Dear Reader,
My name is Nikolai Generalov. I am the author of the manual “Fade calculator”. This manual is a handy tool which will help you to achieve more detailed and precise transitions in fade haircuts.
First, let me explain my understanding of the word “fade”. Smooth transitions in men’s haircuts have been around for quite a long time. Since hair clippers came about, hairdressers have been able to cut hair on the temples and the back of the head to the minimal length, thus giving a haircut a refined look. This exquisite feature of a haircut showed that its owner paid regular visits to the hairdresser and that, in its turn, was an infallible indicator of affluence and tidiness.
Back in the day, seamless, consistent transitions were a groundbreaking achievement in classical men’s haircut. This feature became an integral part of a military haircut and was specifically described in written regulations of armed forces in all developed countries.
In handbooks of the 20th century a seamless transition was understood as blending the baseline of a haircut to skin while the primary goal of the haircut was to conceal any irregularities of the skull structure. Some of the books briefly mentioned a “shadowy gradient” suggested to be done where possible.
Additionally, transitions had a standard layout: long to short, starting at the top of the head. This was due to the cutting technique: the blade slid through the hair in the direction opposite to hair growth. The result was neat and clean and it only took a few strokes with the shears to create a smooth, even transition between longer and shorter hair.
I am drawing your attention to the fact that all textbooks of the 20th century described fading techniques applicable to Caucasian hair exclusively, and did not address the specifics of working with other types of hair.
For instance, it is very hard to find any information on curly, short and dense Afro-textured hair. This hair type doesn’t require to balance irregularities of the skull by adjusting the shape of the haircut. Instead, we should aim to create a shadowy gradient that smoothly blends to the skin. This is what I refer to when I use the word “fade”. It is also done with clippers, but the slide-through move, which is used to create fade on Caucasian hair, will not help to achieve the desired effect on Afro-type hair.
Consequently, a different fading technique was created by ethnic barbers. The idea was to establish several fade lines and then cut hair using different guard sizes starting with a lower-numbered guard, so that the hair progressively got longer.
In the 90s this technique, resulting in even and smooth transitions, was rapidly developing and soon became popular with African-American actors, athletes and celebrities
In more recent times, this technique challenged the pre-existing concept of fading. It redefined the graphic layout of the haircut and made it possible to place fade lines anywhere and even fade in the reverse order, with shorter hair at the top of the head and longer at the bottom.
Today, thanks to professional photography and social networks, quality images and videos are accessible all across the world. Seeing other barbers’ work is a great source of motivation to experiment and mix techniques, which has led to visible progress in all aspects of fade haircuts, including smooth transitions.
I, personally, used the slide-through technique to make smooth transitions for many years. Occasionally, a client with short dense hair would stop by, or a mother would bring in a kid with thin, short, vellus-like hair. Fading in both cases was equally disconcerting.