If you want to have a long, successful career in the haircutting industry, you must have the skillset to carry you. Even if you’re already a competent hairdresser, continuous growth is vital to accommodating pickier clients and adjusting your cutting techniques on the fly. Only then can you continue to thrive, even toward your retirement years. So, keep learning: it’s one of the best things you can do for yourself. These are some professional tips for improving your hair cutting skills.

Learn a New Cutting Technique

One of the first things you can do is try to learn a new styling technique or two. After all, more effective ways to cut hair develop every day, and adopting them into your arsenal is greatly beneficial. With more methods at your disposal, you have an increased number of approaches for a certain style. This can go a long way in improving your ability to meet specific needs and, ultimately, increase your success rate with clients.

Make Sure You’re Comfortable

Keeping yourself comfortable while cutting hair is also a noteworthy tip for improving your hair cutting skills. Haircutting involves a lot of repetitive and strenuous movements on the hands, fingers, and wrists. This causes many professional hairdressers to develop a tingling, painful sensation known as carpal tunnel syndrome. The worse this condition gets, the less you can do the work you love. Fortunately, new inventions like the swivel thumb shears reduce the amount of stress on your fingers, making it easier to prevent these injuries.

Use a Diverse Set of Tools

Another way to expand your horizons is by using several different haircutting tools. We all have a favorite pair of shears that we seemingly use on every cut, but you could get the same effect much faster with a pair designed differently. Shears come in several different lengths and curvatures to cut hair more effectively. As such, knowing how to use more than one is the key to a better quality and more efficient cut.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Above all, though, getting better at cutting hair means continuous practice. Like any skill, this process becomes second nature the more that you do it. It’s this repetition that improves your overall efficiency and shows where you have yet to improve. Therefore, you must always make time for practice—whether that means working on a mannequin at home or giving a family member a makeover.