A Cutting Guide for Curly and Textured Hair
Cutting curls well means understanding how they behave wet, dry, and everywhere in between.
Curly and textured hair needs to be assessed differently from straight hair — curl pattern, shrinkage and how the hair falls once dry all change where the cut should land. Briefing your stylist on how you usually wear it, and bringing reference photos of curls similar to yours, leads to a far more reliable result.
Why Curly Hair Can't Be Cut the Same Way as Straight Hair
Straight hair falls predictably, so a cut made wet tends to look much the same dry. Curly and textured hair shrinks and reshapes itself as it dries, sometimes significantly, which means a cut that looks right wet can look completely different once it's dry and styled.
What a Good Curly Cut Consultation Covers
This is where briefing matters more than usual. How you typically wear your hair, how much shrinkage your curl pattern has, and what's worked or not worked in past cuts are all genuinely useful information, not small talk.
Cutting Dry vs Cutting Wet
Many curly cuts benefit from at least some shaping done on dry, styled hair, precisely because that's the only way to see exactly how the curl pattern falls and where the shape actually needs adjusting.
Bringing the Right Reference Photos
A reference photo of straight hair tells your stylist very little about how to cut your curls. Look for photos of curl patterns similar to yours, ideally both wet and styled, so there's a clear shared picture of the result.
What 'Too Much Taken Off' Usually Means for Curls
Curly hair often looks shorter once it springs back into shape than it did while being cut, which is the single most common source of disappointment in a first curly cut. A stylist experienced with curls accounts for that shrinkage deliberately, rather than cutting to a length that only looks right while stretched out.