In every art form there are rules. These rules create a foundation, insuring the artist’s ability to work with the available mediums and materials in a way that will hopefully create something of beauty. These rules can be both valuable and limiting and a true artist knows when to adhere to them, when to bend them and when to throw them out.

Whether a haircut suits someone or not is a completely subjective thing. At some point in history someone somewhere decided that certain shapes of haircuts look nice on certain shapes of faces and came up with a set of rules in hopes everyone would adhere to their conclusions. The overall idea is that the most flattering shape of face ( they could have picked any) is an oval one, so if we feel compelled to adhere to that perception we create haircuts that make whatever shape of face you have appear to be more oval. If your face is rather long and slender we may create a haircut that is fuller on the sides, if your face is more of a square shape we might avoid haircuts that have a lot of volume at the jawline, leaving the hair a little or a lot longer to balance things.

In my work, both in the salon and in my art studio, the rules are always floating around, but because I’ve been doing art and hair for so long I have come to a point where I don’t have to think of them, they are automatically utilized to varying degrees, but I never allow them to invade and over-shadow creative opportunities. There are times when they get thrown out, such as when I sense that a haircut that “shouldn’t” work on someone will work beautifully, simply because their personality, their energy, suits it; it feels right, even though it’s not “right”. The thing I love about this is that we don’t have to rely on rules to guide our decisions, we rely instead on feelings and intuition, we simply know. We’re no longer ruled by the rules, we use them when we chose to and throw them out when we want. It’s quite similar to a skilled and experienced pianist choosing to play Mozart how they are “supposed” to play it, but sensing it can be played just as enjoyably a somewhat different way. After all, Mozart wouldn’t have been the creative genius he was if he couldn’t appreciate creative exploration.

So yes, if you have a round face, I’ll likely suggest a haircut that will make it appear a little less so, unless of course you love your round face, if that’s the case we’ll create a haircut that celebrates it. What we’ll find is a haircut that suits you, not just your face, all of you. If it fits the rules, so be it, if not, we’ll be so busy enjoying your new haircut that it won’t cross our minds to worry about it.

Beauty cannot be defined by a set of rules, it shares no such limitations, except in the minds of those who prefer it.