A nice haircut or neat hairstyle doesn’t happen from the moment you start snipping. To a beginner hairdresser, sectioning at first seems like something very straightforward, but it’s also where you can most easily get out of control. Hair keeps escaping you, lines slip, clips can take in too much or too little and all of a sudden the look you are trying to create seems very hard to make. But sectioning isn’t just a pretty exercise: it’s actually an essential skill that you must master if you want to cut the hair you’re trying to cut, dry a good blowdry, and style without a total hair mishap. And yes, improving your sectioning skills is a great way to improve the quality of your haircuts and blowouts and your styling in general.
First, work on reducing the amount of hair you try to control at once, because this will help. Then use your tail comb to create a center parting going from your forehead all the way down to the back of your head. Do the same from ear to ear across the crown of the head. You’re now creating four basic sections and also getting familiar with the way a head is divided. Then work on sectioning this on dry hair, because a straight parting on wet hair is an illusion. Stand in front of your partings (not to the side) and make your sections a bit shorter by combing them down in a couple of movements rather than making one long motion. Then stop and check them in the mirror from different angles. This practice of checking helps build your own corrective action. It’s always better to take a few seconds to check than to try to finish your sections as quickly as possible.
One common mistake that beginners make is that they think they can separate a large amount of hair very quickly. But it rarely works out like that. Trying to cut out thick, uneven pieces is an invitation for unevenness and tension, which will make it impossible to make clean sectioning. If your clips keep popping or strands keep slipping through, try reducing your section to something smaller and smaller and then go over your hair with your comb one more time from root to tip before you clip it. Another mistake to avoid is to press down your comb tail too hard into your scalp, which makes an uneven look and can be uncomfortable for you. It’s always better to go a bit gentler to have more control. Your tail comb is a tool used to draw, not scratch. Don’t keep on working if your sectioning looks rough. Try to redo it as soon as you realize your hair isn’t in order. This small skill is actually the biggest time-saving trick that you will learn in hairdressing.
Even with only a fifteen minute slot for hairdressing, you can make sectioning the very first part of your practice, as opposed to including cutting and styling at the same time. The first three minutes can be used to detangle very thoroughly, as well as getting your hair clips, comb and mirror all ready to use. The following six minutes can be used to section your hair using the four zone technique three consecutive times, removing and replacing your sections each time you do it. Then in the next four minutes you can try to make smaller subdivisions in one of the four zones and make sure you maintain even sectioning. The last two minutes can be dedicated to looking at the sections you’ve made, finding your best one, identifying the one that looks worse, and noting what you think is different about the two attempts. For example, was it a better stance? Did you go slower or faster? Did you place your clips too close to your line and then disturbed it while cutting? These are small things that you can look for during practice, and they are the things that really help to turn mere repetition into actual improvement.
And if it starts feeling like you’re just failing and getting annoyed at your practice, stop and redefine your practice objective. Don’t just keep thinking “I’m bad at sectioning.” Ask a tighter question, something like: Am I getting straight line? Am I getting nice tension? Am I placing my clips right? Am I keeping my two zones even? And just work on one or two of those things at a time. You can also put light marks on a practice head to help you see if your lines are even or use points on a live person like the highest point of a brow bone, the top of ear, and see if your line is matching. Your hairdressing will definitely start to get better when your hands learn how to stop guessing. Sectioning is one of the earliest techniques where getting precision right actually starts to become second nature. Once that happens, you will have an easier time to learn any hairdressing technique from here.