Blog · the chair · 7 min

Four sentences, and you get it right.

Nearly every disappointing haircut is a description problem rather than a barbering one. Two men can use identical words and mean completely different lengths, and the barber has to guess which.

Heritage & Sons / Blog / How to ask for a cut

How short on the sides, and where it changes

Not a guard number. Say “short at the bottom, blending up to about an inch at the temple”, or point at where you want the change to start. A number describes a machine setting; it does not describe a haircut.

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Say it first

How much off the top

In inches, or by pinching your fingers, or by saying what you want to be able to do with it. “Enough that I can still push it back” is a better instruction than “an inch” and every barber would rather have it.

—

Show it

What you do with it in the morning

Thirty seconds and a towel, or ten minutes and a dryer. This changes the cut more than the length does, and almost nobody volunteers it.

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The big one

How long until you come back

Two weeks or six. A cut designed for six weeks looks slightly long on day one and correct on day thirty, and that is on purpose.

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Be honest

What not to say “Just a trim”
means nine
different things

“Number two
on the sides”
is a machine
not a cut

“Same as
last time”
only works
in the same
chair

Why “just a trim” fails

It is the most common instruction in every barber shop in the world and it carries almost no information. To one man it means half an inch. To another it means tidying the neckline and nothing else. A barber hearing it has to pick, and whichever he picks is wrong for roughly half the men who said it.

The fix is one extra sentence. “Just a trim, but I want to keep the length on top” is a complete instruction. So is “just a trim, mostly the neck and around the ears.”

Why guard numbers mislead

A number two is three-quarters of an inch on every clipper made. What it produces on your head depends on your hair density, your growth pattern, whether the barber works with or against the grain, and whether the lever is open or closed. Two men who both asked for a two walk out with visibly different haircuts.

The number is not useless: it is a fine starting point, and if you know that a two on the sides has worked for you for years then say it. But say it alongside a description rather than instead of one.

Bring a photograph

Bring one. Genuinely, bring one, and ignore anybody who tells you it is embarrassing. What a photograph does well is show shape: how high the fade sits, how much weight is left on top, whether the front is pushed back or forward.

What it cannot do is give you that man’s hair. If his is straight and thick and yours is fine and wavy, the same cut is a different haircut, and the useful thing your barber will do in the first thirty seconds is tell you which parts of that picture you can actually have.

The thirty seconds that matter most

Before anything is switched on, run your hand over your own head and say what you want while you are touching it. Point at the temple and say “change it about here.” Pinch the top and say “this much off.”

It feels slightly silly and it removes almost all of the ambiguity, because you and the barber are now both looking at the same physical place on your head rather than at two different mental images of the word “short.”

And stop him

If it is going somewhere you did not intend, say so at that moment. Not at the end, and definitely not three days later. Halfway through, hair can still go in almost any direction; at the end it can only go shorter.

No barber in this shop has ever minded being stopped. Every one of us has minded finding out afterwards.

Heritage & Sons Barber Company·Joe Vitale Jr.·Updated August 2026

Asked often.

How do I ask for a haircut I actually want?

Say four things: how short the sides and where the length changes, how much off the top, what you do with it in the morning, and how long until you come back. The third one changes the cut most and almost nobody mentions it.

Should I bring a photo to the barber?

Yes. A photograph shows shape better than any description. What it cannot do is give you that person’s hair type, and a good barber will tell you in thirty seconds which parts of it you can have.

What does a number two haircut mean?

Three-quarters of an inch off the clipper, which is a machine setting rather than a haircut. What it looks like depends on your density, your growth pattern and whether the barber works with or against the grain.

Can I stop my barber mid-haircut?

Yes, and you should. Halfway through, hair can still go in almost any direction. At the end it can only go shorter.

Say four things.

Sides, top, mornings, and how long until you come back. That is the whole method and it works in any chair anywhere.

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