How to Give Yourself a Buzz Cut 

It's more complicated than going crazy with some clippers—but not much. 
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Of all the ways you could cut your own hair, the easiest for us to endorse is the DIY buzz cut. As long as you aren’t getting fancy with fading or trying to etch cat scratches above your ears, then giving yourself a buzz is simple. That’s why it’s the military's go-to style, after all: the uniformity of it all. That's not to say you'll look like Private Pyle—a buzz cut can look damn good!

But there's a reason you've only resorted to cutting your own hair in a pandemic. There are also plenty of ways things can go awry, and you might end up with an uneven trim, the wrong length, or just find the entire process much more tedious than necessary. So, here are all the ways to do it right the first time, with tips from barber Rob McMillen, owner and lead barber at Mildred New York.

1.Get good hair clippers

A beard trimmer will almost never be powerful enough. Instead, you should get a hair clipper set that can easily mow your dome in one steady swoop, as opposed to starting and stopping and clogging over and over. Here are two of our favorites.

The best pro-grade clipper

Andis "Master Cordless" hair clipper


The clipper that will fit nicely in your medicine cabinet

Wahl "Peanut" hair clipper


Another thing you’ll need, if you don't already have one, is a handheld mirror, to tackle the sides and back. Like highway driving, blind spots are dangerous!

A simple handheld mirror

Omiro Hand Mirror


2. Wash your hair and study your scalp

You get better results with fresh, clean hair. This ensures your hair is resting in its natural state—not the direction you styled it or slept on it. So, give it all a shampoo and condition. Then, McMillen suggests taking a careful audit of your scalp. That is, looking for moles, skin tags, scars, and the like. “You may not want to buzz super close to these—consider relaxing the guard a setting or two,” he says. Best to avoid any DIY Sweeney Todd situations here.

Another thing to consider is your hair thickness and texture. Or rather, just keep in mind that every guy has different texture, density, recession, thinning, strand thickness, and so forth. So just because your buddy clipped himself on the same settings doesn’t guarantee that you’ll have the same result. But either way, the only way to know how you’ll look is to try it. So....

3. First timers: Buzz slightly longer than you think you want

If this is your first rodeo, play it safe: You can always trim more, but you can’t add anything back. So if you think you want a quarter-inch buzz, a #3 guard, then start with a half-inch #5 and see how it looks. Then, work your way down if you still want it shorter. Slow and steady on that first time out the gate.

4. Go against the grain on the sides

McMillen advises that you buzz against the grain of the hair growth, so that you're pushing the hair upward as you cut it. Buzzing with the grain might allow some of the longer hairs to lie down and avoid being cut altogether. It’s easiest to start at the sideburns and buzz upwards, keeping against the grain. “Once you get to the back of the head, then work your way up through the crown,” McMillen says. “This is a good time to stop and clean out your clipper, to make sure it keeps cutting smoothly.”

5 Then tackle the top

After the sides, then buzz into the top of the head. The grain of your hair gets more complicated up here, so you can have a little fun with things, running the clipper back and forth, then back and forth again, after that initial pass. Then do it side to side, too. This prevents you from missing any patches—repeat as needed.

6. Spot check or repeat everything on a shorter setting

If you want it shorter, then start with a smaller guard and do it all again. You’ll need to do a good dozen passes or so around the dome to make sure you don’t miss any spots.

If you’re content with the length, just do a careful spot-check around the whole cranium, looking for any sneaky hairs that stand out. Buzz or snip them with a pair of scissors as needed.

7. Fade the ends...if you dare

We’re gonna level with you: We really don’t advise trying to get a full beautiful fade around your entire dome. Barbers go to school to learn how to do this—you’re just a guy with a major blind spot in the back of your head. But if you're determined and willing to deal with the probable fix (an even shorter buzz)—or if you have a sure-handed roommate/partner who can handle the neckline in back—then here's how you'd tackle a fade.

McMillen advises sizing down one guard. You can buzz the sideburn and around the ear on this length, says McMillen—and have someone else do the neckline. If you want to take it a step further, you could even go down one more guard size and snip ever so slightly into that line, to fade things even more closely into the perimeter. If you go too high up on your neck, you'll immediately have an unsightly shelf of hair built up—the only real option is to make that your new base buzz. On the plus side, it'll probably grow out in a week or two, and it's not like you're going anywhere, so the risk is also fairly low.

8. Clean the clippers, and yourself

Most clippers come with a tiny brush to sweep away any hair clippings (or use a spare toothbrush if yours didn't). They should have also come with some oil to keep the metal pieces gliding together happily. Soon as you're done buzzing, brush the blade off well and hit it with a little oil, as per the directions. Don't rinse the blade off under water—that's a solid way to watch your nice buzzers rust.

Then, hop in the shower to rinse everything away. After letting your new cut dry out (which happens delightfully fast), do another spot check and nip any last hairs that stand up and out. Congrats—you're the freshest guy on the Zoom.

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