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Take it from me and every other girl who was ever unceremoniously dumped in college: be careful about cutting bangs, especially if you’re feeling lonely, sad or stressed. A bold change in your look after weeks of wearing sweatpants might feel like the change you need right now, but bangs are notoriously tricky to get right if you don’t have professional styling experience.
“It definitely can get dicey,” said Aaron Curtis, master stylist and owner at The Noble Root Salon in Bangor.
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Still, Curtis said that among the clients have reached out to him and his partner, James Riherd, for haircut tips in quarantine, many of them have asked for help cutting their bangs to keep them out of their eyes.
“Mostly right now [the focus] seems to be the bangs area: ‘My hair is falling in face and driving me crazy, what can I do?’”
So, let’s start with the obvious: if you don’t already have bangs, you probably shouldn’t try to cut fresh ones in quarantine. If you already have bangs, consider growing them out. This period of social distancing, self-isolation and self-quarantine may be the best time to get through the awkward in-between stage in the process of growing out bangs without having to display them in public, after all.
If you are dead-set on keeping your bangs, though, there are a few steps you can take to make sure your fringe doesn’t get out of control.
First, gather your materials: a comb and some hair cutting shears. If you do not have them, order them for curbside pick-up from your local pharmacy or a big box store like Target or Walmart.
Then, go to an area with good lighting and a mirror — most bathrooms will work, but if your lighting is dark, try setting up a mirror near a window for natural light.
Prep your hair. Wash out any product from your bangs. Curtis recommended drying your bangs thoroughly before cutting them.
“Bangs tend to shrink up,” he explained. “Dry hair doesn’t tell lies. Wet hair does.”
Comb the bangs where you want them to end — but do not pull them too taut.
“You don’t want to pull down on them and create tension and then cut them because they’re going to bounce up and be very short,” Curtis said. “The more you can just hold them in the teeth of the comb or just leave them at their natural tension the better off you are.”
Then, trim straight across your forehead, directly below the comb, starting in the middle so you have more control over how the bangs end up. Work your way toward one side, following the curve of your forehead.
“Make sure that you are generally chipping away at them little by little, and check the length,” Curtis said. “If you need to take more, go back in and take a little more. Little by little is the best method.”
If you make a mistake, Curtis said not to panic: there are styling experts, like those at The Noble Root, who are willing and able to help you, albeit from a safe social distance.
“Call the salon,” Curtis said. “We’re available. We pick up the phone. We can facetime, we can skype, we can do whatever we need to do to get through [this] until we’re on the other side.”
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