 Hey guys, how are you? This is Matt Beck from FreeSalonEducation.com and Gratitude Salon Education. I'm really excited. Another Wednesday morning here with you guys. Just sharing a little bit of education with you. Today what we're going to focus on is how to cut a graduation. This is probably one of the most popular haircuts that hairdressers want to learn. And today I'm not really going to focus on teaching you a graduation haircut. What I want to focus on is really the fundamentals in cutting a graduation. So you get the result that you're looking for. There will be different videos that we always put out that have different graduated bob haircuts that, you know, those are actual haircuts you can take and use in the salon. Today I want to work on the fundamentals. So we're going to go through a few different exercises on how to kind of control that weight. You know, we started this series about five weeks ago. We've been meeting every Wednesday and going over different fundamentals of hair cutting. So it's kind of all built up to today and, you know, using everything that we've gone through. So if you haven't seen our other videos, make sure you check out. I set this up as a playlist for you guys so you can start the very beginning and work your way through each episode. And, you know, they're all about 15 minutes long. So it doesn't take a long time. You can just sit down and relax and watch those, uh, the different fundamentals of hair cutting, you know, from our point of view. Also, before we start, check out our website, FreeSalonEducation.com. We're constantly adding new, um, footage and new education to that website from business tips to these classes live to, um, different education videos we post every week. So make sure you check that out. Get on our email list. You can do that by hitting join when you go to the website and also make sure that you subscribe to us, um, and keep following us because we're going to be posting education nonstop, um, for a long time. So just for you guys. So, um, here we go. We're going to start off this, uh, graduated haircut. I want to keep everything very balanced in this. You know, we, you're going to base the parting, uh, based on your guest part, but, um, let's just say right now we're going to go with a pretty traditional side part. We're going to start on the left-hand side. So I'm going to comb her hair back. We adjust her head a little bit. We'll comb her hair back. Left-hand side parting. We'll comb it over again. This is going to be things that you've heard me say throughout this whole fundamental series, but just make sure everything is nice and clean and you're going to have a, the best end result, uh, within the haircut. So we got our side parting here. So hopefully you can see. There we go. Now what I want to do is I want to split the head in half and really I'm doing that mostly because I want to know where the front and back separate and I just don't want to be working with all the hair at once clipping it all away. So, you know, just again, kind of simplifying the haircut and simplifying the sectioning so that I don't have issues with keeping everything clean and organized. We'll comb that hair down. See that good. Twist this up. So I like to kind of twist that up into a nice little knot. What that does is really helps. Let's see if you can see that. It helps just keep it nice and tight. All these areas nice and tight out of the way of the rest of the haircut. Same thing on this side. Highpoint the head down to the ear. I'm really looking for that ridge on the head there. So we have the pridal ridge and then we have this ridge. It's kind of the separation between front and back. So I'm really looking for that bone structure right there and that's where I'm going to make my section. So, you know, this could vary based on what head shape you're working with, what the person's head shape is like. Again, twisting it up and out of the way. Putting our clip down in there. Now, I'm going to split the back directly down the center. Again, this is a fundamental graduation haircut. This is not, you know, anything extreme. There's no disconnection, no over direction or asymmetry at all to it. So we're just keeping everything very balanced straight down the back of the head. Now, again, working with bone structure. We have the occipital bone right here. The reason I work with the bones we've talked about before, but just to recap, the bone structure is going to influence the weight within the haircut. So if I am using the same angle, let's say 45 degrees, working down, as the head starts to move away from me, that 45 degree angle is changing. So I need to understand how the bone structure is working so that as I'm cutting the hair, the weight in the haircut doesn't get too heavy. So we'll make our section from the occipital bone over. And I'm just going to comb the rest of that over to the side. This part I'm not going to knot because I'm going to be using it pretty quick. So just clip it, clip right up into it. That'll hold it nice and steady there. You can see. Real simple. We're going to do the same thing on the opposite side. We'll comb the hair over. Make sure that parting is balanced as well. We'll take a little bit more there. And I'll comb it over and we'll comb it down. So pretty simple. Basic sectioning, nothing complicated. We'll see if I can actually get this camera down just a little bit more so you guys can see better. Get that out of the way. Okay. So now, raise her up. We're going to be working right in the nape area. That's how we're going to cut our guideline. So what I'm going to do is I'm not going to cut this in my fingers because I want a true zero degree. And if you notice the way that the head shape works, the head starts to move in at the nape of the neck and then out. So if I were to hold this in my fingers, I'm automatically elevating the hair. So I'm going to end up with that kind of fringier look at the bottom. It won't be a solid line. So I really want to get a true zero degree. So what I find with a mannequin, the easiest thing to do is hold it with your comb just like this. Sometimes it's easier with a guest to hold it with your fingers like this and work your way in. On a mannequin, it's definitely easier with the comb. So just using real loose tension. This is another key factor within hair cutting is make sure that the tool you're using, the comb that you're using, I wouldn't want to use the tight teeth of the comb because it's going to stretch the hair too much. And then when I go to cut it, it's going to spring back up. You got to really look at the hairline of the guest. Obviously this mannequin, most of the time it's very consistent in the back. But with a guest, they might have a calic on this side and not on that side. So you want to change your tension based on that. So let's say that she had a really strong calic back here. I'm actually going to use no tension whatsoever and let the hair just fall the way it's going to. And I'm going to cut across. If they don't have a calic, then I can control the hair a little bit more and hold it in my comb, keep it nice and steady. So you know, you want to base your technique on the guest's hair and that's going to give them the best result and easiest way to do their hair at home. So right now, we're going to come in here, use my comb, hold the hair down. And I'm just going to keep my eyes level with the graduation. We're going to come in here and just cut straight across and work that line in. Same thing here. I'm just going to hold the hair down and I'm going to use the tip of my scissor here because my personal preference. I like to push the weight the same direction no matter where I'm cutting. So I wouldn't want to cut this way here and then come back in and cut this way because I'd be pushing the weight all to the left side. If I come back in this way and I cut from center out and then I cut center out this way, then I'm going to have a more consistent weight line. That's just something that I like to do in there. So hold the hair down. I want to make sure that I'm still over directing the hair back. So what I'm going to do now is we'll shift over here. I'm going to slide my scissor underneath, lift the hair out, put it into my wide teeth of my comb and make sure that my over direction, which you guys can see, but I don't want to round this corner. So what I want to do is pull the comb back, straight line with the nape of the neck. So keep it nice and parallel to the line I was cutting. We're going to work that line across. What's going to happen there is it's going to push weight forward. You'll start to see that forward line drop in. We have elevated the hair a little bit, so I'm going to work just a little bit of the line into it, but following that same shape that we just created. So I might take out a little excess weight here, but we're still following that line. I want it to move a little bit forward into the weak area right behind the ear. So missed a little hair there. Come in here. Now we're going to do the same thing on the opposite side. Work that line with the tip real quick. We can cut more into that in a little bit. Now we're going to work our way on this side of the head here. Get a little bit closer for you. Hold it out with my scissor, over-direct it back into a straight line. I'm going to work the tip of my scissor across the hair. Cut that line in. Again, that'll push a little bit of weight forward. You'll see a little collapse in it because it's obviously elevated at that point because we're bringing it back. So I just want to remove from that weak area, but keep that line in there. Now I want to talk about something that's really important within cutting a graduation. Now you're controlling weight in two different ways. Some people like to cut vertical graduation. Some people like to cut horizontally. I like to cut both because there's certain times within a graduation that I like to cut horizontal because I control more of the line this way. Then there's sometimes I like to cut vertical because I can control more of how much weight I want to remove from the haircut. So if I look at here, hopefully I can give you guys a visual, but let's take a horizontal section out of the bottom. The other key thing when I'm cutting a graduation is if I cut this horizontally, it's a little bit more comfortable for me than trying to get my hand in here. I could cut it at a diagonal. That would definitely be a little bit more comfortable, but cutting it vertically is fine for me on one side and then the opposite side I have a little bit of trouble getting in there with the scissor. So horizontally it's easier, it's more comfortable. The second thing is if you look at what I'm holding in my hand, so if I take a little bit of my hair underneath for my guide, if you guys can see that, so I'm going to grab a little bit of that hair underneath for my guideline and I bring that back. I'm controlling all of this hair that is going to keep that line consistent horizontally there. So really the weight control in that part. Then if I were to hold the hair this way, now I'm really only controlling how much weight I want to remove or keep in the haircut. So my goal is to make sure right now that I'm building a really strong shape for the top to sit on. So I want to move in horizontally. Got to make sure you keep the consistency with your elevation here. See if this is in here if you guys see. There you go. So I want to make sure that I don't lower my hand too much. I want to keep a nice consistent angle in this haircut. And now as the head starts to move down, so is my hand. So I'm slightly dropping, still keeping a nice square back to the haircut, but dropping my elevation because the head shape is dropping and changing. So you're going to see how that line will lay nice and soft within the haircut there. We're going to keep continuing horizontally up until I get to the ridge right at the crown. So again, horizontal section just grabbing a little bit of that old hair as a guide. And then elevating my hand a little bit more because now the head is starting to move. So as that head starts to move, your elevation has to change to keep the weight distribution in the haircut consistent. There we go. Dropping just a little bit. I know it's kind of hard to see that. Let's see if I can grab another angle. And then you'll see how I drop my hand here, still keeping it at pretty much a 45 degree angle, but because I'm dropping it down, like so basically this is the way it would work. So this is 90 degrees. So I want to keep it right about here at 45 degrees. Here is 90 degrees. So I want to keep it here at 45. This is 90 degrees. So this is 45. So you really just want to see where the head shape is. So this is 90. So this is 45. So really just working your way through the haircut and understanding where the head's at so that you know what angle you're at so you don't keep too much weight. We'll go through, cut this whole thing at 45 degrees. So basically this part we're cutting at zero and then we have a really heavy top to the haircut that we have to go in and point cut at the end because we don't understand why, you know, we have that weight there. So definitely most important thing is just to understand the head shape. Flip it away. Alright so now we're going to change it up because now we're on top of the head so it's not as easy for me to come up here and try to pull this hair up. So what I want to do is now switch vertically. Vertically is going to help me stay consistent and work my way through. So vertically, I just want to make sure I take nice small sections here. So you can see that 45 degree angle building up there. What I want to do is just elevate slightly and then we're going to soften the round of the head here by following at 90 degrees and really removing that weight line from the graduation. So nice strong shape on the bottom and then that part's just going to lay nice and soft and round it, round it off there. We'll take another vertical section, work our way up, removing that weight line, cutting at 90. Everything is being over directed straight back so you definitely will not see me over directing straight to the center but I am over directing straight back into the head. Working those little hairs at the bottom, cutting straight up, nice little elevation, remove that weight line. Now you can see how that falls really nice, nice and consistent. You are getting a little bit of forward push with the weight here but that's great because it's pushing it right behind the ear and behind the ear is where you want that weight. So we can always go in and create a straight line based on that hair right there but it's going to leave it nice and heavy so because that's a weaker part of the haircut. So we can make that decision once we're done. Again let down the last little bit of that section. I'm going to lower her a little bit here. You don't see the back of your head very often and I just saw it. Nice. Alright so it's still working vertically here and working at 90 degrees so just softening the weight line within the haircut. Feel free, those of you guys that are watching right now because we're live, if you watch it later you can't ask questions, we can but leave a comment and it should pop up, I can see it if you have any questions. Later on if you're watching this on replay leave a comment. We like getting back to you guys and helping out in any way possible. So it's still straight up in the ear, over directing, straight up in the head. So keeping a nice square back to the haircut. I'll see if I can show you this but sometimes within a haircut you're going to see many different lines within it but sometimes like let's say that this piece of hair right here is a little shorter than this. That doesn't mean that I want to cut it there so you got to be careful what you're bringing into your hand. Like let's say I bring this in and I end up cutting that, thinking that's a guide then my whole entire haircut's ruined. So really what all I want to be bringing in is the part that you know I've been working with so just making sure and now you can see that's a nice kind of solid line in there. We got our weight sitting right in the corner so nice little angle to the haircut. Now we're going to do the same thing on the opposite side. I'll lift her up, you guys can see there. So again working horizontal. I clip up in there, keep the hair nice and organized. Even on this side I like to just take a little bit of the hair with me. We'll clip the rest away over there just so I'm only working with a tiny bit. I definitely want to be able to see on the other side make sure that my line is consistent. You want to find your guide in there. So grab a little bit of the old hair. There's my guide. There's nothing cooler to me than when you're cutting hair and you cut that line and you see it just fall nice and balanced in there and then you cross-track it and it looks great. It's just a really cool feeling it lets you know that you know you've practiced and you've worked your way through it and you've learned to stay consistent. You know it's just it's all about control and I know for me the last thing I'm usually a pretty impatient person but when I'm cutting hair it's very calming to me and it allows me to actually take my time and I just really love watching the shape kind of build in the haircut. Again head starting to move away a little bit there so my elevation will change slightly. I got my guideline. I'm going to work my way through and as the head starts to dip down, oh that's reality alright, as the head starts to dip down our elevation will slightly change just to make sure that the angle stays the same on the head shape. You can see starting to push the weight forward. Now we're on top of the head here I'm gonna let down the rest of this hair and we're gonna work. I'm gonna stay on the same side of the head that I was on before I just want to make sure now I'm pulling the hair towards myself so we'll comb the hair down. Again there's gonna be shorter hair I want to look at this angle so maybe you can see as I comb this hair up there's an angle there right there so I want to go to the tip of that angle to use it as my guide and we're working this at 90 degrees again straight off from the head here there's my guide it's really important that you stay consistent in this part because if you're not then you're gonna start pushing weight further or making one side heavier and longer than the other side so you really got to stay consistent with this part and you don't cut an accidental asymmetrical bob and you got to talk your way out of it in the salon. I'm putting on top of my finger a couple key things just make sure that one blade is the only blade moving I have a stationary blade that rides across my fingers and then I have a blade that comes through and I cut just with the tip of the scissor that gives me the straightest line I can get. A lot of people are using scissors that aren't super sharp too so if you try to come in here and take this whole entire section at once sometimes it doesn't cut you know a real straight line so I want to make sure as I work through that use just the tip and I cut little bits of hair at a time and it really creates a nice perfect straight line in there so this straight back elevation is is higher because we're now so keeping it at 90 degrees but we'll just point straight up pushing that weight right into the edge the corner right behind the ear. So now what I like to do now that we've pushed the weight into the corner if I was cutting this to have kind of like a forward feel to the haircut a little bit more length in the front then I would leave this and build it from there. If I'm trying to cut just a really nice graduated bob then I like to remove this line from being forward angle. I like that I made it like that because it pushed the extra weight there but now I can come in and just remove that little bit of extra weight. We'll do the same thing on the opposite side comb it down, the way across no tension to the hair just cutting straight across there. Still continuing horizontally I'm gonna clip this hair away keep it out of the guest's face so they're not sitting there with a blanket of hair the whole entire time and now I'm going to determine how I want this shape to really come out at the end so do I want it to to go across and then dip down a little bit do I want to be straight across where do I want it to hit on our cheekbone you know these are all questions that you definitely want to talk to your guest about and see what they're looking for. What I'm gonna do is just relieve a little bit of tension and on the hair kind of loosen it up a bit because the ear is gonna automatically want to push that hair out so definitely helps out and I'm gonna go through and I'm gonna cut straight across a guide. So again this is fundamental haircut so we're not trying to you know do anything too fancy just going through keeping very consistent and working that line in. Now depending on the density of your guest's hair this is a medium density on a mannequin so I'm not real worried about weight build up too much if they if they had a really high density of hair then I'd probably cut that guideline and then start to elevate it and bring it up just to remove you know a little bit of weight on there but for this mannequin we can just definitely come down cut it at a zero degree angle just work our way across just using that tip of the scissor as I work my way through cut a nice straight line we've got the mannequin section at a side parting so it should be right where she parts her hair so that's another reason why we can just go through here and cut our straight line in. I'm gonna comb that over top of the head work our way through finish out using the tip of the scissor to finish out the line comb in the hair I like to comb the hair over and over because that really ensures that the line looks nice and straight so there's that part real simple we're gonna do the same thing on the opposite side we can do this in less sections because it's our weaker side comb it down I'm gonna slightly tilt her head not too much see that so comb it down tap the ear relieve a little bit of tension there I can see my guide through there combing it down again patience is the key in this you don't need to go for hair that's not laying the way you need it to comb this back working just with the tip of that scissor through the shape so now we have our graduated Bob really simple I think the key things that we need to make sure we focus on in the slime when we're cutting a graduated Bob it's really just try working horizontally at the beginning work your way up through the haircut then when you get to the top ridge here just make sure that maybe switch vertical because you're gonna control the weight more the weight removal more and you know you'll get a really nice shape in the in the Bob haircut so you can see she looks really good it's a great haircut for curly hair straight hair you know just make your adjustments based on the density and you're gonna have more success in the salon just really I think with the fundamentals of haircutting what we've been going through the last five weeks is the key to it is understanding the head shape understanding the way the weight moves on the head shape and you know and then the haircuts come from there so you know watch our other haircuts on free salon education comm or on our YouTube channel which are on right now and you know check out the different fun creative cuts that we have on there there'll be more to come so just make sure that you subscribe make sure that you follow us we have a Twitter account at salon education we also have our website free salon education comm we're on Facebook at gratitude salon education and you know we're always trying to keep up to date and update you guys on the newest trends the things that are going on so many more videos to come thank you so much for watching and I also want to thank the people that make you know what we're doing possible right now freestyle systems check them out they're the hanging blow dryers they're great you can see them at freestyle systems comm and also Millennium Harm software can't think those guys enough they're really dedicated to the beauty industry and allowing us to give you guys free education straight from the salon so have a great day in the salon continue working please comment let us know what you think and we will see you guys soon thanks