Tape Up Haircut vs Fade: Edges or All Round

A tape up haircut shortens the hair in two places only: the sideburns and temples at the front, and the back of the neck. Everything between them keeps its length. A fade is a different job. It blends the whole of the sides and back from short at the bottom to longer at the top, all the way round. The trouble is that "tape up" is barbershop slang with no fixed meaning, so plenty of men use it for a fade too.

What is a tape up haircut?

A tape up is a small taper at the edges of the haircut. The barber takes the sideburns and the hair at the nape down short, usually to a grade one or less, and blends it into the length above over an inch or two. The sides themselves are left as they are. It is usually finished with a line up, so the edges look deliberate rather than just shorter.

The word itself is a clipped way of saying taper, and that is where the confusion starts. Most of what comes up when you search it treats a tape up as another name for a taper fade. Ask around and you will not get one answer.

Tape up vs fade, side by side

	Tape up	Fade
Where it gets short	Sideburns, temples and the nape only	The whole of the sides and back
How far up the short goes	An inch or two from the hairline	Low, mid or high, but always right round the head
What happens above it	Your length stays, untouched	Blended up into the top
Shortest point	A one, a half, or skin if you ask	Anywhere from a one down to bare skin
From the front	Hardly changes your shape	Takes the width off the sides
On our menu	Part of a £15 haircut	£17 skin fade or £17 taper fade

The row that matters is the third one. A fade changes the outline of your head. A tape up does not. It tidies the frame and leaves the picture alone.

Why the word causes trouble in the chair

"Tape up" reaches us carrying three different meanings, and they are not close to each other.

The first is the one in the table: short edges, sides untouched. The second is a full taper fade, the whole of the sides blended down to a one. The third is just the edge, which is really a line up and nothing to do with length at all. That one is a few minutes at the end of any haircut, not a style of its own.

If a barber hears the second when you meant the first, you walk out with your sides gone. That is two or three months of growing to get them back, which is a long time to be annoyed about one word.

It goes the other way too. Ask for a tape up meaning a fade, get the edges-only version, and you will look in the mirror and wonder what you paid for. The fix is quick in that direction, because there is still hair to take off. If a fade was what you were after all along, the low taper brief is the one to read out in the chair.

Where a tape up earns its place

It is the right cut for anyone who wants their length but not the scruff at the edges.

Afros, twists, locs and a full head of curls are where it makes the most sense. The volume is the style, and a fade would cut away the width that gives the shape its balance. A tape up keeps all of that and just stops the sideburns and the nape going fuzzy. On an afro it is a temple taper and a nape taper done in the same sitting, and our breakdown of afro tapers sets out each of those next to the versions that do take the sides in.

It also suits men growing their hair out. The awkward stage of growing hair is mostly an edges problem: the neck goes woolly and the sideburns spread. Taping up the edges every few weeks keeps it looking like a decision while the rest gets longer.

And it is the quiet option for anyone who has been told by work, school or a partner that fades are not for them. From the front, most people will not notice anything changed except that you look tidier.

Who should skip it? Anyone with thick, straight hair that pushes out sideways. A tape up does nothing about the width above your ears, and that width is usually the thing those men want rid of. A short back and sides or a fade will do the job a tape up cannot.

Three weeks later

A tape up grows out better than a fade, because there is so little of it.

The short part is an inch or two of hair against length that has not been touched. Hair grows about a centimetre a month, so a grade one at the nape is around a grade two and a half after a fortnight, and by three to four weeks it has mostly caught up with what sits above it. There is no fade line climbing your head and no patch of bare skin turning to stubble. It just gets less sharp, slowly.

If you go to skin at the edges, the timetable is shorter. Bare skin reads as stubble within a week.

Asking for it by the part of your head

Skip the word. Put a finger on your sideburn and another on the back of your neck and say "short here and here, leave the sides as they are". Then say how short: a one is the usual, a half if you want it crisper, skin if you are happy to be back in a week.

If you are genuinely not sure whether you want a tape up or a fade, ask for the tape up first. We can look at it with you in the mirror and take it further in the same sitting if it is not enough. A fade cannot be turned back into a tape up by anyone, at any price, for the next couple of months. The haircut and both fades are on our price list under their own names, which saves the guessing next time.