By MensHairBlog
The hair in the Spiky hairstyle is made to look as if thick spikes are growing from the scalp, and this hairstyle is very popular among young males. Also known as “spikes”, this hairstyle was most popular during the 1990s together with the iconic shoulder length hairstyle; back then, it was not uncommon for young males to also dye their spikes with colors like green and blue. Incidentally, dyed spiky hair was a 1990s’ craze in European countries like Germany, Netherlands and Sweden, which lead to dyed spikes being referred to as “European spikes” in barbershop jargon.
Nowadays, spiky hair still enjoys a small-albeit-strong following, so I’ve published this guide on how to get spiky hair for those of you wanting to get into this hairstyle. Let’s rock!
Short hair.
The hair on the top of the head can be any length from 0.5 to 2 inches. The hair on the sides and back can either be cropped in a taper cut or cropped in an undercut haircut with a single guard length; men with straight hair will do better with an undercut while men with wavy hair will fare better with a taper haircut. The perimeter line between the hair on the sides/back and the hair on the top of the had should not be smoothed (i.e. tapered fast) as the hair bordering the head’s top is to be also spiked.
Alternatively, the hair on the sides/back can be at the same length as the hair on the top.
2 out of 5 (it’s an easy haircut).
Styling spiky hair for men revolves around lifting one’s hair to create the illusion of spikes or sharp tubular shapes. Use hair gel, wax or pomade to lift your locks up, and, once you have lifted them all, use your fingers to go lock by lock to further define their spike shape, rapidly running the fingers from the base to the tip of all spiked locks so as to ensure that all locks are coated with the hairstyling product.
You spike all the hair on your head or only get spiky hair on the top of your head (depending on your chosen haircut). If you use hair gel to create the spikes on your hair, you can, once you’ve crated the spikes with hair gel, also coat the tips of the spikes with hair wax so as to further mold and detail their spiky shape. You can use a hair dryer to dry the spikes and harden them, but make sure that you have the hair dryer at least one foot of distance (about 30 centimeters) away from the hair and with a diffuser clipped in so that the blown hair doesn’t deform the spikes.
Spikes can be styled up fully or styled at an angle to the scalp in a tousled manner. Strictly speaking, a textbook spiky hairstyle has the hair spiked up in defined thick locks, but such a textbook definition would be namely to categorize such a hairstyle by its shape rather than by the concept itself: to shape your hair in spiked-like locks.
Spiky hair can also be achieved with long hair (although not with super long hair!), but its styling is more elaborate since the longer length of the hair multiplies the time spent shaping the spikes. Likewise, you need to use hair spray when styling long spiky hair, which adds even more time. But, for those of you interested,you only need to follow the same hair-styling instructions in this guide and finish off the hairstyle is a good hair spray to lock and secure the hairstyle into its finished-off shape.
3 out of 5 (relatively easy; it’s mostly time consuming if you want to sharpen the spiked shape of each lock, though).
A perfect example of hair spikes is Taylor Lautner’s spiky hair in The Twilight Saga films.
Taylor Lautner also rocked spiky hair is in his younger years. Below is a picture of Lautner’s spiky mane in the 2005 movie “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D”.
I also highly recommend that you take a look at my hair styling products guide for advice and tips on hair gel, hair wax, pomade and other styling products for men if you don’t still master the at of selecting the right hair product/s for you.
While it’s true that spiky hair won’t win you any awards for the hippest dude in town, it’s equally true that hair spikes still have their place as a hairstyle in a male’s daily grooming, especially if you have short straight hair or wavy hair. The products needed to style spike hair are regular products that most guys already have for many other hairstyles so whenever you feel like giving your hair a new look, consider spiking your hair; after all, they are an iconic hairstyle of an already-iconic decade!