If You're Unsure About Cutting Your Hair Short, This TikTok Could Help

Don’t lie. You know that, no matter how much you love your long hair, the temptation to chop it all off lingers under the surface. You also know that, if you’ve had long hair for a while, that temptation is often quickly squandered because the idea of getting a bob or anything above shoulder length can also be absolutely terrifying, especially since you have to commit to it for at least a few months. Luckily for you, TikTok has a short haircut hack to help you decide if you should cut your hair short.

Let me preface this by saying that you should cut and style your hair any way you like. If you want short hair or long hair, you don’t need a hack to tell you to do it or not; you’ll look great no matter what. And if you feel great, that’s the most important part. However, for those of you who are on the fence and need a little extra convincing, this trick may be just what you need.

Amy Chang, the creator of Bond En Avant and a TikTok hair creator, recently shared a video about how to tell if short hair is for you. All you need are two pencils and a measuring tape to pull it off. “Put the first pencil underneath your chin and place the second one at the base of your ear,” she directs in the video, showing how the pencils will meet perpendicularly. Then, you measure the length between where the pencils meet and your ear lobe. “If the distance is greater than 2.25 inches, then longer hair looks good on you,” Chang continues. “If it’s shorter than 2.25 inches, then short hair will look good on you.” While Chang didn’t explain why this trick works, she did comment on the video, “The angle/length of your jaw is everything.”

Again, let me be clear: Any hairstyle will look good on you — I am unbelievably positive of this. And although Chang swears by this method... is there actually any basis for her hack?

The hairstylists I consulted about this trick are split on it. “[This hair hack] doesn’t make sense to me — it’s not a one-size-fits-all equation,” Cory Aaron Scott, a celebrity hairstylist, tells Elite Daily. “I’m a firm believer in finding a haircut that you like and having a proper consultation with your stylist to customize it and make it your own. These archaic notions about hair length and hair color need to stop — do what you like and what makes you happy.”

However, Carolyn Aronson, founder and CEO of It’s A 10 Haircare, says there is some basis for it. “That’s a simple, easy way to get the perspective of a square- or round-shaped face — both are great faces for shorter styles,” she says. “It is common for these face shapes to have a shorter distance from ear-to-jaw ratio.”

The bottom line? Perhaps this is a hack worth trying if you’re really having trouble deciding. That said, you should absolutely not let two pencils and a measuring tape make your decision or fuel any fear or hesitations. I think New York City hairstylist Cheeky Ma says it best: “If you want to cut your hair short, just try it. It will always grow back.”