturize the ends to where I start to remove some length but by going up and down with my thinning, I’m going to create all kinds of softness right here at my guide length by moving in and out.

I’ll pull everything forward, angle that down. There’s my guide length. I want to make sure I’m getting longer towards the edges but I still want this a little you know a little heavy. That’s why I’m holding it down.

If I wanted it lighter I could hold it up but I want this a little heavy and solid so we’re holding it down. You got that. Now we’ll pull this forward. There’s my length. Start diffusing the cut line from where I want my line to start building and then diffuse that down.

We’ve got a good little basic shape. It’s still too solid and heavy but that’s a good basic shape. Same thing on the other side.

Now let’s go through and put some internal movement with the hair thin scissors. So let’s start here in the center. That’s going to create some movement internally going away.

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Now when I brush that I start to create that movement where it’s moving back out of the face and you can certainly start to see how that’s rolling. If I have something here that’s just hanging a little bit too much, let’s go through and take that a little bit.

We’re going to take a little more out of here, just rolling my fingers out of the way. Creating that softness and movement going back and then the same thing on the other side.

Now the good thing about the Jatai Tokyo Thinning Scissor is it is only removing maybe 15 to 20 percent of the hair each time that I hit it. So I’m not going to go through and completely disappear the hair from one shot of the thinning scissors.

So that gives me a lot more versatility and I can go through and soften this line slowly and incrementally until I get it to the texture that I want.

If I use a thinning scissor that has too many teeth or the teeth are too fat then I can go through and really just shred the hair and completely remove all the weight and all the length in just a few shots.

So learn with your thinning scissor how much you can take, and then use that to your advantage. I like the overall shape and everything that I’ve got going on.

Cutting the Bangs

I just think her bangs are just too long so I’m going to go through and cut this a lot shorter and I want it to look like she’s cut it herself, like it was a mistake.

So I’m gonna go through and not try to make this real perfect. I’m going to have some of it a little longer, some a little shorter. and I’m going to be really really haphazard about this which is something from beauty school that we’re trained ‘oh don’t cut the bangs too short.’

So now we’re going to try to break out of that mold of cutting the bangs too short and just see what we can create that’s a little bit more haphazard, a little more choppy and a little less perfect.

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And there we’re beginning to get something a little more cute, a little more Japanese. So now we’ll go through, slide cut through to create an even amount of weight around the front.

Using thinning shears this way will force some separation because if I just texturize it, it tends to diffuse everything so by going through and slide cutting, point cutting like this, I’ll create a little bit more separation because of the way it’s being cut now. It’s not going to be a real strong separation like if I was using a straight scissor, but it gets the same sort of effect.

Recap on How to Thin Hair with Thinning Shears

I think that covers a lot of the bases on how to cut hair with a thinning scissor or texturizing scissor like the Tokyo Scissor from Jatai but it also gives us a lot of room for creativity and a lot of different ideas.

• We can see how to create a blurry diffused blunt line. We can also go through and create a line that has a lot more texture to it and a lot more bevel.
• We see how to put internal texturizing to where it doesn’t create any movement.
• We see how to put internal texturizing to where it does create movement, gets this hair kind of flowing back out of the face.
• We also see how we can go through and diffuse a blunt line that’s been put in that we don’t necessarily want that blunt.
• And we can also see how to go through and create separation by almost slide cutting but you have to go through and use your scissor action to get that scissor to go through.

I hope this has helped. I hope it’s a broadened your horizon on how to use hair thinning shears and if you have any questions or comments please leave it below and check out the Jatai Academy.

There’s all kinds of great information on there to make you a better hair stylist and barber. So we’ll see you next time and thank you so much for watching!

If you want to buy thinning scissors check out the JATAI Tokyo Thinning Scissors by BMAC.