My DIY Pixie Cut For My Teenaged Daughter With Thick Hair

I know, I know. I just posted last month about giving my daughter a butterfly cut, which came out beautiful. I did mention in the post that it was longer than what I might have otherwise cut since it was my first time using that technique, and we might cut it shorter after... and while chopping off all those split ends and a good bunch of inches made it more beautiful and healthy looking, my daughter was still complaining about her hair and said that she really wanted a pixie haircut. 

Anneleise felt that she was hiding her face behind her hair, and she wanted to stop that, and embrace her face as it was.

My daughter's hair is thick and she has a lot of it, quite unlike my thin hair that I always want to look fuller. On top of that, she has psoriasis and a sensitive scalp, so brushing is painful for her, and the longer her hair the more time it takes to brush it. Treatment for psoriasis tangles her hair as does scratching her head, which makes the brushing even worse. 

I never realized how much brushing hurt her or how difficult she found her hair. I always wanted hair like hers and have no personal experience with thick hair, let alone while dealing with a scalp condition.

Like when she wanted a pixie cut as a little kid, and when she wanted bangs a few years ago, I first waited more than a week before she initially asked for the haircut before taking the plunge, because if it's an impulsive decision you can't simply undo it if you change your mind.

But then we did it. She trusted me to cut her hair. I was scared, because she'd not a 3.5 year old anymore, like when I last gave her a pixie cut, and if I messed it up there wasn't an easy fix. We looked at lots of pictures and discussed length of each section and how she wanted to have her hair, then watched a few videos on how to give pixie cuts, but in the end I mostly used the same method as I did for her original pixie cut 9 years ago, just with a few more pony tails at the top, since she has a lot more hair. 

I first braided her hair and then cut the whole braid off. Then with the top of her hair gathered up I then layered each side but very short. Then I cut the top so that it lay where she wanted it to lay when parted. Once that was done I evened it out, made sure nothing was sticking out weirdly and voila.

Mostly finished.

It looked really cute, but you could tell how thick her hair was still, and it stuck out a lot in the back and on the sides. When it was wet you couldn't see the poofiness...

But when dried it was a little "fluffy".

I got her some hair styling cream to make her hair have more of a wet look, hoping it wouldn't look as puffy, but it didn't do the job. We used some hair stuff to bring out her waves, and that also looked adorable. But still, it was big. She said she saw the hair go out at the sides and felt it "made her face look like an almond" and thought cutting it shorter at the sides might fix that. However, I didn't think that was the solution.

She had her hair like that for a few days and got compliments on it but still wanted me to try thinning it out. I knew that for that you wanted thinning shears, but the two beauty supply stores I went to didn't have them; I was told only stores for professional hairdressers would have them. Fortunately, a neighbor had a pair I could borrow, and after my daughter came back from a beach vacation with her dad, I tackled her hair, and oh my gosh.

What a difference!

I watched videos on how to use the thinning shears, but I ended up using them much more heavily than they showed in the videos, just because of how thick her hair is.

I felt so guilty cutting off so much hair; I have such little hair that removing that much felt almost like sacrilege. Seeing that much hair on the floor, after it was already short was shocking; you would never have been able to tell by the amount of hair on the floor how much she still had on her head. 

To thin it, I picked up the very top layer of her hair so that would all be the same length, but layer by layer underneath I used the thinning shears, over and over again, until her hair was much flatter and didn't stick out as much.

Seeing how absolutely thrilled she was after this haircut, I knew it was the right decision. It suits her so well, and she said that taking care of it was so much easier than it ever had been.

I'm so glad my daughter figured out what worked for her hair and that I was able to give that to her without costing me what it would have cost at a salon.

What type of haircut do you prefer for yourself? If you have kids, what types of haircuts do they have, and do you give them or do you get them done professionally? Would you know how to give special haircuts for thick hair? Do you have thin hair or thick hair?