Korean & Japanese hairstyles for Asian men

Every season, the latest fashion trends often comes directly from the major fashion city of the world like Paris, London, Milan and New York. However if you are Asian, you will know that when it comes to hair trend, it is often difficult to duplicate or carry the latest hairstyle from a Caucasian model on the runway, simply because of the differences in our hair texture and color. Speaking from personal experience, I grew up wanting to sport a famous style (back then) called “Armani haircut”. It is a short haircut cropped close to the skin and styled naturally to create a clean masculine look made famous by an Armani fashion campaign (therefore the name). However, for many Asian, it is almost impossible to achieve that style because our hair are much thicker and sticks out like a porcupine. So we either have to keep it very short or grow it much longer to keep the hair down. Since then, I have stopped trying to copy any haircut of David Beckham or any other Hollywood actors.

Lucky for me(us), that is not the end of the world,  or let’s just say, the grass is not always greener on the other side. In terms of variety of hair styles and trends for Asian men, we do have a lot more options then we think and instead of complaining of our hair texture and boring colors, there are in fact lots more that we can achieve with our hair.

Ok let me get to the point here, the Japanese have been the leader in Asian hair trend for their daringness to try the most adventurous cuts and colors. I am sure you must have seen racks of Japanese hairstyle catalogs in your saloon or even browse them for inspiring ideas, but damn it, they are always in Japanese and we don’t know what is written on it. More recently, with the sudden rise of the Korean pop culture (The Korean Wave), we are also seeing a new hair trend that is coming out from the Korean market with some unique Korean hairstyles.

Now are there any differences between the Japanese and Korean hair cuts (You might ask)? I think so.

For this article , I have done a bit of research myself and gathered my findings below. These are my own opinions and observation and I will be happy to hear what you feel about it.

Japanese Hairstyles for Men

Korean Hairstyles for Men

Difference between the Japanese and Korean Hair Style

Japanese Hairstyle	Korean Hairstyle
• They tend to be more adventurous with different colors	•They like smooth jet black hair •Coloring tends to be in the natural brown tones
• They like to create a messed up out of bed look, lots of wiry ‘fly away’ requiring lots of practice and effort to style, waxing, spraying and fixing.	• A very popular look is the the ‘bob’ style (of various length), very a thick fringe coming just above the eyes. • Hair is neatly slicked down for a boyish clean look.
• E.g. Takuya Kimura, Hiro Mizushima	• E.g. Rain, Beast, 2PM, JYJ, Super Junior

I know that deciding on and getting the right hairstyle can be a daunting task for many people; a trial and error for some ( sometimes with disastrous results). So starting from next week, I will pick some interesting men’s hairstyles and run a weekly post on this blog. Hopefully, it will give you some ideas the next time you visit your stylist.