Influenced by the fashion, pop culture and music scene of the decade, 90s hairstyles were bold and unique, allowing guys to express themselves with different types of styles. From Hollywood celebrities to pop stars and hip-hop artists, the 1990s were responsible for many stylish long and short hairstyles for guys. With so many 90s fashion trends coming back, you may be exploring ways to inject these retro styles into your modern look. To inspire you with haircut ideas, we’ve compiled a list of the best 90s hairstyles for men to copy right now.
90s Hairstyles For Men
Curtains Haircut
The curtains haircut style was worn by the most famous male celebrities in the ’90s, including Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and David Beckham. This flowing look is a relaxed style that can be made formal if it is slicked back or parted to the side. The curtains hairstyle is defined by a precise center-parting and mid-length with straight hair on both sides.
The curtain haircut should be combined with a fade or undercut on the sides and back to create a nice contrast that will highlight the longer style on top. When styling, keep your hair textured and natural for a healthy look by using a matte pomade or wax product.
Bowl Cut
The bowl cut is another classic haircut for men who want short hair that is easy to style. What defines the bowl cut is bangs which are cut to the same length as the rest of the hair and left to hang over the forehead in the front. Although it is edgy, the regular length of the hair made the bowl cut tidy and formal, so men could wear this versatile haircut to work as well as out to events. While the bowl haircut was cool in the 90s as a bold aesthetic for guys and little boys, the cut is no longer a good look.
Caesar Haircut
Worn by celebrities like George Clooney, the Caesar was popular in the 90s but it was originally styled by the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. The Caesar haircut is characterized by short hair on top and shorter hair on the sides and back. The defining feature is a longer fringe, which guys will style forward and down to cover part of the forehead.
The short fringe in the front can be styled in different ways to add shape to the face. Similar to a French crop with a fade cut on the sides, modern men are wearing this hairstyle with shorter, cropped hair for a stylish, low-maintenance look.
The Heartthrob
With the hair trimmed an inch or so shorter than the curtains hairstyle, the heartthrob was another iconic style for 90s celebs like Leonardo DiCaprio. The style is essentially a bob with chin-length straight hair, but the haircut is styled by pushing it back from the face.
Because the heartthrob haircut is longer, the pushed back hair falls towards the face, creating a flowing and tousled look that has a lot of movement. Great for men and boys with thick straight hair, the style is carefree and casual yet hot and sexy. Simply put, women love guys who wear this look.
Blonde Highlights
Blonde highlights can take many forms. In the 90s, edgy looks like frosted tips were common and were often worn with spiky hair. These days, blonde highlights for men tend to be more subtle.
Lightening your hair color in streaks can showcase the natural texture and length of your hair. Blonde highlights create a statement hairstyle that looks bold and hot for men with naturally darker hair.
Spiky Hair
Spiky hair was huge in the 90s and became a stylish choice for boy bands like the Backstreet Boys. To get this hairstyle, just gel or pomade your hair up into spikes by twisting the hair. You can go for a lot of thin spikes or just a few big thick spikes; the choice is yours. These styles were popular in the 90s, particularly in combination with colored hair or frosted tips.
Afro Hairstyle
The afro has been a bold men’s haircut for ages, but in the 90s it started to become more mainstream, particularly because of hip hop celebrities like Snoop Dogg. This created a resurgence of the afro from the 60s and it became a favorite among celebrities. However, the afro has always been an iconic hairstyle for black men.
Frosted Tips
Frosted tips are one of the most well-known hairstyles from the 90s. This distinctive look can be achieved by dying the ends of your hair white-blonde, then pairing the look with a spiky hairstyle to make the tips of your hair stand out. Be warned, you will need a hair product with a strong hold to keep the blonde ends spiked and stylish all day.
Cornrows
Cornrows are a cool braided style for black men who want a low-maintenance yet trendy look. In the 1990s, cornrow hairstyles became a trend with rappers and celebrities. While there are many different types of cornrow styles, the most coolest ones were braided straight back, in lines from the front to the back of the head, and braids that looked like a crown on the top of the head. Even now, cornrows remain a strong men’s hair trend.
Tram Lines
Tram lines are a simple way to add a retro pop to a cool haircut. Basically, tram lines are lines cut into the hair at the bottom of your hair cut, running along both sides towards the back of the head. MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice both rocked this famous style.
Slicked Back Hair
Slicked back hair continues to be one of the best hairstyles for guys to get. While slicked back hairstyles are old-school, modern styles incorporate an undercut or fade on the sides with longer hair on top. To slick back your hair, all you need is some good hair pomade or wax to keep your hair brushed back. Whether you want a casual or business slick back style, you’ll want to comb your hair straight back from the front and apply some product to keep it in place all day.
Mullet
To many people’s surprise, the mullet is making a comeback, particularly with young country boys in the South. The Beastie Boys made this hairstyle trendy in the 90s with their song “Mullet Head”. Known by the phrase “business in the front, party in the back”, the mullet involves long hair at the back of the head with a shorter cut (anywhere up to a few inches of hair) at the front.
Flat Top
The flat top is an unique retro haircut popularized by Will Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. For this hairstyle, you need tightly curled hair and a good barber. All of your hair will be styled up into a square shape, which can be as high as you want if you’ve got enough hair for it.
Mohawk
The first requirement for a mohawk is that you need a lot of hair in the middle of your head. The rest of your hair will taper away from that strip of hair in the middle – you can even shave the sides of your head bare for a truly bold mohawk. That middle strip of hair is often styled straight up, in a punk-rock look that was common in London in the 90s.
Hip Hop Hairstyles
Hip hop and rap music were huge in the 1990s, and so were the hairstyles worn by the top artists. The coolest hip hop hairstyles were cornrows, flat tops, and afros. Snoop Dogg brought the afro into the mainstream, Tupac maintained an easy shaved head, and Jay-Z loved his buzz cut with a taper fade on the sides. Although many rappers wear braids and dreads, these iconic styles are still synonymous with the hip hop scene today.
Grunge Hairstyles
The other major music trend of the 90s was grunge. Grunge hairstyles were exemplified by Kurt Cobain and his long, tousled locks. The curtains and heartthrob hairstyles are part of that trend. Long straight hair was a rockstar kind of hairstyle in the 90s, so grunge hairstyles are low maintenance and easy to achieve if you have naturally straight hair.
