 Hey guys, Brian here, coming at you today with a men's long haircut and color. I've got our model Steven here, as you can see, he's already got nice long hair. I just wanted to amp it up a lot and just help it look a little bit more polished. I wanted to prove that you could have long hair on a guy and have it still look nice and done and give a little bit of a polish to it. So we're going to go through how to do that today. We're going to start with the color because salon reality is just going to make more sense to do so. So as you can see, I'm sectioning him off here. My chosen method for coloring him is going to be the balayage technique, which is the hand painting. I wanted to do that because as you can see, Steven's kind of going, he's already got that kind of cool surfer laid back organic kind of feel to his look. So I just wanted to really compliment that as best I could. And I know that balayage is going to do that really well because it's going to have that also lived in sort of natural. Maybe he was just at the beach a whole lot kind of look. So for my back section, I sectioned it right where the round of his head starts to curve back down under. Because if you think about it, if he was out in the sun a whole lot, that's the hair that's going to get the lightest anyway. It's going to be the hair that's on top of that ridge. So we'll be doing the front two sections and then the top of the back two sections. The difference in doing a balayage on a male client and a female, for this particular client guest, I wasn't looking to turn him into a blonde. So rather than taking a lot of smaller sections, I took much, much larger sections than I do when I'm doing this on a woman. So as you see here, I've got that nice wide section. It's the whole front panel actually that I took. And I'm pinching my fingers together down at the end to sort of give it that forced perspective look. And I'm coming in with just a nice sweeping technique. There's a couple of things that are very important if you're going to do a balayage with a guest to just really get the best end result that you possibly can. As you can see, I'm taking a little bit thicker sections. You definitely want to keep them at least an inch in thickness because as you can see, I'm not putting anything in between here. And I want to make sure that it's not going to bleed through. The first key thing about making sure that your balayage is not going to bleed onto another section is finding a lightener that's not going to swell. The one I'm using here is Paul Mitchell Synchro Lift and a 20 volume developer. The reason that I went with that is because I know that the Synchro Lift has a good lifting power so I can get it as blonde as I want it, but it's not going to swell as it's sitting there in the open air, which is absolutely vital to making sure that only the hair I want to be lightened is going to be lightened. Also, you'll notice how I am elevating those sections as I apply. Elevating it is going to make it so that when I do set that section down, it's going to almost make the hair buckle a little bit so that it's not pressing against the hair underneath, which is also going to help prevent bleed marks. Alright, as we're coming around the face here, I'm making sure that my hand-painted highlights come as close to the scalp as I can get them because in any natural lightened effect, the hair around the face is what's going to be the lightest. So I'm still taking those nice V shapes and just painting along the outside of the section, but the stuff right around the face, I'm trying to get as close to the scalp as possible. I'm not worried about taking it quite as close with the other lines that are not right up around the face because again, those are going to look a little bit. I want this to look a little grown out. I want it to have a little bit more of that organic feel to it. So again, just giving it a nice elevation. Starting about mid-shaft and then working my, as I brush down towards the ends, I'm working my way up towards the scalp. What that's going to do is it's going to thin out my line so that the highlight gets a little bit finer as it goes up towards the scalp, which is going to keep it from having too much of a fat, stripey, chunky effect. You know, a lot of people, you know, they get worried when they see this because they think, oh wow, that's a big stripe. It's going to obviously be a big stripe of blonde when you're done, but surprisingly enough, it's not because we're not doing foil work. So this hair is really just going to lighten up a general area of hair. It's not going to lighten a specific spot, which is cool. It's going to give it, like I said, a very organic feel. As I get up to the part, I'm going to make sure that the V shape that I'm creating with the lightener is mirrored on either side of the part because that's what's going to keep it looking just natural, natural and real. So again, these sections bring it up close to the actual scalp mark, but really it's the piece along the face that I want to get really just right in there as close as you can. You come around to the back of the head. Since this is the back of the head, naturally you're supposed to be a little bit darker, so I make sure that my sections are even a little wider here because at the base of the top of the V where it's open, the farther apart those lines are, the less blonding you're doing. So in here, I didn't even want to put a V. I just had this little random piece of hair that I didn't want to leave out, so I just hand-painted one highlight right in there. You can totally do that as well because, inevitably, you're always going to come across a section that doesn't necessarily fall into it's not going to be large enough to paint a whole another V. So here you see I left out a section as well because I want to break it up. Like I said, I'm not trying to completely turn him into a whole new color. I just want to accent the color he's got, so leaving a little bit in between is just going to make sure that I've still got his natural coming through. It's still present. His base color will still be easy to see. Again, the reason I went with 20 volume is because I wanted the control so that I knew I'm not going to put this on his head and then say, okay, in X amount of minutes, you're going to wash it out because you're going to want with every person a different level of lift. You're going to want different effects on everybody. With him, I wanted it to be light enough to be noticeable, but not necessarily super-duper light. So I painted this on and then I just watched it. I kept an eye on it and when it looked like it had gotten to the point where I wanted it to be, we washed it out. I think maybe he might have processed for 15 minutes tops and he just kind of chills like that. Give him a nice little accent. So let's move into the cut. When cutting men's hair that you're trying to leave a longer look to it, you really want to make sure that you're not doing the same type of haircut that you're going to do on a woman. So what I was just showing with the comb right there is how I'm going to create a little bit of a squared shape around his head. Everything on top is going to come straight up. Everything on the sides is going to come straight out and everything in the back is going to go straight back. And the reason I'm going to want to do that is because that's going to create a much stronger shape. I'll get into that a little bit more in a second. This first section I took right down the middle, center of the head, mohawk section. I'm just bringing that straight up and then just cutting straight across. This is going to give a nice, I want to layer his hair, but I want to make sure that I don't do anything that's going to look too feminine. You don't want anything that's too soft. I know that's a word that we use a lot in hairdressing. You know, when we deal with our female clients, you talk about, you know, this is going to soften this look. I'm going to soften this line. But I can tell you as a guy, I don't ever want to be referred to in any way as soft. So we're not using that word when it comes to doing any of this service here. We actually want to create a stronger shape, which is why we're creating a little bit more of a squared off layer. We followed that section all the way to the back and then as you just saw right there, as the head starts to curve away, it basically stops giving me hair to cut. So that's how you know how far back to go. When you get to the back and you can no longer bring hair up to that section, that's where you stop. And the same thing is going to go for the sides. I'm doing another section. I've got a traveling guide and I'm bringing the hair up. Check for the guide. Keep it nice and even. And then just continue to work back. It's going to be the same thing all the way through the top of the head. As I get towards the back, it's going to start giving me a little bit less hair. But you want to be consistent. Don't just assume that you've hit that point where you don't have anything else to cut. You really want to make sure that you've been as thorough as you can be and that there is nothing else. Now that we're at the side of the head, it's going to be the same thing as we do in the back. It's going to stop giving me hair. But I still want to go through, take my sections, nip off those one or two little hairs that it is giving me just to make sure that I'm thorough. We're moving around to the other side of the head now. This is funny. This is a little section where we're trying to figure out the best way to position it so that you can actually see what I'm doing. So coming up with it, I'm using my traveling guide off of that center parting that I started with. That way I know it's going to help me be nice and consistent all the way through. As we go back towards the back of the head, again, exact same thing. As the head starts to curve away, you just keep cutting straight across and then eventually I got nothing left to cut. All right, as we move into the side now, we're going to take a section. Your section is going to need to be, you have to make sure that you get the entire hairline in that first section. So it's going to vary on how wide it is based on how deep their hairline is or how far forward it comes. So that's going to change for everybody. And again, traveling guide straight out. Here, we're determining our length by that square shape that we created through the top is going to give you a little bit of a rounded edge as you pull that straight out to the side. If you missed it, you can rewind a little bit and see in that first section. It's got a little bit of that rounded shape. And then I decided where along that arch I wanted to cut based on how long I wanted these sides to be. If you want much longer sides, then you're going to hit it towards the end of that arch. If you need shorter sides for whatever reason, then you're going to want to hit it as soon as the hair starts to arch. And then cutting straight up and down. Nice vertical cut. I'm holding that hair straight out from the head and it's going to give me that nice boxed shape that's going to keep it a nice strong foundational look. Anytime you're cutting men's hair, whether it's long or short, you're shooting for a nice square shape because that just visually comes off as a stronger look. I tend to not do much in the way of a squared shape when I'm doing women's hair a lot of the time because it can look very strong. I like to always make sure that that is what I do on men because it's going to have that stronger look and it's going to make it so that even though it is longer hair, it still has a nice foundation to it like a house. Alright, keep an eye out. I want to cut along the same part of the arch that I did on the other side. So if you start at the beginning of the arch, you want to start at the beginning of the arch on this side because that's how you're going to keep it nice and consistent. And then again, traveling guide, working back, bringing it straight out from the head. Check for your guide. That's how you stay nice and consistent on this one. And then just working straight down. As we work towards the back of the head, we're going to do the exact same thing that we've done on all the other parts of the head. As the head curves away from you, that's when it's going to stop giving you hair and that's when you're going to stop cutting. It's going to be different for every head shape and that's what's good. If you're doing this off of their head shape, then this guideline should work for any male client that you're trying to give a long haircut to. You can never go wrong when you're doing any haircut based off of a head shape because then you know it's going to be customized for them. So again, make sure you're nice and thorough. Come through. By the time you get around to the back of that head, it's really not given too much, but you still want to make sure that you get it all off. You can't have a strong foundational haircut if you don't have good strong lines in there. Back of the head, you guessed it. Same thing as the side. When you pull it straight out, you're going to have a little bit of that arch from the layering that you started with on top and you're going to decide where along that arch you want to cut. I tend to do the back a little bit more towards the beginning of that arch at the back a little bit shorter. It gets very drastic because obviously the hairline dips down much farther in the back than it does in the sides. So, the farther down that arch you start at the beginning, the longer you're going to leave it down by the time you reach that nape. So again, traveling guide working all the way through the sides to the point where the sides are no longer really giving me any more hair. Just a little bit to nip off at those ends. And that's what's going to create those nice strong weight lines in the corners which give it that boxed squared effect. It was funny as I was doing this haircut. It was interesting for Matt to watch because it's basically doing a haircut backwards because I started with the layering and now we're going to be finishing with the length. Because his layering is all done but now if you want to make the back a little bit shorter, you totally can. If you've just done this with layering it's going to have sort of an uneven longer back which some people may want. I particularly did not. So I took the length of the side and then just brought a line straight back and again a very foundational squared look. And then once I knew I had passed that weight line that I created with the layering I stepped into the back and then finished off the length. Zero elevation possible. And then I just did a nice point cutting because I didn't want it to be to again I really wanted to create a very organic free flowing feel for his hair. So point cutting that baseline just kept it real real cool like it just sort of grew into this from his long summers on the beach not getting his hair done and that's how it got nice and blonde and that's how it got cool and long. To style it very easy. You got to keep it easy because guys aren't going to want to do anything that's going to be too, too tricky when it comes to styling their hair. I knew he's not the kind of guy that's going to want to break out a round brush and get crazy with this. So he's a very, very light product that was going to give it just enough hold so that it would look good. I used for this one I did fast form to cream gel from Paul Mitchell very, very light doesn't even feel like there's anything in the hair. I ran it through while it was wet and now I'm just using a brush and I'm using again using his head shape to smooth out that hair because if I do anything too complicated then I can almost guarantee he's not going to do it at home. So I wanted to do something that was going to make his hair look really good but was also going to be easy enough for him to do when he gets home. So I told him I am blow drying this hair but really I'm just kind of wrapping it around your head allowing your head to smooth it out for me. What that's also going to do is it's also going to give it just a little bit of bend to it so it has just a very natural flow as he runs his hands through it or flips it from side to side whatever he does. So again, just wrapping the hair right around the head. It's going to give it a nice polish and a shine and it's going to be fantastically simple for him to do on his own. Alright, here's our finished look. Cool, flowy very big difference from the before. The before was just it was time to clean that up. There you go.