Budget pick
This foolproof and playful-looking clipper provides a similar experience to our top pick, though the guide combs are less rigid and durable. But its combs are color-coded, which makes it easy to quickly grab the one you want.
The first time I let my daughter cut my hair, I was years from buying these hair clippers. So we used scissors. Real scissors. And, um, she was 5. It was not my finest decision as a parent. (Or was it?!)
It was also late-stage pandemic mode when we were cooped up, I hadn’t had a haircut in many months, and at-home haircuts were still the norm. My daughter generously offered to give me a trim. “Please do not let her do that,” my wife very reasonably suggested. I nodded along in agreement.
Then my wife left to run an errand, and I turned to my daughter devilishly. “Let’s do this,” I grinned.
I grabbed our kitchen scissors, draped an old bedsheet around my shoulders like a barber’s apron, and gave my daughter full creative control.
My wife came home to find our daughter gleefully snipping away at my scalp, fist-sized clumps of hair all over the carpet. I thought she did a pretty good job, all things considered. Still, we figured it was best to press pause on letting her cut my hair for a couple of years.
But she kept asking to—year after year, haircut after haircut, she never relented. And look, I believe in her, so I was happy to have her do it. But this time around, I wanted to set her up for unmitigated success.
Enter the Wahl Color Pro Plus.
Now, to be clear, my daughter and I have not rigorously tested a raft of hair clippers. Wirecutter’s budget pick is the only one we’ve tried. But Wirecutter’s experts have tested a ton of hair clippers for nearly a decade. And the Color Pro Plus remains one of our favorites.
“They’re Wirecutter-recommended,” my daughter said, “which always means they’re good.” Sing it, kid!
Wirecutter calls the Color Pro Plus a “close contender” to our top pick, with the main differences being relatively minor. Their biggest distinctions are slight size and grip variations, and the top pick has metal-plated black plastic combs while the budget pick has color-coded all-plastic combs. On the fundamentals, our testers have long judged the Color Pro Plus to be “just as useful” as our top pick. And it usually costs half as much.
My daughter, a third grader with no formal cosmetic training, has found these clippers to be incredibly easy to use.
“They just go through the hair smoothly, and cut very smoothly,” she said. She also has no trouble gripping or maneuvering the clippers. “It’s a pretty good size,” she told me. “Not too heavy, not too light.”
The Color Pro Plus comes with 10 color-coded guide combs ranging from ¹⁄₁₆ inch to 1 inch. A color-coded key on the actual clippers makes it dead simple to ensure you’re using the right attachment. And snapping the guide combs on and off is very intuitive.
The printed manual also has an incredibly straightforward visual aid that divides a model’s head into four sections. Follow these guidelines and it’s pretty hard to mess up—my daughter is extremely adept at following them. “I basically just look at the instructions, and cut the hair like the instructions say,” she said. “And then comb it the way I like it.”
Before we begin, though, we set up our haircutting station in our semifinished basement: me in a folding chair, her with her various combs, scissors, spray bottles, and her trusty clippers.
We then plug in the clippers. (This is my daughter’s one gripe, by the way: She wishes it was battery-powered and her movement wasn’t limited by the length of the clipper’s cord. But I’ve since learned a similar cordless model is available!)
We snap on guide comb #4 (orange, ½ inch). She then happily buzzes her way through section 1 of my head, approximately all the hair from the top of my ears down to my neckline. It takes just three or four minutes.
Once section 1 is done, I unclip the orange comb and attach #5 (yellow, ⅝ inch), and she goes to town on section 2—all of the hair from the top of my ears to a line just above my eyebrows. After that, it’s on to #6 (purple, ¾ inch) for section 3, which is more or less all the hair at the level of my forehead.
At this point, we put the clippers down. It’s scissor time.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: This is where I didn’t show my best judgment in the past. But my daughter—now 9!—is a wiz with these scissors. She’s extremely careful and does a great job.
We use some very-well-reviewed-on-Amazon scissors, which I bought last year for $8. I have no idea how they stack up against other scissors, but in our experience, they are … perfectly fine. My daughter uses them, along with a variety of handheld combs and spray bottles, to trim section 4: the top of my head.
I like to wear my hair a little messy, so it doesn’t have to be perfectly even for me to be a happy customer. But really, she does a great job cutting my hair with these clippers and scissors.
The whole haircut takes just 15 minutes or so. And cleanup is a breeze—I sweep up the hair and then do a minute of light vacuuming.
Having my own personal child barber is obviously a great money saver. With any luck, I won’t set foot in a barbershop for many years. But more importantly, we’ve turned a rather mundane bit of personal maintenance into a delightful activity that she looks forward to—and that we share.
“It’s fun,” she told me. “I’ve just really always liked cutting your hair.”
“Mom didn’t like it at first,” she continued, “so that stopped us for a couple of years. But then I started doing it with the Wirecutter clippers, which are really good. And Mom started liking it.”
This article was edited by Hannah Rimm and Maxine Builder.
