15 Men's Haircuts I Tried This Year
Fifteen cuts in twelve months, and the pattern was not what I expected. The ones I kept had nothing in common stylistically and everything in common in how long they took on a weekday morning.
In this article · 22
- What I Ended Up Measuring
- How to Choose Yours
- The 15 Cuts I Tried
- 1. The Skin Fade
- 2. The Low Taper
- 3. The Textured Crop
- 4. The Slick Back
- 5. The #2 Buzz
- 6. The Ivy League
- 7. The High Fade
- 8. The Mid Taper
- 9. The Grown-Out Middle Part
- 10. The Hard Part
- 11. Growing a Beard With Short Hair
- 12. Switching to Matte Product
- 13. Asking for a Blend Instead of a Disconnect
- 14. Air-Drying Instead of Blow-Drying
- 15. Photographing It at Week One
- Styling and Upkeep
- Mistakes to Avoid
- FAQ
- Final Thoughts
I changed something about my haircut every appointment for a year, mostly to find out whether the advice I kept reading actually held up.
The pattern was not stylistic. The cuts I kept had almost nothing in common in how they looked, which surprised me more than anything else on the list.
They had everything in common in styling time. Anything that needed more than about two minutes on a Tuesday morning was gone within a month, regardless of how much I liked it.
What I Ended Up Measuring
Weekday styling time. The only number that predicted whether a cut survived.
Week three appearance. Every cut looks good on the day, which tells you nothing.
How it behaved after rain. A style that only works in still air is a photograph, not a haircut.
Whether I could describe it. If I could not name the four specifications, I could not get it again.
How to Choose Yours
Time yourself for a week first. The honest number is lower than the one you would guess.
Change one thing per appointment. Change three and you learn nothing about which mattered.
Start at the short end. Short mistakes cost weeks and long ones cost months.
Write down what you asked for every time. Otherwise you cannot repeat the good ones.
The 15 Cuts I Tried
1. The Skin Fade
Best-looking cut I had all year for about eight days. It blurred inside a fortnight, and once I stopped pretending I would go twice a month it stopped being an option at all. The regrowth against bare skin is what gives it away, and no product hides that.
2. The Low Taper
The same silhouette with a #1 left at the neckline instead of skin. It held three to four weeks, which turned out to be the entire difference between a cut I liked and a cut I could actually have.
3. The Textured Crop
Ninety seconds, one product, no decisions. It is the cut I came back to twice, and I suspect that is the real answer for most people who are not enjoying their mornings. Nothing about it needs recreating, because the shape is cut in rather than styled on.
4. The Slick Back
I have the density for the slick back and not the patience. It needed the roots directed while damp and cooled in place, and any wind at all undid the whole thing. Once a set direction is broken, only re-wetting brings it back.
5. The #2 Buzz
Two weeks of relief and then two months of waiting. Worth doing once, because it resets everything and tells you exactly what your head shape is actually doing. At 6mm there is no length anywhere for a growth pattern to hide behind.
6. The Ivy League
The cut I would pick if I had to look presentable with no notice, and the tapered ivy league is the version I kept asking for. It has enough length at the front to comb and enough shape to survive being ignored, and the scissor sides mean there is no clipper line to grow out of place.
7. The High Fade
I have a long face and this made it longer. Cutting into the parietal ridge narrows the head, which is exactly what a long face does not need, and it took me a month of growing out to undo a fifteen-minute decision.
8. The Mid Taper
Where I ended up on the sides. Enough contrast to look cut, enough length at the bottom to last a month, and no line to grow out of place.
9. The Grown-Out Middle Part
Four months of waiting for two weeks of liking the middle part. The awkward stage is real and it is longer than anyone tells you when you start, because the hair loses its cut shape months before it gains enough weight to hang.
10. The Hard Part
Sharp for about six days, then stubble in the line. Shaved detail is a fortnightly commitment whatever else you do with the cut.
11. Growing a Beard With Short Hair
Changed the proportions more than any haircut did. Weight at the jaw makes a short top read smaller, which I only understood once I saw it, and the fix was length on top rather than anything done to the beard.
12. Switching to Matte Product
The cheapest improvement of the year, and it was not a haircut at all. The same cut finished matte instead of glossy looked like a different decade, because shine clumps the strands together and matte leaves them separated.
13. Asking for a Blend Instead of a Disconnect
One word at the consultation. It removed the hard step at the sides that had been dating every cut I had for years, and it cost nothing except saying the word before the clippers started.
14. Air-Drying Instead of Blow-Drying
Saved four minutes and looked better. Air-drying leaves the root direction irregular, which is exactly what a dryer flattens out. The catch is timing: product has to go in while it is still visibly wet, and twenty minutes later the direction is already fixed.
15. Photographing It at Week One
Not a haircut, and the most useful thing on the list. A side profile at week one is the only brief that reliably survives a change of barber.
Styling and Upkeep
Time yourself honestly for a week. It reframes every decision that follows.
Own two products, not six. One that lifts and one that drops covers everything.
Book the interval you will keep. Booking fortnightly and going monthly is the same as booking monthly badly.
Photograph the side, not the front. The front view hides the whole shape.
Change one variable at a time. It is the only way to learn anything from an experiment like this.
Mistakes to Avoid
Buying a cut you cannot maintain. A skin fade on a monthly schedule is blurred most of the time.
Judging it on the day. Week three is the honest test for every cut here.
Changing several things at once. You end up with an opinion and no information.
Growing it out without a plan. Months three to six are where most attempts stop.
Ignoring your face shape for a trend. The high fade taught me that one the expensive way.
FAQ
How many can you try in a year? Twelve to fifteen, if the grow-out does not eat the year.
What predicted whether one lasted? Weekday styling time, and nothing else.
Worth trying one you doubt? Yes, once, at the short end where mistakes are cheap.
Final Thoughts
If you only take one thing from a year of this, make it the stopwatch. Knowing that I would give my hair ninety seconds on a weekday morning eliminated about eleven of these cuts before they were ever worth trying.
For the assessment I should have done first see haircut ideas and styles for men, and for the cut I kept coming back to see the textured crop haircut. More in Men's Haircuts.
