How to Trim Natural Hair at Home Like a Professional Stylist

Separate Your Face-Framers

First things first, split your hair in half on each side of your center part. Once your hair is parted into sections, you can clip the back section away. At the very front of your head, pull a small piece from each side of your center part forward. These will be your face-framers.

Lightly Trim Your Reference Pieces

Holding your face-framers together with your index and middle fingers, use your shears to lightly trim about a 1/4 inch from the ends. This will be the reference piece— or guide—for the rest of your bangs.

Clip Your Full Length Away From Your Bangs

Using your comb, make a part to establish where your bangs end and your full-length cut begins. Then clip away whatever goes past that point.

Lightly Buzz Your Face-Framers

With your pre-cut guide section as a reference, lightly trim the remaining section of your bangs. Nigella suggests gently tapping your face with the clippers for a more precise cut.

Clean Up Your Cut With Shears

Use your scissors to clean up any tiny pieces that the clippers may have missed.

Create Another Guide For the Rest of Your Hair

Release the clips at the back of your hair and divide it again into two more sections. Next, you'll be repeating the first two steps by creating a reference piece, or guide, for the full-length section of your hair. Comb this section forward, or away from its natural falling position. Nigella says that this method, called over-directing, ensures that "it doesn't feel like you're cutting more than you're actually cutting."

At this point, the key to finding your guide is determining where your cut gets longer and heavier from your bangs. Once you find that point, trim through as desired with your clippers.

Remove the Clips and Even-Out the Back Section

After releasing the clip at back of your hair, use your clippers to connect the front and back full-length sections by trimming them to match your guide piece.

Use Clippers and a Comb to Trim the Back

To get a precise trim at the back, over-direct that section and then push it forward with your comb. Stop the comb at the section that needs to be trimmed and clip whatever is hanging out. To even it once the comb is out, face the clipper backward toward this section, and slowly trim.

Repeat on the Opposite Side

You did it! Now all that's left to do is repeat it on the opposite side. If you'd like to give your trim some shape, take pieces and over direct them to the front of your head. Then examine your ends for outliers and snip at an angle using shears.

Once the trim is all done, Nigella recommends smoothing out flyaways with Eden Bodyworks' Papaya Castor Conditioning Hairdress. And voilà! You've mastered a DIY trim on natural hair.