Men’s hair styles don’t change as dramatically as women’s from season to season, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a diversity of different cuts for men to choose from. Take the crew cut, for example. This is a style that’s been “in” for decades, but it isn’t just one discreet do. The crew cut has taken many forms over the years and it has a history all its own. If you’re considering a crew cut, you should know that this style isn’t as straightforward as it seems and when you go to your stylist to tell him (or her) that this is what you want, there is actually a wide range of different looks you could end up with.
Technically speaking, a crew cut is a short hair style for men in which the hair at the front, top of the head, is longer and slowly getting shorter moving toward the back of the crown. The hair on the side of the head might be short or medium-length and is usually tapered. The different lengths and tapering available in this cut is what gives it so much diversitThe different lengths and tapering available in this cut is what gives it so much diversity.
Some people refer to the short crew cut as a “butch”, but this isn’t necessarily correct. A butch is a cut in which the hair on the top of the hair is all of the same length (in contrast to the graduated hair length from front to back in a crew cut). Longer crew cuts are sometimes called the “Ivy League Crew Cut” or even just the “Ivy League” for short. The longest hairs on an Ivy League cut are 1 ½ inches in length, getting shorter at the back and sides of the head.
Another variation of the crew cut is called a “Flattop”. In this hair cut, the hair is cut from the front to a chosen point on the back of the head in a sloping downward incline. This hair style looks slightly different from the more traditional Ivy League Crew Cut.
All of the different types of crew cuts or buzz cuts can be maintained with something called “butch wax”. Butch wax is a hair control wax that can be used to shape the overall look of the crew cut into a distinctive style. The length of the longest hair on the head should be determined in part by the shape of the man’s face and what would be most attractive as well as the amount of maintenance a man is willing to do on his hair each day. Though butch wax is extremely easy to use, men who don’t wish to spend a lot of time on their hair should opt for the shorter do.