 Hey guys, I'm Josh DeMarco. I'm a hair stylist and educator, and today I'm up at Free Salon Education with Mizutani Scissors. We're gonna film a really classic graduated bob and show you guys some tips and tricks on how to sharpen up your lines and make sure your graduation is very balanced and perfect. So I started the haircut with using my comb on the jawline, and a great tip is that if you put the comb on the jaw and wrap it around, you'll find the occipital bone. And what's important is you can find the angle at which to put your graduation. So today I did triangular graduation. If the graduation doesn't sit in the right spot, it can really throw off your head shape. So a great tip is to use your comb to get your first angled line. Also, I started the center back. Now a lot of times when you graduate a haircut, you kind of go from your new section to your guide. But what happens is, unless you're really really trained, you're always going to over direct the new section into the section you're about to cut, which after multiple sections, there's too much over direction, making your shape sit. It goes from really tight to really long, too fast. So what I do is I'm going through the haircut and I'm taking my guide into section. That way I'm always cutting the hair directly out from the head, which will make sure that I'm very balanced and I do not over direct. After taking my vertical section on graduation, you'll notice when I get to the mastoid, which is this part of the head that I drop my elevation. That is not an over direction. That is just dropping the elevation. So I'm not cutting the hair up where it doesn't grow. I'm cutting the hair where it hangs naturally. So by dropping that elevation, I preserve this part of the haircut, which is a very common area where stylists will cut too short. Then in refinement, the only way to fix it is to keep shortening the haircut to compensate for the hole you gave. So a huge tip is make sure you drop your elevation in the mastoid, this part of the head, and that's going to preserve that length because that length is what's going to connect to the side of your bow. After I set the graduation in from vertical, vertical slims the shape. So after slimming the shape and getting above the acceptor bone, I start to take horizontal sections. I'm taking horizontal sections because I want to build weight. If you want to graduate hair and you want a really nice, heavy shape, you want to set the weight horizontal. Think about a shirt, right? Vertical, slims, horizontal widens. So I wanted to really be able to see my graduation right at the acceptor bone. So I start to take parallel, diagonal forward sections, working up to right above the ear. Once I get above the ear, instead of finishing the back and connecting the side, I'm going to keep my shape triangular the whole entire time. So my sections go from back to front in one continual section. Now, after I set in my sections, I'm going to sharpen my line. Here's the key and this is an amazing tip. If you make your section a certain angle, make sure you cut the hair at that exact angle. What does that mean? If I'm doing a square shape, I don't want to cut like this. I want to cut like this. So you'll notice I do a triangular shape. So I'm cutting triangular. My comb or my fingers is going to mimic my section. That'll make sure that you stay balanced through your haircut and that you always keep your shape the same. Afterwards, I work through the whole entire head doing horizontal sections until I come up to the parting. Another tip, it's important to know the difference between a parting and a section. Parting is where you wear your hair. A section is what you're cutting. So after I set my basic shape, you'll notice on my graduation that the nape looks kind of dirty and not refined. This is because we're going to do refinement when the hair is dry. So a really good tip is knowing that your final shape and the precision part of the haircut is going to come after you blow dry the hair. So don't worry, don't get stressed out about making the most straight line of your life while the hair is wet because when it's dry, you can really, really, really refine that. I chose to flat wrap the hair because I did not want any elevation. So I go around and I teach haircuts a lot and the one thing I notice is hairdressers that are learning this will cut a really beautiful shape and then they'll get a round brush and they'll elevate the hair. The second you elevate the hair on a haircut like this, you are distorting the shape. So you want to make sure that you wrap the brush, whether it's a paddle brush, a denman brush, or a vest brush, you want to wrap the hair around the head. The haircut is going to build itself guys, you have to remember graduation builds weight. So I don't need a round brush to make that shape. I can flat wrap the head and the head along with the haircut is going to give me the perfect shape that I want. When I go through the haircut after I blow dry, I chose to do a quick flat iron pass just to smooth the hair. Then you'll notice in the back of the haircut that it gets really heavy, right? We like I said earlier, we built a horizontal shape. A great tip to soften the shape is go through section by section on dry hair. Hold the hair tight in your fingers. Make sure your fingers do not overlap. This will cause either layering. If your pointer finger goes over your middle finger, it'll layer the hair. And if it goes under, it'll make the top too long for the hair. So what you really want to do is grab an even section. Elevation softens your finish. Remember that. So why do we elevate hair? Think about layers. Everybody wants volume. They think layers, but layers does not give you volume. The round brush that you put in the hair gives you volume. So I can take that and soften it just by elevating. When I do this, you notice that I'm cutting parallel to my fingers and I'm just almost making sawdust, right? Nothing major. My haircut is in shape. I'm really just trying to soften my line by squeezing tension on the dry hair and elevating while I cut. The finger and blade parallel to each other. That'll soften the back of the haircut. I then take an oval shape around the crown of the head and I'll cut that at the angle that the hair is pulled vertically. So when the hair is down and lifts up, I don't want to layer this haircut, but I want to be able to band out the hair and soften the bevel of my line. So by following my fingers and my scissors, I elevate with the hair. I get to crisping up my line and I soften my finish. The problem is when you graduate hair and you don't go in and refine it and soften it, it tends to look really heavy. Also maybe wedge. Like a wedge. That is not what I want to do here. After going through the haircut, I go section by section on the side of the head. Here's a big tip for the side of the head. Don't ever let your client have their head down when you're cutting the line because when their hair comes up, you'll blow out the front of the head. So the head should either be straight or tilted. That's really just a great way to make sure that you don't lose the front of the haircut. If you're doing a triangular shape, a triangular bob, and that piece isn't longer in the front, you've ruined the haircut. So it's a great way to make sure that you stay safe and that you don't cut the front too short. After refining my line, here's a great tip. It doesn't matter how sharp your scissors are, try point cutting. Scissors push hair if you go parallel with them. So if you really want to refine a little bit of a line, just chipping it with the point of the scissor that are really sharp in your line. When point cutting hair, you want to make sure that you hold even tension when you pull the hair out. Notice that I'm going parallel into the way the hair grows. If I angle my scissor, I'm going to take too much hair out and destroy my line. So I just want to soften my line. You don't always need a point cut, but when you do, that's a great way to do it. So even tension, even elevation, and make your scissor go parallel into the hair. If you angle your scissor, which may be desired, you're just going to cut more hair out and distort your line. The greatest tips when you cut this haircut is knowing that elevation controls your finish. No elevation, blunt line. Higher elevation, either graduation or layering. So elevation controls your finish. Tension is also really important because too much tension can make the hair jump. When you want to set out to make a line, minimum tension is your best friend. So don't get in the habit of pulling the hair on the side of the head. It'll be too much tension and your line will jump. You'll notice in the back that I chose to do some slide cutting. The reason I chose slide cutting is because I wanted to soften the top of the hair just to have movement so it's not just such a solid shape. As beautiful it is to do these haircuts and then make them look perfect. People aren't going to wear their haircut that perfect. You want the hair to fall into place when it's done. And honestly the most important thing is we can make the hair look amazing but it's how they are going to make the hair look when they're wearing it. So if I slide cutting the hair it's going to add movement to the hair and it's going to soften a lot of the one length on top. Notice when I do my graduation I keep really blunt lines. My hand and my section are parallel to my cutting. The reason I do that is because I don't want to build this whole entire shape and go in and point cut it to death or cut at an angle because that's just going to collapse my shape. And you have to remember graduation builds weight. If I'm going to spend the time to graduate a hair to build the weight I don't want to spend a lot of time taking away all the weight that I've just built. So today I showed you guys how to use Mizutani scissors. You'll notice my hand position. It's really important right off the bat if you're whether you're new or whether you're a seasoned hairdresser thumb control is key. I want to control my scissors. I don't want to cookie monster when I cut. Just my thumb. Once you get your thumb technique down with simply controlling your thumb everything else will come secondary. You can take stress off the wrist by changing the shape of your scissor. No matter how you put your scissor you got to control your thumb. That'll really help you become a much better hair cutter because guys when we cut hair we want to control the hair. We don't want the hair to control us. I want to thank Mizutani scissors for making the best scissors in the world. These scissors have helped me be able to achieve the hair cuts that I want. And I want to thank Matt Beck and Free Ceylon Education for giving me the opportunity to make this awesome video. I hope you guys learned a lot. Listen guys there's one thing to remember. Education will always get you further and all the knowledge I have. I love to give you because I would like to pay it forward. We got to keep the industry strong give out the education. You can find me. My name is Joshua Marco once again. You can follow me on Instagram at HairDMarco. Hair D-E-M-A-R-C-O. Thanks guys.