 Everything from here up is where I want to build up a lot of my length. Hi everybody, I'm Danielle Downs here representing Free Salon Education and today we are going to be doing the TWA cut or teeny-weeny Afro. But basically it's almost like a pixie cut, but you're just choosing your lengths both for your clients desired length as well as their curl pattern. So first we'll start off with our bigger Afro. So what I usually like to do is comb through the hair and then I like to blow dry a little bit just to stretch the hair out because as I mentioned in the description for this, this is going to be a dry aspect cutting glass. Also, I'm going to turn it down to just my lowest heat setting because I don't actually want to disturb the curl. I just want to stretch it. All right, so what I'm doing right now is I'm working from just about the parietal ridge and then I'm taking a diagonal back section. So it's following the rounds of the head because I actually want to make this into a point. So I wanted to just ride that little curve of the head because everything from here up is where I want to build up a lot of my length. And this section down here is where I'm pretty much going to be giving it just not a fade, but I guess you could say it's taper. So I'm pretty much taking just about the high point of the brow as my little inspiration point there. As Matt always says, you know, find the high point of the head by putting your comb up there, seeing where that falls. So now we can see that little curvature right here. We know this is the high point of the head. So what I'm doing with this section is that now it is going to be a nice triangle. This is our transition point that'll help blend our back section to the top section and start building up some of that weight. Now you can see our sections there. Now I actually want to keep a little bit of length so that much like my inspiration mannequin here, I can have a little bit more length so that I can play around with that later on. I don't want to go in for this one with a buzzer. You can do that and actually taper that up and then blend it into your length. If you want something that's a little bit tighter, like I said, for this one, I actually want to leave extra length so I can play around with that. Hey, now you also have to think about what kind of curl pattern you're dealing with. It's much like the mannequin that I have there. So instead of taking this as short as you see that mannequin, which is maybe about like, I would say, about an inch, inch and a half. We're going to take that about two inches because we know that the shrinkage is real with the curly hair. So I'm actually going to over direct that down, well straight down, almost like a zero elevation. And I'm just going to point cut. All right, so we are going to actually be following that around the curve of the head. So I'm using the wide tooth side of my comb here because even though I've stretched it out, it's just still a lot easier to get through doing it that way. Now, as we're working towards the back, you always want to keep your fingers tucked closer and follow the round of the head. Whereas if you're bringing everything straight out towards yourself and not following that curve, then you're creating more length. So now you can see this somewhat graduation that we have working here. And that's why I like to do this in a dry aspect. Now, right now, because I was following the round of the head and working from one side to the other with that condensed cutting. Now it comes to a point right back here. You can keep that point if you want, but just know that now you have this extra bit of hair. So for me, I don't really want that because it almost makes like like a Mohawk section in a way in the back. So what I'm going to do is just now take this horizontally, put that away. And now I'm just going to be cutting off that little point right in the center. So it's not always that this is going to be the prettiest section or anything like that when it comes to working with this. Because as you can see, I still have a little bit of wave to the hair. It's not like it's perfectly pinned straight. I didn't want to do that because I don't want to affect the curl pattern. And I also want to have that little bit of texture so that I remember this is going to spring back. And so now you can see where that is. I'm taking out that point so it doesn't have that extreme graduation. Now it has a little bit more of a rounding to it. So right now looks a little hard just because of the fact that we've got like these little wings coming out on the sides here. But as I said, the hair is going to spring back. So having that little visual knowing that, all right, I've got this perfect little graduation working here. I love that. Okay, so now you can see we've softened that side. So if you wanted to round that a little bit more, not have as much graduation because for this kind of graduation, you're going to have a way longer top and a lot more fluff, which is great for anybody that really wants to do those expanded kind of afros. So just your options. If you wanted to do a little bit more asymmetry, you would round out one side, leave the other a little bit more graduated pretty much with this little kind of shelf here for that platform of longer hair right in the side here. So now we're going to work with this little triangle here. Okay, so now I'm going in with a vertical section. So I actually split that right down the middle here. So now I'm taking a piece from underneath as my guide right here. Now I'm going to tilt my fingers towards myself. Good hairdresser. I am. And I'm actually going to take that slightly longer. So now we start to get this shape here that again, we're building up that graduation, but you can see this little hump right here. That's where I did take it a little longer. So that way, when this shrinks up, it's actually going to slightly hang a tiny bit longer, but still make for a nice smooth shape, as you can see right through here. And depending on just how thick this area was, you can do another subsection, but usually with curly hair, I do condense cutting. So they're larger sections that I'm bringing into the section that I previously cut or my guide. Okay, so now I'm going to switch and seeing as how I'm going a tiny bit higher each time that I go up, I'm still following the round of the head. So now I'm actually going to switch to cutting over my fingers, still point cutting. The only difference now is that I do want to start to build up that asymmetrical side. So I am going to start bringing this more to the center of the head rather than following and traveling my guide to make everything perfectly even. All right, so now you can see on our asymmetric side, we have this little bit of extra length right here. Now you can keep that if you wanted to have like a little bit of extra length and more asymmetry. I am just going to take that and take off this tiny little point because I don't want to have all that extra length. And now with this side, seeing as how this is our shorter side of our asymmetry, this I am going to bring straight out so that I can match that perfectly. Still following the rounds and making a rounder shape here. I am doing just a little bit more point cutting into the hair because I find that when you have that asymmetry in that shorter side, you do need to break up the bulk a little bit. So that way the longer side is going to collapse a little bit more because it has the weight of that longer hair. So if the short side doesn't have enough texture going through it, then it's just going to seem like a really big ball, if that makes sense. So on the side here where we have our shorter side, I am just taking a smaller section right from about the corner of the brow and up through the hair here. So just taking a little guide from underneath here and just continuing that same nice rounded shape. Now through the front, what I really like about doing it this way is that it instantly makes like a nice short to long kind of fringe going on in the front. Now this last section here, but now I'm actually shifting and instead of bringing everything way over because as you can see, there's not that much to cut but I would be leaving way too much length. This is our TWA cut all done now and so I would take them over do a really great conditioning treatment. That way I can reawaken the curls and start to style however I like, whether it is too strange with a comb or finger coils or just a washing go. So this is the finished product of the haircut.