A few days ago, I put out a call for butch haircuts, and received nearly 100 photos! The most common 'do (by far) was the fauxhawk (also called "fohawk"), and I decided it's worth dedicating an entire post to the style.
First, let's take a look at some examples of your basic fauxhawk:
As you can see, most of the time, the hair is a bit longer on top than on the sides, then brushed up to achieve a "mohawk"-type look. If it was shaved on the sides, with a stark line of hair running down the middle of the head, that'd be a mohawk.
See, here are some readers' mohawks. Nothin' faux about 'em:
Fauxhawks are one of the wonderful things we butchy queer women share with our gay male brethren (along with barista jobs, librarian jobs, and really cool eyeglasses).
Aside from looking cute and trendy and gay, fauxhawks are versatile. You can wear them long, like these:
Or short, like these:
Or somewhere in the middle, like these:
Another advantage of fauxhawks is that, because your hair isn't completely shaved on the sides, you can just part it on the side and brush it over for work rather than spiking it up in the middle, if you want to look more mainstream. Then it looks a lot like a run-of-the-mill guys' cut.
Fauxhawks have now been in style for almost a decade, and their fashionability shows no sign of waning. Will we look back on fauxhawks in 20 years the way people look back on mullets today? Who knows. Keep reading BW and I'll let you know when you need to nix it. For now, they look great. Want to see a few more fauxhawks that readers sent in? You know you do.
These two demonstrate how a loose, spiky, intentionally misaligned fauxhawk can look terrific:
And these two show how thick, wavy hair can work as a fauxhawk or partial fauxhawk:
And here are some more! (I don't have room to share all of them, but I'm squeezing in as many as I can...)
If you want to try out a fauxhawk, make sure you go to a stylist who knows what he or she is doing. For example, my hair is very thick and hard to cut. My awesome stylist spends about an hour on it, and thins it somehow (magic?). I used to go to a barber. He took 20 minutes and I left with a hard-to-style overgrown buzz cut. Asking for recs from dyke friends can be helpful, and it's good to take a picture to help show what you want.
My next few posts will talk about other butch hair styles and give you some leads on hair products. I know it can be
hard to get a good dyke haircut, so don't hesitate to post your thoughts and questions in the comments section.