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Masculine hairstyles for long hair?


Sleepy Skeleton

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Sleepy Skeleton

Hello, I'm an AFAB person who wants to appear more androgynous, but I need help with my hair.

 

Since I was raised as a girl, I only know how to style my hair to make it look "feminine", if that makes any sense. I thought by cutting it short I would look less girly, but it didn't work. I just look like a girl with short messy hair like I'm some kind of trashy forest pixie or something.

 

I don't have any good pictures, but basically my natural hair is a slightly longer version of Benedict Cumberbatch's hair as Sherlock Holmes. Same color, same texture.

 

I already have enough trouble being taken seriously as a non-binary person since most days I wear feminine clothes, but I'm really conflicted now that I want to grow my hair out longer. I want LONG hair (like, shoulder-length eventually), but I need it to look like a man's hairstyle. There's lots of guides out there for transwomen (how to do hair, makeup, etc.) but there is very little advice for FTM or FTN people other than to just cut it all off or shave it. :/

 

Essentially, I want to look like this:



94f45be90ef3c7913edfb678bb37630b.jpg

ddd562b4a5f98f210257b313346cf690.jpg

f5gvslm0egdy.jpg

 

And not this: (all of these are similar to what my hair looks like on some days)



Short-Curly-Hairstyles-for-Heart-Shaped-

Cute-Short-Wavy-Hairstyles-with-Side-Ban

Layered-Wavy-Bob-Hairstyle.jpg

 

I know this might seem like a weird question but I'm really lost when it comes to hair. I don't know what to do, or what I'm doing wrong, or anything. I'd really appreciate any advice and please assume I know nothing at all about hairstyling.

 

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happilyirrelevant

I know several guys who wear their long hair in braids or ponytails, so it's still long but having it swept back off the face makes their jawlines stand out more and it look more masculine. I don't know if you're interested in braids at all.

You might know this already, but another thing is that many girl's hairstyles have sort of swoopy side bangs (like all the girl's pics above) and most guys' hairstyles are swept back off of the face and the forehead.

So, for instance, a girl's hairstyle of medium length would typically look like this:

tumblr_or4xv130NL1v1um3bo1_250.png

while a guy's might look more like this:

tumblr_or4xv130NL1v1um3bo2_250.png

Hope that helps! Good luck finding a hairstyle :) 

Edit: Also, guys often use more hair product, so that their hair is visibly slightly gelled, while girls often go for a natural hair look with no visible product. I don't know if you want that or not, but that's another thing that might help.

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Hm. I'm no expert on haircuts. Short hair is not too good when it comes to making the face look masculine, lol. I personally don't see a difference between the hairstyles you posted apart from them framing different faces.

 

With short hair, I guess you should style it with gel or something if you get a short men's haircut, but there is a chance you can look like a butch lesbian. Nothing wrong with that of course, I am one to outsiders myself. But I guess the feminine round shape is what bothers you. You can look up in the internet "androgynous hairstyles" and lot of shorter yet artful stuff shows up, and how people style it. You might want to take a look if you like it. But short hair is difficult to style, in general.  Also, it's very well described how to navigate haircuts as an FtM in this... it shows up if you google "FtM guide to looking like a hot guy". :P 

 

Now when it comes to medium and long cuts, you can't do them in too many ways. Ha, you can take photos to the hairdresser and show a hairstyle on a guy in order to get a men's haircut. But I'm not sure how they differ in medium and long. They might not. Basically medium hair can be either lighter and layered or heavier, with a straighter line. I've had both. Both are good and you don't have to style them at all or too much. Or it just depends on your hair and on how skillful your hairdresser is. Guys wear their hair either down or in a low ponytail. It's that simple. No styling, or minimal styling. Just in case: hairbrush, some styling product if you need it, shampoo, that's it. No straightening, curling, braids, hair pins, hair bands or other fancy stuff. You can totally look masculine with even waist long hair if you keep your style masculine. So all in all, keep it simple. And. Some bob hairstyles make the face look very round. Especially if you blow dry them with this round brush. Be aware. 

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But you need a masculine, rectangular hairline to look masculine if you sweep your hair back. Think about high ponytail. That's the kind of impression it makes with a fem hairline. It exposes the cheeks as well. But it's true. Men sweep their hair back. I never noticed it before. Probably in order to show off this rectangular shape. 

 

Also... be yourself and just wear the hair you like. People have so different hairstyles. 

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... So. The only real difference between those two sets of images is that the top set features people that appear to be male. And the bottom set appears to feature people that are female. Also the bottom set all appear to be bobs of some kind.

 

Look, the way a person wears a hairstyle depends on two things: their facial layout (jawline, eyes, ears, nose, mouth placement, etc) AND themselves. And the second part outweighs the first by a LOT. Those guys are all sporting styles that people would call feminine. The only reason they might be seen as not that is because of how they're working it.

 

Maybe try some of those hairstyle apps. Like where you can take an image of your face and lay different styles over it. And find the one you like best. A local hairstylist might also be able to provide some guidance.

 

 

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You could try hair gel or sth like that to flatten it a little bit. Also use shampoo that doesn't give hair extra volume, the girls in your pic all have very bouncy hair. I also think that it helps if all of your hair is the same length - if you cut your hair in layers it appears more feminine, at least in my opinion. 

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The only real difference between men's hairs and women's hair is that men's hair is on a man's head. The styles in your pictures look masculine because they are on men, if you photoshopped that hair onto a woman it would immediately look feminine, and if you photoshopped the women's styles onto men's faces they would look masculine. What you need to do is talk to a good hairstylist about what cut would work with your specific facial features to make you look more masculine. Or you could go for a proper crew cut, not many women can pull off hair that short without looking a bit butch.

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If you cover the faces of any of the ones you linked, you can't tell male or female. Honestly it's the beards and makeup that give them the feminine/masculine look, in my opinion.

 

I wonder if you're maybe experiencing a type of dysphoria towards your looks. When you look at yourself you're too biased in what you expect to see looking back at you. 

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Mezzo Forte

My hair was down to my knees until I cut my hair ~2 months into HRT.  People told me that I wore it in a masculine way, because I always had it tied back in a low ponytail, but I never once passed as male with my hair that long. (Only exception was someone who came from a culture where men wore their hair long and had never spoken to me until after my voice dropped and I introduced myself by my current name.) Actually, my shorter cis male friends will sometimes get ma'am'd from behind if their hair isn't super short. 

 

Not saying it's impossible to pull off masculine long hair, but you'll be fighting quite an uphill battle to get there, and you'll need to balance the longer hair with masculine features elsewhere.

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I recommend taking pictures of the hairstyles you like to a proper salon (one that caters to both male and female clients) and asking them to do it for you, when your hair reaches the length you want, if you are comfortable with that. They can show you how to do it and match the style you want. 

 

A lot of the female hairstyles you linked include a lot of layering when being cut. Whereas, the male styles you linked are mostly just hair gel / mousse. Many styles do overlap, but it looks like the more styled-when-cut looks are what you dislike as too feminine? 

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happilyirrelevant

I agree somewhat with the people saying it's the face, not the style, that makes the difference, but I think style can make a huge difference as well. 

Here's me with my hair pulled away from my face, but a bob length:  tumblr_or5hihgVgQ1v1um3bo1_400.jpg

And me with my hair doing the face-framing stuff in a bob length: tumblr_or5hihgVgQ1v1um3bo2_400.jpg

It's not a huge enough difference that people would mistake me for a guy in the first pic, but it definitely makes me look more masculine with my hair swept back, and more feminine with it swept forwards.

(i have a tiiny bit of makeup in the second pic because the two pics were taken at different times, sorry)

So if you want to look more androgynous, I'd say hairstyle can definitely make a huge difference!

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My hair's medium length i plan to chop it of soon 

but i have grown out a "Tail" in the back of my head

:D and  everyone calls me old fashioned and weird but i'm very happy about my tail its my life. 

So well, im not good with styles but there is that. 

 

Um, growing it out and dying it may be cool instead of cutting but with long hair im unsure. 

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Sleepy Skeleton

Thanks for the feed back, everyone! Yes, I can see now that the way hair frames the face changes the impression it gives. I don't normally put a lot of product in my hair but I do have fringe so I'm going to try pushing it back. Thank you! <3

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