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Like his badass mentor, Mike Ross’ hair is a distinctive part of his style and personality, and constantly evolves throughout the entirety Suits.
Consequently, in line with his character progression as a lawyer, what started as messy bed head from someone unsure of the legal world, became neater, more professional, and ‘proper’.
Read on to check out all of Mike’s hairstyles from Suits, and how to get them!
Mike Ross’ Haircuts
Overview
Mike Ross’ haircut is usually short to medium length, with 1-2″ on top, and frequently resembles a ‘crew cut’ at varying levels of neatness. From season 6 onwards, Mike switches to a more formal medium length slicked back haircut, which has about 2.5″ on top.
This means that most of Mike’s haircuts are on the slightly more casual side, which, at points, could be considered scruffy. However, the short length is usually very practical, and when styled, professional.
On top of this, they all feature a matte finish, and a medium.
Mike Ross has three main hairstyles throughout the show:
Mike Ross’ Slicked Back Hair
- Name: Medium length slicked back hair.
- Shine: Natural
- Hold: Medium/High
- Length: Medium
- Formality: Medium
- Key Elements: The hair is completely swept back.
- Hair Type of Original Inspiration: Patrick J Adams looks to have fine hair.
- Essential Recommended Product: Natural shine & medium hold, such as Shear Revival’s Matte Paste.
In season 6, Mike adopts a medium hold, medium length, slick back hairstyle with a natural, matt finish.
It works with the professional attire of his suit, but is causal enough to work with his liberal character, and casual ensembles.
It varies slightly between two versions, one with a left sided part, and the other with a complete backwards slick.
How to Get Mike Ross’ Slicked Back Hair
The Cut
To get this look, you will want about 2-2.5″ on the top, and about 0.75″ on the sides and back. This creates a definite difference in length, which allows you to slick it back.
As per usual, when you have grown your hair out to these levels, I would recommend visiting your barber of a clean up session. There’s nothing too special about this hairstyle – it’s quite standard – so a regular neaten up, cutting around the ears, and cutting off any split ends, will suffice. Just make sure that the length and proportions are maintained.
The Styling
This is a pretty easy look to style.
- Wet your hair.
- If you are concerned about heat damage, apply a heat protectant product to your damp hair. Alternatively, if you would prefer a more casual look, you can try a sea salt spray, which will make your hair wavier.
- Slick your hair back with a hair brush, preferably one with spread apart legs. (I laughed out loud when I wrote this line)
- Activate your preferred styling product, by rubbing your hands together, heating it up.
- Apply your product to your hair by brushing your hair back with your fingers and hand, being sure to coat as much you can, and as evenly as possible.
- Blow dry your hair, using your fingers to push your hair backwards.
- For Mike’s completely slicked back haircut, you are complete – however, if you wish to add a slight part, use your fingers to naturally part your hair on the left side.
Recommended Products For This Look
This is a very natural hair style, so is product light. However, there is undoubtedly some product use here.
For products, you are going to want something with a matt to natural finish, and a medium hold – as you can see, the hair isn’t super glued down, and looks to have some natural volume. To maintain this bounciness, I would suggest a putty, fibre, or paste. I’m personally a fan of Shear Revival’s Matte Paste.
However, it is hard to tell what was used. Some of the fineness of his strands suggest it could be a matte pomade that was used, for which I’d recommend Lockhart’s Unorthodox Goon Grease.
AT AMAZON
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Mike Ross’ Season 3 Crew Cut Hairstyle
- Name: Crew Cut
- Shine: Low
- Hold: Low
- Length: Short
- Formality: Low to medium.
- Key Elements: The short length of the hair.
- Hair Type of Original Inspiration: Patrick J Adams looks to have fine hair.
- Essential Recommended Product: You could get away with no product here, as the hair is very short and manageable. However, for better texture like achieved in the show, I’d recommend Shear Revival’s Matte paste, or Da Dude’s Da Wax.
Though, unfortunately, his hair doesn’t stay like this for long, Mike Ross adopts a very short crew cut hairstyle throughout season three.
This is, in my opinion, his best haircut- it is neat, masculine, manageable, can really assume any formality level, and, of the three, I feel looks best on Patrick J Adams.
Towards the end of season three, his hair becomes more like his bed head look (mentioned next), but keeps the product from this style.
How to Get Mike Ross’ Season 3 Haircut
The Cut
To achieve this haircut, you need around 1″ on the top, and about 4.5mm on the sides and back (1.5 clipper length).
You will want your barber to cut your sides and back with clippers, and the top with scissors, perhaps asking them to add some texture, and taper in at the sides.
Unfortunately, as the length is so sort, you will have to visit your barber frequently for a tidy up to maintain the length.
The Styling
This look is super easy to style – the sides are short enough to see his scalp, which means you don’t have to worry about styling the sides and back.
As this haircut is so short, depending on how obedient your hair is, styling could be as easy as putting some product in your hair without any prior preparation, and spiking it upwards slightly. Or, even more annoyingly, it may be the case that your hair naturally looks good at this length!
However, for those of you like me who still need to tame your hair at this length:
- Wet your hair.
- Comb it forward, making sure it’s all going in the same direction.
- Blow or towel dry your hair – it shouldn’t take much effort to dry at this length.
- If you want, activate your preferred styling product by heating it up, and apply it to the front and sides of your hair, pushing forwards. Make sure to cover the whole follicle when applying.
- Ensure that you don’t overload your hair with product – for some finer hair types, applying even a little bit too much product will make your hair look greasy.
- You could try applying a little bit of product to you hair while it’s still damp, to see how your hair best responds.
Recommended Products For This Look
Though you could get away without using a product on the top, in the show, they look to be using a product with a low/medium shine, and a medium hold to keep the front of his hair turned up, and to add some texture. For this, I would recommend my ever faithful Da Wax, or Shear Revival Northern Lights Matte Paste.
AT AMAZON
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Mike Ross’ Bed Head
- Name: Bed Head
- Shine: Low
- Hold: Low, though somehow he has some crazy gravity in some of those strands.
- Length: Medium
- Formality: Very low – should be avoided.
- Key Elements: The messy nature of the front.
- Hair Type of Original Inspiration: Patrick J Adams looks to have fine hair.
- Essential Recommended Product: No product, though I think they’ve used some in the show, and just ruffled up his hair before he’s gone on camera.
Mike’s hair is in a bit of a state for the first few seasons, and adopts this ‘bed head’ look. It’s mainly to do with the lengthened sides, and untamed front.
Though, the sides look to be cut well, and layered nicely, so it’s more the styling that’s the problem, rather than the cut.
However, towards the end of season two, it starts to become slightly more styled, with the back being pushed downwards. It then soon moves into his season 3 crew cut hairstyle, as was discussed above.
Though some people manage to pull this sort of style off, I think a key point that makes this hair style informal and messy is that it looks like there’s been no effort put into it. I think Mike could have made this look good, and more deliberate, if he simply applied a bit of product to it, and spiked it forward and up, almost like Harvey’s Faux Hawk (which I’ve written a great post, on how to get!).
How to Get Mike Ross’ Bed Hair
The Cut
To get this Mike Ross haircut, you will require around 2″ of hair on the top, and about 1″ on the sides and back.
From the photos, it looks like Mike’s barber cuts his whole hair with scissors, though you could cut the sides with a lengthened number eight clipper guard. On top of this, his barber also cuts around his ears.
So, for this haircut, you should ask your barber to:
- Cut your hair with scissors to the required lengths
- Cut around your ears
The Styling
The one good thing about this hairstyle is that it doesn’t really need any styling!
However, if you’re anything like me, true bed hair is much more wild – I can get this look by wetting my hair to reset the follicles, and blow drying it backwards.
For those of you who are interested, the guys over at Slikhaair TV created a tutorial for a neater version of this hairstyle, which I would highly recommend:
The Low Down…
So, now you know how to obtain Mike Ross’ many haircuts.
But they might not be your style – I know for some, they can be a bit casual.
In that case, I would definitely recommend checking out my post which covers how to achieve Harvey Specter’s hairstyles, for more step-by-step tutorials on how to get your hair looking perfect, both casually and formally.
Mike Ross
It sure is!
You have no idea for how long I have been trying to get hairstyle #1 (I believe I saw it in Season 5), and every time I tell the barber, he messes up. Finally great exact advice! Thanks Luke
Thanks Bill, let’s hope you’ll be able to nail it this time! Let me know how it goes 🙂