Hair length chart: every length by name

There is no official ruler for hair length. Stylists measure by body landmarks instead: where your ends land on the ear, chin, collarbone, shoulder, armpit, mid-back, or waist. That is what a hair length chart shows, and it is how this page is ordered. Landmarks work better than centimetres because bodies differ. Chin length is chin length on a tall person and a short person alike, and a stylist can see it at a glance without measuring anything.

Two cautions before the list. First, judge length on dry hair. Wet hair stretches, and wavy or curly hair springs up as it dries, sometimes by half its wet length, so a wet measurement lies to you. Second, the same landmark reads differently on different textures: chin length curls sit wider and higher than chin length straight hair. The names below describe where the ends land, and the hairstyles by hair type guide covers how your texture wears each one. For the deep guide on any single length, follow the links in each section or browse the haircuts by length hub.

A buzz is hair clipped to one even, very short length all over, usually somewhere between about 1.5 and 13 millimetres depending on the clipper guard. There is nothing to part, tie, or style, so the look is all head shape and face. Day to day it is the easiest length on this chart, but it is not low upkeep: because the hair is so short, even a week or two of growth changes the look, and most people re-clip every two to four weeks.

Growing out of a buzz takes patience at the start, since every small bit of progress shows. Expect several months before the hair is long enough to grab, and most of a year before it starts covering the tops of the ears. The full guard-number breakdown lives in the men's section further down, and the buzz cut guide covers the versions and the upkeep in detail. If you are heading longer, the next named stop is ear-length.

Ear-length means the ends sit around the ears: above them, over them, or just covering the lobes. This is the home of the pixie cut and the short crop, where the sides and back stay close and the top carries the style. It is light, fast to style, and it puts your eyes and cheekbones front and centre. The short haircuts by face shape post shows how to match this zone to your features.

Upkeep is the trade. A precise short shape grows out of place quickly, so plan a trim every four to six weeks to keep it sharp. Growing past this zone is the famous awkward stage: the hair is too long to sit neatly and too short to tuck away, and it usually lasts a few months on the way to the chin. Regular small shaping trims, clips, and a little product carry you through. Once the ends reach your jaw, you have arrived at the next milestone, the bob.

When people ask what length a bob is, this is the answer: a bob ends somewhere around the chin, the jaw, or just below the ears. It is the first length on the chart that swings and moves like longer hair while staying short enough to feel sharp and deliberate. The bob guide covers the blunt, graduated, A-line, and French versions and which faces each one suits, and the bob by face shape post goes deeper on where the line should fall.

Upkeep sits in the middle of the range: most bobs want a trim every five to eight weeks to hold their line. As a growing stage, chin length is friendly. The hair finally tucks behind the ears, so moving from chin to collarbone is mostly a waiting game measured in months rather than a daily fight. Keep light trims going while it drops so the bottom edge stays clean instead of ragged.

A lob, short for long bob, lands between the top of the shoulders and the collarbone, with most versions sitting right at the collarbone. It is the length stylists suggest when someone wants a real change without going short, and it is one of the most forgiving lengths here: long enough for a small ponytail, short enough to dry fast and feel light. The lob guide walks through the blunt, layered, and A-line versions and how to ask for each.

Upkeep is gentle. A trim every eight to twelve weeks keeps the edge clean, with blunt versions wanting the shorter end of that range because a straight line shows growth first. Growing from collarbone to shoulder is the shortest hop on the whole chart, since the two landmarks sit close together. For most people it is a few months of ordinary growth and one or two light trims along the way.

Shoulder length means the ends brush the top of your shoulders when you stand straight. It is often called medium hair, and it is the most popular length going because it does a bit of everything: it ties back, it waves well, it looks tidy at work, and it dries in reasonable time. The shoulder-length guide covers the styles, and the medium-length hairstyles by face shape post matches them to your features.

The one quirk of this length is the flip: ends resting right on the shoulder hit the fabric of your shirt and kick outward during the day. Long layers, or cutting slightly above or below the shoulder line, solves most of it. Upkeep is a trim every eight to twelve weeks. Growing onward, the next named stop is armpit length, and that trip usually takes around a year of steady growth, depending on where on the shoulder you start and how much you trim.

Armpit length means the ends line up with your armpits when your arms hang down. Hair forums shorten it to APL. This is the point where most stylists stop saying medium and start saying long: the hair is well past the collarbone, it gathers into a full ponytail or braid, and the ends are now old enough to need real care. The long hair guide picks up the story from here, and the long hairstyles by face shape post covers the cuts.

What changes at this length is the upkeep target. The shape matters less and the ends matter more, because the tips have been on your head for a couple of years and have taken every wash, brush, and sunny day since they grew. Condition the lengths every wash, keep heat low, and hold trims light but regular, every eight to twelve weeks. Growing from armpit to mid-back is another long stretch, on the order of a year, so settle in and protect what you grow.

Mid-back length means the ends fall between your shoulder blades and your waist, roughly at the middle of your back. This is unmistakably long hair. Worn down it is dramatic, and the sheer weight of it starts to change how the hair behaves: curls pull straighter, roots sit flatter, and fine hair can look thin at the bottom unless the ends are kept full. A blunt or soft U-shaped bottom edge keeps mid-back hair reading dense rather than stringy.

Care at this length is mostly end care. The tips are several years old, and scalp oil cannot travel that far down the strand, so they run dry. A leave-in conditioner or light oil on the ends, detangling from the bottom up, a satin pillowcase, and a loose braid at night all protect the length while you sleep and move through the day. Pulled-back styles help too: the updos and ponytails guide shows ways to tuck fragile ends away when you want them out of harm's reach.

Waist length hair reaches the narrow part of your torso, above the hips. It is the last commonly named milestone, and it is rare, because hair this long takes years of growing and every strand has to survive all of those years without snapping. The ends of waist length hair are by far the oldest hair on your head.

Living with it is a routine more than a style. Braids and buns cover most days, washing is careful and less frequent, conditioner goes on the lengths every time, and heat stays low or off. Trims still matter, even now: small regular ones remove splits before they climb the strand, which is how you keep the bottom edge thick instead of see-through. Many people at this length choose a soft U shape at the ends so the line stays full. If waist length is the goal, read the long hair guide first, because the habits it describes are the entry fee for hair this long.

Scalp hair grows at about 0.35 millimetres a day, which works out to roughly 1 centimetre a month or 15 centimetres a year. That figure comes from StatPearls, a peer-reviewed medical reference, and it is an average: age, health, nutrition, and genetics all push it up or down, so treat every timeline below as rough.

At around a centimetre a month, a buzz cut needs roughly two years to reach a chin length bob. Chin to shoulder is about another year. Shoulder to waist is a matter of several more, which is why waist length hair is usually a five year project or longer from a short start. Two honest rules follow. First, growth happens at the root, so nothing you do to the ends speeds it up: trims do not make hair grow faster. Second, trims still earn their keep, because they remove split ends before the damage travels up the strand. Skip them for years and breakage quietly eats your progress, and every milestone on this chart arrives later than the arithmetic says it should.

Barbers describe short lengths by clipper guard number, so it is worth knowing what the numbers mean. Wahl, the clipper maker, publishes the standard chart. Wahl lists its sizes in inches; the millimetre figures here are the metric equivalents, rounded.

A #1/2 guard leaves 1/16 of an inch, about 1.5 millimetres. A #1 leaves 1/8 inch, about 3 millimetres. A #2 leaves 1/4 inch, about 6 millimetres. A #3 leaves 3/8 inch, about 10 millimetres. A #4 leaves 1/2 inch, about 13 millimetres. A #5 leaves 5/8 inch, about 16 millimetres. A #6 leaves 3/4 inch, about 19 millimetres. A #7 leaves 7/8 inch, about 22 millimetres. A #8 leaves a full inch, about 25 millimetres, and that is as long as standard guards go. Exact lengths shift a little between brands, but the order never changes: bigger number, longer hair. By Wahl's own guide, buzz cuts and fades mostly live between the #1/2 and the #3, which is why 'a number two all over' is the classic buzz request. See the buzz cut guide for how each guard actually looks on a head.

A crew cut sits one step up from a buzz. The sides taper short, often a #2 or #3, and the top keeps graduated length, longest at the crown and shorter toward the front. Wahl's chart puts a #4, about 13 millimetres, at the start of crew cut territory for the top, and many crew cuts leave a little more than that at the front so there is something to style.

At the other end of the scale, men's hair counts as long far earlier than women's. Hair that touches the tops of the ears down to the jaw reads as medium. Once it reaches the chin or brushes the collar, most people call it long, and shoulder length is long by any standard. Those collar and shoulder benchmarks mark real changes, too: collar length is where the awkward stage bites hardest, and shoulder length is where a bun or ponytail becomes possible. The men's long hair guide covers the grow-out stage by stage, and the men's hairstyles by face shape post helps you pick the target before you start.