Wearing Glasses: A Haircut and Beard That Suit Your Frames

Your frames count as part of your face, so the cut starts there

If you wear glasses every day, people see your face with the frames on, and the barber should cut for that face. Frames draw a horizontal line at eye level and split the face in two, so the haircut has to balance a picture that already holds a strong element. Heavy dark acetate frames carry a lot of visual weight. Pair them with a very short cut and a clean shave, and the glasses take over the whole face; some texture on top or a few days of stubble bring the balance back. Thin metal or rimless frames almost disappear, so the cut can go sharper and higher in contrast, with a skin fade and a defined side parting. Shape counts as well. Round frames soften the face, and a cut with clean angles balances them. Rectangular frames add angles of their own, so a softer, textured top suits them better. Watch the fringe. A fringe that reaches the top of the frame pushes the glasses down, leaves grease on the lenses and looks messy within an hour, so keep it above the brow line or swept away from the face. Check your eyebrows too: the top of the frame runs along them, so long brow hairs that brush the lens stand out, and the barber can trim them in a minute. Changed your frames, from thick to thin or the other way round? Book a haircut soon after, because the proportions you got used to have shifted with them.

The sides and ears, where the arms of your glasses sit

The arms of your glasses run along the sides of your head and rest on your ears, and the cut has to account for them. The arms push any hair longer than a centimetre or two above the ears outwards, and it sticks up at an angle, like small wings over the frame. So the barber keeps the hair short where the arms sit, or cleans the outline around the ears so the arms rest on skin. Behind the ear, where the arm curves down, the barber keeps the hair short as well, or it bunches up between the arm and your head. Longer hair that covers the ears works too, provided it falls over the arms: the barber cuts the layer underneath shorter, and the top layer lies flat over them. Next comes the fade. If the transition line falls at the same height as the arm, you get two parallel lines on each side of your head, and the side looks striped. We usually move the fade a little higher or lower than the arm. Sideburns follow the same logic. With thick acetate arms, short or medium sideburns keep the temple area clean, while long, heavy sideburns next to a thick arm look crowded. Thin metal arms leave you more freedom. If you wear glasses only for reading or driving, the rule is simpler: the cut should look right without them, and the sides should stay flat when you put them on. Tell your barber which case is yours before the first pass of the clippers, and bring the glasses with you either way.

Beard with glasses, and the moment to put them back on

A beard adds weight to the lower half of the face and glasses add it to the upper half, so the two work as a pair. Heavy frames sit well with a short beard with a crisp outline, or with thick stubble, and the face stays balanced from top to bottom. Thin frames go with a full beard too, provided the cheek line stays clean; otherwise the face looks closed in from every side. Shape follows the same rule as the haircut: round frames pair with a beard that keeps a clear angle at the jaw, and rectangular frames with a softer, rounded outline. The line where the sideburns meet the beard passes under the arms, so ask the barber to keep that area neat and not too dense, or the arms will press the hair down and leave a dent. In the chair you take the glasses off, because the barber cannot work around the ears with frames in the way, and you spend most of the haircut looking at a blur. Ask for the glasses back before the final check. With the frames on, the barber sees how the sides sit under the arms and trims the stray hairs that stick out. It takes two minutes and saves you a month of wings over the ears. Hair above the ears grows about a centimetre a month, so with short sides the wings come back after three to four weeks, and that sets the gap between visits. If you also wear contact lenses, mention it: the cut has to work both ways, and the barber will check it both ways.