Shannel Mariano

🚨 VISUAL LEARNERS 🚨
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CAN YOU RELATE?

✂️ Feeling anxious when cutting hair?

✂️ Worried about unfamiliar haircuts?

✂️ Tired of memorizing haircuts?

✂️ Relying on texturizing & “winging it”?

✂️ Want to design & create custom haircuts?
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❤️ If you nodded yes, you’re NOT alone!
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🙋‍♀️ I’VE BEEN THERE:

😓 I graduated not knowing how to cut hair.

😓 I memorized haircuts, angles, and catchy phrases (most weren’t even accurate)

💡 Everything changed when I finally understood the “why” behind haircutting.
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✨ WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

✂️ DESIGN ➝ Plan the perfect haircut based on face shape, head shape & lifestyle.

✂️ MECHANICS ➝ Learn different ways to execute your design with confidence.
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❤️ WHY JOIN:

✔ VISUAL LEARNING ➝ See theory come to life with ribbons, animations, photos & more.
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✔ HANDS-ON PRACTICE ➝ Hypothetical consultations, demos & guided mannequin cutting.
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🎯 SIGN UP TODAY!
Click on the link on my bio to sign up.

Let’s geek out on haircutting together! ❤️😊✂️

Here’s how I layered the front of last week’s post. It also shows how I gave it a bit of face-framing, a fringe, and also how I styled it. ❤️❤️❤️

I used to think that a haircut had to connect every where. That limited me when it came to finding solutions for my client’s hair concerns.

I really love that I get to use the understanding of theory + creativity to help make my client’s hair dreams come true.

Even if the outcome is the most basic or salon-friendly looking haircut, knowing that I had to achieve it with so much intentionality and creativity, just makes my hairstylist heart so happy. ❤️

Oh, tension… I get good tension when I hold the hair before my second knuckle, and less tension past it.

Because there’s less tension past my second knuckle, the hair held there tends to sag slightly. That can make it longer and less crisp than the hair cut with good tension.

So while the cutting line might look clean when I’m holding it in my fingers, once I let go, it can actually be crooked.

And because I have smaller hands and a weaker grip compared to other stylists, the hair can also get condensed and squished between my fingers with inconsistent tension. That along makes it harder for me to get a clean line if I try to cut everything in one shot.

These things used to leave bumps in my haircuts no matter how straight I cut the hair in my fingers. Back then, my solution was just to point cut to hide the bumps.

Now, I cut bit by bit, only up to my second knuckle where I have good tension. I consider anything past my second knuckle a temporary holding area for the hair I’ll cut next.

I’ve met many stylists who have had shoulder surgery, carpal tunnel surgery, who steroid shots in their back, have certain fingers go numb, who lay on bags of ice between clients… Doing hair could be really taxing on the body.

I used to memorize not only haircuts but also rules and catchy phrases about haircutting. Later on, I found out, some of them sounded smart but were actually harmful for me …and my 4’11 self.

We get one body. Listen to it. Take care of it. That way we could do what we love as long as our heart desires. 🥰

I used to think I had to force my body into uncomfortable positions to execute haircuts I had memorized.

The difficult position, combined with the hair bunching up because of it, made it hard for me to cut clean lines.

My uneven cutting lines created bumps in my haircuts. I relied on point cutting to hide them.

In this haircut, I already knew the two lengths I wanted to connect. Those were my constants.

What could change was where I positioned the hair while connecting them.

By moving the section to a place where the necessary finger angle was easier for me to create, I could cut a cleaner, more precise line without changing the lengths of my guides.

Understanding what needs to happen to the hair gives you options for how you can make it happen.

And sometimes the best cutting position is simply the one where your 4’11” body and T-rex arms can actually reach. ✂️🦖😂

When I was a newer stylist, I thought learning haircuts meant memorizing the steps:

⁃ sections
⁃ elevation
⁃ overdirection
⁃ finger angle
⁃ tension.

I’d hope that if I copied the exact steps that I learned from a video or class, I’d get the same result.

If it didn’t, I’d texturize until it looked close enough.

What I eventually realized was that I wasn’t asking the right question.

Instead of asking, “What are the steps?”

I should’ve been asking, “What result am I trying to create?”

For example:
⁃ “How short do I want the front to be?”
⁃ “How long do I want the back to be?”

Once those decisions are made, you don’t have to follow steps that might not even work for the situation you’re in.

Instead, you’ll be see for yourself and decide what steps you should make.

Having that experience is the reason why I don’t teach haircuts.

It’s the reason why it’s been so heavy on my heart to not only teach the “why” but also to teach it in a visual way. It’s important for me to have you see it for yourself and not just take my word for it. ❤️❤️❤️

I used to love haircuts that were shorter in the back and longer toward the front!

Part of it was because I thought they made my face look narrower.

For a long time, I saw haircutting as a way to hide the parts of myself I didn’t like.

Somewhere along the way, that changed. ❤️

I still love what a haircut can do. I love how changing shape can completely change the way hair moves and frames a face. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with this craft.

But I no longer believe that beauty is something a haircut gives us.

Now I see haircutting the way I see putting on a favorite outfit. It can be fun. It can express personality. But it doesn’t determine whether the person underneath is beautiful.

If you’ve ever looked in the mirror wishing you could change yourself before you could finally like yourself, I hope one day you experience the freedom of realizing those are two different things.

Hair cuts, hair color, make up, fashion etc can change. Your worth never depended on it. ❤️

Here’s how I did the back of my last post and also how I connected it to the front. ❤️❤️❤️

🚨 Are you a VISUAL LEARNER? 🚨
‌
CAN YOU RELATE?

✂️ Feeling anxious when cutting hair?

✂️ Worried about unfamiliar haircuts?

✂️ Tired of memorizing haircuts?

✂️ Relying on texturizing & “winging it”?

✂️ Want to design & create custom haircuts?
‌

❤️ If you nodded yes, you’re NOT alone!
‌

‌
🙋‍♀️ I’VE BEEN THERE:

😓 I graduated not knowing how to cut hair.

😓 I memorized haircuts, angles, and catchy phrases (most weren’t even accurate)

💡 Everything changed when I finally understood the “why” behind haircutting.
‌

‌
✨ WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

✂️ DESIGN ➝ Plan the perfect haircut based on face shape, head shape & lifestyle.

✂️ MECHANICS ➝ Learn different ways to execute your design with confidence.
‌
‌

❤️ WHY JOIN:

✔ VISUAL LEARNING ➝ See theory come to life with ribbons, animations, photos & more.
‌
✔ HANDS-ON PRACTICE ➝ Hypothetical consultations, demos & guided mannequin cutting.
‌
‌

🎯 SIGN UP TODAY!
Click on the link on my bio to sign up.

Let’s geek out on haircutting together! ❤️😊✂️