How to Cut a Modern Low Taper & Style with Textured Volume (Step-by-Step)

I'm going to walk you through how I create a haircut like this. I'll show you all the concepts that I use, what I'm thinking, and I'm including lots of diagrams along the way to help you understand. Plus, there's a bonus must know style method. We're starting out right away just below this line with the clippers. So you're going to want to use a number two. I'm using my WesTech, which has an extended reach blade and I can extend the blade all the way to six millimeters. So that would be a number two. And this is the motion I want you to visualize. It's an arc motion. So when the points of the teeth go in right at the very base, I want you to arc the clipper out. So it's almost like a C motion. I've heard it described as a C motion before, but we don't want to go right up the head because I want to retain lots and lots of bulk around about the widest parts of the head. And I'll explain all that as we go, because it's really important we retain all that hair right now. So make sure that the teeth go in right at the base, very flat on the head and just curve the clipper out. But for now, let's stay right below this line. So this is much lower than I normally go in my tutorial videos. But this is a really popular style for teenagers right now. And if you're a learner, you might enjoy it because you don't have to go in too high with the clipper. You get to exit quite early. So no pressure on you, but just follow this curving motion. Just curve right out away. This area here on teenagers and kids is often an indent. So it's good to get their chin right down when you're cutting that area. Now, look at this hair over the ear. You see that hair hanging over the ear? I'm going to leave it there. OK, and that will become clear why later. Let's just curve out at the side here. I really want to scissor cut that hair over the ear. I'll show you how to do it. It's not something you need to be afraid of. It's it's it's not difficult to learn, but we're keeping that. That's important. OK. Same again at the other side. Now, not only is this tutorial packed with information, there's also a fun way that you can win one of these West Tech Clippers in this video. So I'll tell you more about that shortly. Now at the back, I've got my little trimmer and this is going to be as close as you can cut with a blade. This is right down to zero. So it's closer than the zero on the West Tech. It's very, very close, very accurate. And I'm just making a straight line right across the back and a straight line on the sides here. OK, so not too high with a straight line. Keep it nice and low at the back and nice and low on the sides. Looks like I'm butchering it right now, but there's method in the madness. What we're doing is we're just marking out where the taper is going to be. So with the West Tech, let's take it right back to the zero, zero millimeters. Now, I did say that the trimmer was shorter than the West Tech. So what we're doing here is we're just going for a slightly longer level of zero, OK, because the West Tech is not zero gapped. It doesn't. That's a barber term for a very close cut on a big clipper. So it's a slightly longer stubble. And this is getting us from nothing into something. So slightly longer. I'll clear away the debris so I can see what I'm doing. Now, let's move it to the point five position. If you have a normal clipper, that would be one point five. The one point five guard. And what we're going to do is just brush into that line. That's all. Just touch the line and just brush it. That's all because now it's like a more intricate work. To be honest, this is probably going to be the hardest bit of the whole thing is this little taper here. What you're going to do is go through a range of different lengths. So now let's just go in between the point five and the zero, which is point seven five mil. Now, don't get too confused. It's quite an analog way of cutting using a clipper like this. But I do like it because it means I don't have to go back and forwards to my station. I have the whole range of motion there. I'm just working into that indent with the corner in small areas. You don't need to use the whole blade. You can pick away at it. Number one is three millimeters. So there's the line I want to take out. And what I would say is don't look at the end of the teeth of a guard or if you have a West Tech, don't look at the end of the teeth. Have a look at where the blade is. It's the blade that does the cutting, not what's being picked up. Right there, there's the blade. OK, so that's what we're looking at, and that's what's brushing into the hair, not what's at the end of the guard. The blade is where the cutting happens. So when that brushes the line, just curve out at the sides. I'm going to make straight lines. So this is creating what you would call a frame. I'm framing up a taper. So we've done the big clipper work on the back. And what I want to do is just make straight lines to try and make that pop. Now, my wonderful model has quite fair hair, so it doesn't pop that much. The darker the hair, the more it's going to pop out. But it does look very clean. Now, you can go in with the zero with a big clipper if that's all you have. But if you have a trimmer as well, you're going to just get that little bit neater. You know, that's really going to help. I'd recommend get a trimmer if you don't have one. This one is from JRL, and I'll leave a link for that in the description of this video as well as the West Tech one as well, if you don't win one. So just clean all the debris away. And now we can tackle the sides. So I'm just going to go all the way back to a zero again. Remember, just make that stubble a little bit higher. So that zero slightly higher. And then we can start going through the motions. Now, it's much easier to really blend this bit in here. Doesn't take a lot of work. I'll go up to the 0.75. It's a little bit confusing because West Tech have put the clipper guard numbers on the side, but it's actually I'm giving you the millimeter readings. Three millimeters. Just just working my way up here, basically. And look at all that hair over the ear. I like that. OK, don't worry. We're keeping it. You need it for this type of cut because it's traditionally quite heavy on that arch just above the ear. All of that below the comb is cut and everything above it is not. While I show you the other side, let me tell you how you can win a West Tech clipper. So I'm going to leave a quiz in the description of this video and in pin it to the top comments. And if you fill in the five questions correctly, you will be entered into a draw to win a West Tech. And this will be fun because the five questions come from the state board barber exam. So they ain't easy, but you need to test yourself. So let's do it right. Water on the hair. Now, all this mass at the back, this is really important for the cutting because I'm not actually cutting the top on this haircut. I want to leave all that mass there. So what I want is I want to stack up. I want the hair higher up to be longer than the hair just around about where the clipper work was. So these are the lengths that I want. And you can see as they fall, they create a very tight layered finish. So here again, this is the way I'll do it, I'll cut it with the scissors, taking these sections, but I'm going to pull them out so they finish a way down around about there. So I need a lot of length to reach down to where I want all that weight to be. Each time that I slide the scissor in, I move the scissor down the head a little bit. OK, so the scissor goes in, pick up. And I can see some short hair from where I cut on my last section. And as I get down towards the bottom, there's almost nothing to come off. And that's what we're looking for. We want to get right down until there's nothing. And then I'm going to use an upwards scissor over comb to just take the very ends. And this is just to smooth over all that hair that we just cut. Let me step now to the right of that. We'll pick up quite low. There's the hair from the middle. So that gives me an idea of the length that I need to cut to. And again, just working my way down. I take sections lower and lower down, and then I'll just scissor over comb up into that long hair. This might seem odd that we're leaving so much weight at the back, but you'll see at the end, I've got a really cool styling technique for you, which I'll teach you and I'll talk to you about how it works. But for now, we just need to join really short hair into really long hair. And this is a layered finish, it's just what you would almost call a graduation, a graduated layer. That's like a technical term for it. The scissor I'm using here is a seven inch Japanese steel scissor. It's my own. It's the Bladeonia scissor. It's what I use all the time. I highly recommend this scissor if you're going to buy a scissor. I love it. And I'll leave a shopping link in the description of this video where you can find this exact scissor. You definitely need it in your life. So as we work our way towards the ear here, you can see it's very, very long. And what we want is we want hair that has a slight amount of flow around about the top of the ear. So I'm keeping my comb just on top of the ear to defend it from the blades. I say that all the time. If you've seen a few of my videos, keep that plastic in between the blades of the scissor and the ear. And you'll see it again as I work down here, right? So there's the short hair, my guide. I'm visualizing how much needs to come off. I want this to sit exactly on the hairline of the arch above the ear. OK, now I won't get quite there here while I'm doing this, because I'm going to go around with the little trimmer to make it really neat. But I'm keeping the plastic right on top of the ear as I work my way down. There, safety first. OK, so pull that hair towards the ear there and cut along the hairline, but not inside the hairline. That's making sure that there's nothing sticking out beyond the hairline that keeps it neat. We want all these lines to be really neat from the ear down towards the nape of the neck and up around the arch. Over on the other side, you might find it easier because you work from the front towards the back if you're right handed. So I'm just visualizing again how much needs to come off. This is actually quite unusual to be doing this. It's a modern style. A lot of young guys want their hair like this. They want the very low taper. It's worth learning how to do. Try and make these lines defined, clean around the temple. And I'll work down towards that arch of the ear where we want that to be quite defined as well. By the end of the cut, it is going to be quite defined. So I'll work my way down. As you get to the ear, keep that plastic on top of the ear. I get asked about where I get these combs a lot. I'll leave a link for that. It's Elevate Pro Combs. I just like them because they're colorful and in videos, they kind of like create a contrast between the hair and the comb. And it's easier for you to see at home. But it also has a hook on it, which I think if you're going to get a comb, get a comb with a hook, a good cutting comb. I did get some new combs from JRL as well. They sent me some combs and I'm going to get them in the video because they're colorful as well. So, I mean, I think that's the main criteria for me. Is it colorful? Just cut this away. I apologize for my hand getting right in the way there. But you see that hair there above the ear has a little bit of flow because we didn't cut it with the clipper and it's not that short. So not as short as what you see just on the sideburn area. So I'll work my way back. What I'm looking for is just to join in, join in the back and the sides and the front now. I've got a little bit of a heavy line here. I don't know if you can spot that. It's just around about the tent, like the parietal ridge area. That's that ridge that sticks out the most. Now, I do want weight, but just there, it's just a little bit too heavy. So what I'm going to do, I'll pick up a few vertical sections and I'm going to cut the very top part off. That's where the weight is. That's where that line is coming from. Just that little extra bit of weight there. Now, I know I did say that I want lots of weight, but not too much. Let's balance it up. OK, so if it's too heavy, you can just take that little corner off. That's why I call it the corner. Now here, what we want to do is tie the back of the head all the way down to the corner of the eye. OK, follow that line all the way to the corner of the eye. So if I pull this down here, I'll place my comb under it and I'll imitate that line and then just cut along. So that line follows all the way from the corner of the eye, all the way to the back of the head on that weight line that we made. Nicely balanced. I'm going to just chip into this, break it up a little bit. At the front, you need to be aware that we're going to add a lot of volume and lift to this. So this is going to spring up at the front and we don't want it to be too high. So I'm going to cut it right around about the middle of the eye. I'm using my comb, I'm just resting it there on the comb because it's nice and relaxed. I don't want to straighten it out and cut it because it might spring back a little bit. So again, get the whole fringe onto the comb. I'm going to pull it down and just cut across the front. I'm chipping in. I mean, it's going to add a small amount of texture. It's not too important that because I'm going to blow dry it with texture. I'm going to show you such a cool technique. So at the side here, again, remember that line all the way from the back of the head down to the corner of the eye, that curvature. Let's use the comb to make that line and just cut along the comb. Perfect. It's a good way to balance up the fringe. And what I'll do, I think I'm just going to pick this up and pull it forward a little bit just to check, see if there's any extra weight that needs to come off. Actually looks OK. And this is a highly technical skill, the ruffle. So I'm basically just ruffling it to see how it sits. I'm just checking. Do I need to do anything? And then we get to the fun part. So this is Wella Eye Me hair mousse, and this is going to give this so much lift. So I'm going to work that all through the hair. If you're not familiar with mousse and you don't use it, what it does is it uses like a polymer to lift the hair off the scalp. It's like a scaffold if you want. It gives it great lift. It creates friction and it creates gaps between the hair, so it pushes the hair away from itself. This is a really good product. Any kind of volumizing mousse when you're blow drying hair will give it a lot of lift. It's really good on thin hair if you're blow drying thin hair. So obviously I use it a lot because my hair is thin at the moment. Until my hair transplant grows in. I'll come back to you on that. So I've got my JRL Vortis. Shout out to JRL for sending that out to me. Really appreciate it. And what we're going to do is grab the hair in this vent brush. Now, the vent brush has holes in it, and that means that we can dry through the holes of the vent brush. So grab it, give it a little circle and just let that lift the hair up into the vent brush. It's lifting the root of the hair up. And I start drying with that hair lifted with that root lifted so I can work my way all the way around the head like that. Take a little while to do, but it's worth the effort. And you'll see because my wonderful model's hair is a little bit flat. This is getting a lot of lift into the hair before you use anything like sea salt spray or texturizing powder or anything like that. As you dry it, don't be afraid to hit the cold shot button when you're drying, because the little button that is cold will set the hair even more. So hot, hot hair will start to relax. But when you cool it down, you'll notice that it gets quite rigid and it holds much better. Of course, when moisture hits the hair, it's just going to go right back to square one again. So when he hits the showers or whatever, his hair will collapse again. That's normal. But this is just the styling method. It's just to get the hair to sit with a bit of volume. If you're enjoying this, by the way, you can join this channel as a member. I've got lots of master classes that you can join into. And also you get early access to videos if you're a member as well. There is a link in the description if you'd like to join and support the channel as a member. So this is me just trying to make these lines more defined now. OK, because I want the frame. Think about it like a frame. OK, this nice shaping. Now, I don't want to go inside the hairline. I want that really heavy line there going into like a disappearing line just at the edge of the sideburn. That's the effect that we're going for. So now if you don't, if you haven't cut hair like this, it's maybe you're just doing like a standard two back and sides. Fine. No problem. But push yourself, try to do these little tapers. These are the nice little touches that you can add where you create an effect on the hair rather than just sort of like a more uniform single number around the side of the head. And I have nothing wrong with that. I teach that a lot. But this is just to get a little bit more fun for you. Can you see that I'm not very well blended in there just on the on the sideburn? I'll make a little adjustment on that. But I'll just curve this out first. Take your time. You don't need to rush. This doesn't need to be a fast process. You can pick away at this for a while. There's fluff on the face on everybody. And if you clear that away, it does does just make it pop. Just address that little area that I hadn't blended in very well. And make the arch around the ear. You want to get all these areas as clean as you can so that you can get it like really just framed up. And the more effort you put into this, the better. I would say. So take your time. Just don't go inside the hairline. I keep saying that. Clean up everything and don't forget to subscribe. If you haven't subscribed, I'd really appreciate it. I'm just ruffling this up now with a bit of cold air. We've got the mousse in there and I want the texture. So let's just ruffle it with that cold air. And that's all the product I'm going to use in this. I'm not using any other product. So here's my final result. You'll have to tell me what you actually think of this final result. I'm quite happy with it. I feel like my model, who is also my son, Hugo. So shout out to Hugo and thanks for taking part. Here's what you had before. And let's take a look at how we've finished up. This is the taper with all the texture, the big hair on top. Remember, the top hasn't been cut. We've only done the sides, blended it in, used the IME, the Wella IME mousse and just blow dried it. Really simple. Not, you don't need every product under the sun. That's what we've got. I hope you've enjoyed the video. Catch you again in the next one.