Often my clients who care about each millimeter of hair length tells that it seems to be longer than before haircut. How is it possible? Let me explain. Usually I show it as a magic trick - that I present before haircut - I promise that hair will look longer after cutting down even 2 inches. But there is no magic in reality - the laws of aesthetic and composition work and create optical illusions.

1. Damaged hair and split ends. These two antiheroes play leading role. It looks like your hair is covered by garbage or dirt - his is exactly what damaged and split hair are. And this garbage covers the length and healthy hair - it becomes invisible. Sometimes on layered hair we can see almost 10 inches of damaged substance on the bottom of hair shape - that means that you can’t see10 inches of length. To open it we just need to remove garbage and place it to a right place - to a bin. After that you can see the hair again .

2. Density. When people grow hair they often think about the length only and forget about the density that plays main role in shape of the hair. If hair is thin at the ends - it doesn’t look long - it looks empty. Emptiness is airy substance that strives upward. If you don’t turn it into the density it would grow to a higher level. And we are spectaculars of the paradoxical situation - obviously hair grows and becomes longer but visually it grows shorter. Density in opposite creates weight - and weight tends to go down under the force of gravity. It is illusion but in our eyes and mind dense hair looks longer than thin even if actually it is shorter.

3. Geometry. Natural hair growth has shorter hair at the front and longer at the back. But we can see ourselves only from the front side - that means that if we cut A LOT at the back we wouldn’t see it. Strategy here - is to over direct front hair to the back to save the length there and cut more on the rear part. In this case we don’t loose visible length near the face and add density at the shoulder blades. Also when rear hair falls to the chest it makes the VV patterning at the front - the two arrows pointing down that overdirects the eye down and hair looks longer. Layers also matter. We can do any amount of layers that doesn’t affect the length. So first - we cut the solid line to make it look heavy and then add layers to give hair volume and natural movement using progressive proportion - for example 1:3 - cutting 1 inch in the line and 3 inches in layers creates the same effect as just cutting 1 inch in line, but we remove all damages. And all proportions in a haircut should be balanced - we use Golden Ratio as a standard when cutting long hair.

So finally I want to tell that cutting in a right way is the best way to grow hair. But you should get your hair done by the same hairdresser - because he knows the geometry of previous cut and would not change the shape. But new hairstylist may have own new opinion and change the proportions cutting off extra hair.