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Haircare Dirty Secrets #3 - Layering

May 15, 2020

Haircare Dirty Secrets #3 - Layering

Here we shine a light on some of the things the industry would rather you didn’t know. You’ll be better prepared for more conscious choices with a little knowledge.

Now I’m not speaking to our own salon clients here but the wider readership online. Do you remember stylists telling you why you couldn’t have x, y or z style and it not making any sense to you? The inspiring picture you brought in which the stylist dismissed for some reason? How your haircuts have been taking less and less time over the last few decades?- If you are old enough. Or the style that you both agreed to at the beginning wasn’t how it ended up? Or the style that looked passable when you left the salon was so difficult to manage once it was washed at home?

Well that’s because hairdressers stopped learning how to layer and shape hair properly 30 years ago. It’s why you see far fewer short hairstyles and it’s why nearly all mid to long hairstyles do not stray far from a one-length Bob. See Sara’s hair above and many of the other ‘In the Chair’ blogs like Mandy and Georgina.

The no-layers Bob is the first haircut the student learns at college and well, that’s pretty much it. Other than how to over-blowdry and use flat irons, the only other cutting that’s mastered is at the other extreme - clippers. So the choice for most people is either a fairly brutal number 1, 2, 3, or a one-length bob at various lengths.

Bobs can be classically beautiful, but plain one-length Bobs are frankly quite boring. They’re mostly used to save the hairdresser time, and they’ve become the bog standard go-to for the lazy hairstylist. Even if a Bob in essence, they’ll all be improved with a little shaping and layering. But that takes a lot more skill and time. At Michael Van Clarke we take an entirely different approach to sculpting shapes and layers with our precise signature method, The Diamond Dry Cut™. Read What’s The Diamond Dry Cut™ to understand why this is the premiere method for cutting hair.


 Michael Van Clarke



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