What each clipper grade actually leaves on your head, which buzz cut lengths suit which hair, and what to ask for. From the barbers on Harrow Road.
6 min readGolden Scissors, Maida Vale, London
A buzz cut is one clipper guard run over the whole head, and the grade number tells you what it leaves behind. Buzz cut lengths work in eighths of an inch: a grade one leaves about 3mm, a two about 6mm, a three about 9mm, a four about 13mm. Below a one you are into stubble and scalp. Above a four it stops behaving like a buzz and starts wanting to be combed.
The grade is the easy part. Picking the right one for your head is the bit men get wrong, usually by going too short on the first go.
| Grade | Leaves roughly | What it actually reads as |
|---|---|---|
| No guard | under 1mm | Shadow. Scalp with a tint over it |
| 0.5 | 1.5mm | Three days of growth. Still mostly skin |
| 1 | 3mm | A week of growth. Colour without much texture |
| 2 | 6mm | The standard buzz. Velvet, holds its own colour |
| 3 | 9mm | You can feel it move under your palm |
| 4 | 13mm | Short but soft. The first grade with any weight |
| 5 | 16mm | Long enough to sit a parting into if pushed |
| 6 | 19mm | Not really a buzz any more |
Two things about that table. The millimetre figure is stamped on the guard itself, and different makes of clipper differ by half a millimetre or so, which sounds trivial until you are choosing between a one and a two. And the jump that matters most is not between the numbers at the top but the one between no guard and a grade one. That is the step where your hair stops being hair and becomes scalp colour.
If you want the whole head properly bare rather than short, that is a different service. A head shave with a straight razor and a hot towel is £18 and takes half an hour, and it gives you a finish clippers cannot.
Contrast between your hair and your skin. This decides more than anything else. Dark hair on pale skin at a grade one looks stark, almost drawn on. The same grade on light brown or grey hair barely registers. If your hair is dark and you want the buzz to look like a haircut rather than a shadow, start at a two.
Your head shape, which you have never seen. Nobody knows the back of their own head. Every man has an occipital bone, most have a flat spot or an old scar, and a one-guard buzz shows all of it because there is no length anywhere to soften a dip. This is the honest argument for a three over a one on a first attempt.
Thinning or a receding hairline. A buzz is often the right answer here rather than the last resort. Thin hair looks thin because of the contrast between where there is coverage and where there is not. Take everything to a 2 and that contrast mostly disappears, because at 6mm nothing is long enough to look sparse next to anything else.
Your beard. A buzz with a bare face can read as severe on a long, narrow head. A grade two on top with a trimmed beard puts weight back at the jaw and balances it. We would rather set the two lengths against each other at the start than have you shave the beard off a week later.
Being outside in August. A freshly buzzed scalp has never seen the sun, and a grade one is not shade. If your weekend is a walk along the canal at Little Venice or a day in the park rather than an afternoon indoors, put a hat or some sun cream on the crown for the first fortnight. Or take a three instead of a one and let the hair do it.
A true buzz is one guard everywhere, which is what our Crew Cut is: £10, 20 minutes, in and out, nothing to do at home. It is the cheapest cut on the menu and one of the harder ones to get right, because with no length to hide behind, the neckline and the ears are the entire haircut.
Most men who ask for a buzz actually want a small step in it:
Once the sides and top are different lengths you have crossed into fade territory, and the price and the time go with it: £17 and 40 minutes rather than £10 and 20.
Say the guard number, then the neckline, then whether the top is different. That is the whole instruction.
"A two all over, square the neckline off" is enough for any barber here to cut it correctly. Useful additions:
One thing worth taking from us: go a grade longer than the one you have in your head. You can take a three down to a two in ninety seconds without rebooking. Going the other way costs you a month. If you have never buzzed before, a three is the grade to start on.
Hair grows about a centimetre a month, so the shorter the grade the faster it stops looking like the cut you asked for. A grade one has doubled by week three. A four has gone up by a third and still looks intentional at five weeks. That, more than anything, is what you are choosing when you pick a number, and it is the same calculation behind how often to book a haircut at any length.
Growing a buzz out is the awkward part nobody warns you about. Weeks four to eight are the ones where it is too long to be a buzz and too short to sit down. Come in for a tidy on the neck and around the ears and leave the top alone, and it gets through that stage looking like a plan rather than neglect.
Six chairs are running from 9am Monday to Saturday, walk-ins welcome, and a buzz is twenty minutes. If you are unsure which grade, come in and we will hold two guards against the back of your head and let you see the difference in the mirror before anything gets cut.
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