How To Style Short Hair For Men – 2023 Guide

Last updated on November 29th, 2023 at 10:01 pm

Modern haircuts are getting shorter and more stylish than ever. This means you can enjoy looking sleek, trendy, and well-groomed thanks to your hairstyle. Take our advice and learn how to style short hair with our helpful guide below.

What Are the Benefits of Short Hair for Men?

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If you’re looking for a reason to cut down and make the switch to a short hairstyle, we’ve got a lot of them for you. You will see a big improvement in your look, the way you feel, your options, and your day-to-day life from having a modern, short hairstyle. Here are some of the greatest benefits of keeping it cool with a short hairstyle.

A Clean Look

If you’re aiming for an image that feels clean and cool, short hair is the way to go. Long hair can look grungy and grimy, especially when left unmaintained. A modern short hairstyle can make any guy look clean and well groomed without the constant upkeep.

Professional Vibes

Whether you’re running a business, working in a modern office, or looking to make a cool and collected first impression, it’s usually best to avoid a shaggy look. Your hair is the first thing people see when they look at you, and a modern cut is a convincing way to convey an image of success and professionalism to the people around you.

Keep It Cool

Summers are hot. Lots of hair gets you even hotter. Keeping cool in the heat is a huge motivator for trimming down those locks and learning how to style short hair to keep you looking and feeling cool during the warmer months.

Easy to Manage

We don’t all have the time to sit in front of the mirror, brushing our long, flowing locks of hair. For a lot of us, the modern lifestyle means we sometimes have to get ourselves looking good in a hurry. Short hair is quick and easy to style and manage even for busy people without a lot of time. This applies even more to active guys who would otherwise end up with a crazy mess of hair after a workout. Learn how to style short hair to keep a clean, cool look that can be styled and maintained throughout the day without the hassle.

Versatile

Depending on your life, your schedule, and your style, keeping short hair can mean getting out of bed and never looking in the mirror on a casual day. Then when it’s time to switch to a more formal look, it’s quick and easy to style and adjust. The great versatility of a short hairstyle is another big reason to learn how to style short hair.

Are There Lots of Short Hair Styles to Choose

From?

You might think that less hair means fewer options for styling your look. Naturally, more hair comes with more options, right? Well, not really. Styling short hair is all about the detail, and we found that with short hair, even the subtleties can make a striking difference. When we’re thinking about how to style short hair, even a slight variance in length or a directional adjustment can change the entire look. With that in mind, let’s look at a few prominent styles for those that want to learn how to style short hair.

The Military Cut

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Also known as the buzz cut, the military cut is the simplest short hairstyle on the list. It loses the versatility of some of the other styles available, but what the military cut lacks in frills, it makes up for with its decidedly masculine look and feel. The military cut works best for guys with well-defined facial features like a strong jawline. It’s also the quickest and easiest hairstyle possible, so get yourself a military cut if you’re looking to avoid all the hassle of the more complicated cuts.

Styling Short Hair – The Undercut

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A strong option for men with straight hair, the undercut is created by buzzing the back and sides down short and styling up the top to make a stark contrast between the sections of your hair. There’s room for personal choice or even changes from day to day with the undercut because the top can be styled however you like it. With the undercut, you’re free to change it up with your mood or setting, which can be a great motivation to run with this style. It’s also a rather simple cut so it can be an attractive choice for those who don’t want to spend a lot of time tinkering with their hair.

The Pompadour

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The Pompadour is actually very similar to the undercut. Clip the sides and back of your hair while keeping the top at a medium length. Slick back the hair on top, and you’ve got a pompadour. While you can certainly wear a classic pompadour that towers above your head, the modern pompadour is typically subtle and sleek. It’s a popular option among good-looking celebrities like Brad Pitt and David Beckham, and it’s rather simple to achieve.

The Pompadour can work with nearly any type of hair, but it usually works best for guys with straight hair. You can comb it clean and tight for a well-groomed professional look, or you can keep it loose and messy for something more casual. Consider going for a pompadour if you’re looking for a classy look with a good amount of versatility.

Styling Short Hair – The Fringe

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The fringe is a bold choice for guys who want to do something unique and striking with their hairstyle. It’s not safe and simple like the cuts mentioned so far, but it can be a cool, fashionable look, especially for guys with wavy, curly, or messy hair. The fringe is meant to be natural and sometimes even a bit chaotic, so it can be stylized or enhanced by accentuating the roughness of your hair. Blow dry it in the opposite direction of its natural flow or apply some light styling clay to achieve a rougher texture and a more visually striking fringe cut.

The Quiff

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Something of a predecessor to the pompadour, and somewhat adjacent to the fringe cut, the quiff is a classic style that involves styling the front “bangs” up for a slick, clean look. The quiff was originally popularized by rock stars like Elvis Presley, and it was later adopted by rockabilly musicians for their iconic look. Today, the modern quiff is a rather neutral hairstyle that works best for guys with round faces and a slight waviness in their hair.

Styling Short Hair – High and Tight

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Fairly similar to the pompadour, the high and tight cut is a tapered hairstyle achieved by clipping the sides of the hair very short, and keeping the top long and tightly pulled back. In order to keep the high and tight slicked back cleanly, straight hair is ideal for this style. The high and tight cut can work with a variety of head shapes, and it appears to add length to the face and accentuate masculine features.

The Cowlick Cut

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The cowlick cut is unsurprisingly for guys with cowlicks, typically at the front hairline. It is a style that works particularly well for guys with curly or wavy hair. This technique turns the usually annoying cowlick into a feature for a cool style that resembles the quiff. The most attractive feature of this cut is the way that it works with your natural waves and shapes in your hair. There’s no need to fight the “imperfections” in your hair when you can embrace them for a cool, casual look.

You can opt to use a strong gel to style the cowlick cut to your personal preference or to fight the frizz, but the goal of this style is to let your natural hair shine so try to keep it to a minimum if you can. A texturing salt spray is usually a preferable option for styling this cut.

The Tapered Fade

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Last on our list is a style with a bit of freedom. The defining characteristic of the tapered fade is a gradual transition in length from the front to the back. The freedom with this cut is in the ability to style the top as you see fit. Typically, the tapered fade is done with the top slicked back or styled into a side part, but there are no hard rules here. You can even try for a tapered fade with longer hair for a more bold look. This is a difficult style to achieve, but the results are cool and impressive. So, if you’re aiming to learn how to style short hair, look to mastering the tapered fade as a condition of your success.

Tips: How to Style Short Hair for Men

The variety of short hairstyles is further enhanced by the variety of products that can work with these cuts. Learn how to style short hair with items like grooming lotions, styling sprays, styling clays, texture sprays, and gels to guide your hair and give it texture. However, since the focus of these short hairstyles is on keeping it clean and simple, be careful not to overuse them. For most of these cuts, it’s best to start with a light styling product and incrementally increase amounts or add texturing products as needed. When in doubt, keep it simple.

It is also crucial to learn how to style short hair with blow dryers, especially for the cuts that involve redirecting the natural flow of your hair. Fortunately, with short hairstyles, these techniques are simple and difficult to mess up. So, experiment with what works best for your hair type and don’t worry too much about potentially ruining the look.

Conclusion

Trimming down doesn’t have to mean losing the freedom of options. Nowadays, there is a ton of variety in guys’ hairstyles, even among those with shorter hair. So try out one of these styles and see how it works for you.