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What is the definition of long hair on a man?
Hair that is not short.
Sorry; I couldn't resist the above. I'm the "jkl;" in incognito mode.
It can vary from person to person. If you have been bald or shaven all your life, a couple of inches can be long. Waist length to Absalom is short. It's all relative to your starting point.
I consider long hair to be long enough to break over the shoulders when standing or sitting normally. This is also not an absolute. To someone like Chris who has a long neck, it might take a year and a half to reach this point. For someone like me whose earlobes are almost touching my shoulders it doesn't take near as long to have hair breaking over my shoulders; it is doing it now after only 10 months.
What do you consider long hair? That is probably your best answer.
Big George
I have yet to find a Webster's dictionary definition of long hair (although Webster's DOES define, "longhair" in this way: "of intellectuals or intellectual tastes"); but I'm guessing your question to mean, "how do WE define long hair on a man?", --- or, maybe: "how does SOCIETY define long hair on a man?"
In any case, if you go to the Links section, you'll find some wonderful writings on that topic, --- my favorite being that of Bill Choisser's, "On Being A Longhair". I remember talking to Bill one time, asking almost the same question. He feels that when a man's hair starts touching his shoulders, --- especially when it's falling across the shoulders and starts to cover them --- that society starts to treat you then a little "differently" (in other words, it's as if society unconsciously acknowledges you as a "graduate longhair"!
In actuality, it's all relative...
When I was a teenager, if your bangs fell across your eyes, that was often considered by my parents and their generation as "shockingly long", --- and comments about the guy "needing" a haircut were frequently voiced.
On the other hand, I look in the mirror everyday, waiting and wondering when my hair will reach butt-length... So, to me, even though my hair now touches my belt-line, in my mind it is still "too short"!!
By most people's standards, though, when your hair length surpasses traditional Western hairstyles for men, --- like when it starts to cover the ears, flow down over a man's collar, and can fall forward into his face, then most people will describe you behind your back as "that guy with the long hair!"
Hope my answer helped, --- or, if it didn't, that you at least had fun feeling even more confused now!
- Ken in San Francisco
Cool answer! Thanks, man!
For my personal reference, I hair is short when it is less than shoulder-length. Shoulder-length to mid back is mid-length to me. Long is from back to waist. Very long is when it touches where the back changes its name.
I am using criteria from the "best of all times". Since for today's criteria someone may say.
Short - Shaved head or crewcut.
mid-length - Prince Charles (cut round the ears).
Long - touching the ears or mid-ear (Early Beatles cut).
Very long - covering the ears but not touching the collar.
Extreme length - any length longer than the collar, and that should only stay in history books, and swashbuckler films.
I remember, back in my childhood days, when in Grade 2 we were taught "relative terms", like hot and cold, long and short. For long and short, the teacher taught us about hair. Since we were in school before the long hair fad affected children, the styles were very much like the fifties for children in 1967.
The teacher would point out a pupil - A girl with back-length hair, she has loong hair, a girl with shoulder-length hair.. she has short hair. She pointed a boy with hair about 3 inches on the top, but cropped back and sides and she says he has long hair. She looks at me and says he has short hair (I had a crewcut in 1967).
The boy who was told he had long hair, blushed :)
Have a nice day,
Georges in Montreal
I dunno if there is a defintion in terms of inches, or a definition of long, only longer. Let's face it its relative.
For someone who's just started growing out, being able to tuck their hair behind their ears is "long", wheras to Victor that would seem short.
I guess shoulder length is widely acknowledged as being long hair, but its very much a relative definition.
I read somewhere on one of these longhair faq type websites that your hair enters the realm of longhair when it gets beyond 9 inches long. that was probably an arbitrary length for anyone who needs to have a line drawn. I guess to me a guy has long hair if he can at least tie a ponytail at the base of his neck and have as much length below the tie as he has above it.
What is the denitiion of long hair on a man? When
people tell you it is time to get a haircut.
In most situations, shoulder length.
But it depends on who you have around you. Which is where the relative length thing comes in. Living in SF, where longer hair is common, shoulder length isn't really quite long...mid-back definitely is. Then, there I was hanging around with a group with hair in the (LHC measurement) mid 50s to 60s length hair, and I was the shorty.
Well I always class it as long when the hair actual hair covers the ears completely and when the back touches the top of the collar or tee shirt ! Having said that alot of peoples opinion will vary to my own opinion !
Axel