How To Cut A Fade Haircut

Coming back in style

Nothing is off-limits at Randolph’s Styles with Character, a small, white building at Clifton and Burrell streets in Dorchester that feels more like your best friend’s living room than a hair salon.

Every Saturday, just as the city begins to shake the sleep from its eyes, a group of friends find themselves deep in a rhythm years in the making. Their conversations don’t really begin and end as much as they continue from one visit to the next. There’s the dress dilemma involving a son’s prom date, and the never-ending teasing of those who still haven’t lost Southern idioms after decades in New England, calling it soap powder, for instance, instead of laundry detergent.

And each week, Charlotte Streat, the morning crew’s standing 6:30 a.m. appointment, drives in from the suburbs to take her spot in the circle of fellowship and familiarity. Once, she lived in Mattapan and then in Hyde Park, before finally settling in Milton. But on Saturdays, just after night makes way for dawn, all roads lead to John Randolph’s salon.

It is a scene that repeats itself in barbershops and beauty salons across Boston’s black community, though not always at such outrageously early hours: middle-class blacks who live in the city’s suburbs — or even nearby states — return to “the neighborhood,’’ for a dose of culture and a hairstyle.

Streat’s family moved to Milton about three years ago, but she never bothered to find a stylist there: “A black stylist in Milton?’’ she asked jokingly.

Then, she turned serious: “I couldn’t do John like that. To me, hair is something personal. You just can’t switch and let someone else do your hair. You don’t just stop a relationship because you move.’’

There is an intimacy at Randolph’s, with its black and white checkerboard floors and waiting area that melds onto the styling area. Randolph’s station is the heartbeat of the salon, where customers wait their turn in empty styling chairs or black, straight-back chairs.

Longtime customers often answer the constantly ringing phone when Randolph or one of the other two stylists are busy.

“I don’t know if I come for the hair or the fellowship,’’ Streat, 43, a retired Bank of America executive, quipped as she watched Randolph run a hot comb through Sherry Jones’s long tresses, a routine repeated during their nearly two decades as clients. The conversation that’s filled the salon since 5 a.m. continues as the morning crew thins and other customers begin to fill Randolph’s self-described hole-in-the-wall shop nearly four hours later.

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Fade haircuts have been a favorite among men for several decades, and the popularity of fades extends to every culture and ethnic background. Quite simply, the fade is a tried-and-true style that projects masculinity, requires minimal upkeep and maintenance, and even helps to disguise a receding hairline or a thinning crown.

What makes a haircut a fade? A fade is characterized by a close-cut back and sides that gradually increases in length toward the top, or crown, of the head. The sides and back are generally cut using an electric clipper, and the top may be cut with scissors or a longer clipper guard. A true fade is blended, so that the top smoothly dissolves or “fades” into the shorter lengths on the sides and back. At the shortest lengths around the neck and ears, the scalp is usually visible through the hair.

There are dozens of variations of the fade haircut, but all of them are longer on the top than they are on the sides and back. Here are a few examples of popular fade haircuts.

1. The High and Tight. This is military-style cut that is perhaps the shortest of the fade haircuts. Also known as the “cadet” or the “marine” cut, a high and tight is closely cut with clippers, usually with a size 0 or 1 clipper guard on the sides. The top is also clipper cut with a slightly longer guard, usually either a size 1 or 2. Unlike the traditional fade in which the scalp is visible only around the neck and ears, the high and tight reveals a visible scalp throughout most of the sides and back, extending higher up the head than the traditional fade. This what the “high” refers to in the high and tight.

2. The Caesar. The Caesar cut is characterized by short clipper-cut lengths on the sides and back which are gradually faded to a scissor-cut top. The signature characteristic of the Caesar cut is the fringe or bang area, which is intentionally left longer. This additional length in the bang area allows the style to be worn either up or down in the front.

3. The Flat Top. Not all flat top haircuts are fades, but most of the popular varieties are. The classic flat top usually features sides and back that is cut with a size 1, 2, or 3 guard and a top that is perfectly flat and level. The top is usually cut using clippers and a “flat-topper” comb, which is specially designed to accomplish this style.

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