20 Easy Medium Length Haircuts | Low Maintenance, Too!

What’s the most versatile, simplest look to style? That would be medium length haircuts – low maintenance looks that won’t require an hour of styling to look amazing. We’re big on cuts with built-in style so you can spend less time messing with it. 

Certain medium length cuts are snipped strategically to encourage your strands to lay just right without help from heat styling or blowouts. See the best medium length haircuts with low maintenance to free up your time without sacrificing style in our guide!

Medium Length Haircuts: Low Maintenance, No Fuss, & Built-In Style

Before we check out the best medium length cuts to keep things simple, let’s talk about why these types of cuts can be a busy woman’s saving grace. We’re not even exaggerating.

Here’s why you need to look for an easy-peasy, medium length look for your next cut:

• The shape and style is built into the cut. If you have to spend 30 minutes or more styling your hair in the morning, your cut is making things harder than they need to be. Medium length cuts with the proper shaping and layers will have the style built right in, meaning they’ll work with your mane (not against it) to lay properly and adopt a flattering shape and style without much input from you. 
• Hair challenges are managed with strategic shaping. Medium length haircuts’ low maintenance means the most annoying things about your strands (like bulky/thin areas, flat zones on top, or wonky waves/curls) are handled with the basic shape and layering of the cut. You’ll tell your stylist what makes styling your hair a challenge, and these cuts will enable them to manage those issues with strategic layers and shaping. You’ll spend less time fighting your hair and wake up with ready-to-rock styles that automatically fall into place. 
• You’ll need fewer trims and salon visits. If you don’t like booking monthly or bi-monthly salon appointments to keep your cut looking great, low maintenance medium length haircuts will be so liberating. The right layers and an in-between medium length work together to camouflage grown-out strands, split ends, and breakage that can naturally occur between trims. Rocking these types of cute cuts lets you minimize your salon visits without showing the usual wear and tear of higher-maintenance looks (like blunt bobs). 
• You’ll find ultra-flattering looks for your face shape. Choosing a medium length haircut of the low maintenance variety doesn’t mean it’s a “one size fits all” deal. You’ll be able to pick a cut that’s tailored to your face shape and hair type so it’s super flattering and highlights your best features. Medium length is universally flattering for all face shapes, and you’ll find lots of different cut shapes that are designed to look amazing on your specific face shape and hair type. 
• It’s a healthier option for your mane. While high-maintenance cuts can certainly be cute, they can result in a lot of damage if you need to heat style your hair daily to achieve the look you’re going for. By choosing strategically shaped and layered cuts with style built right in, you’ll be able to air dry your hair with amazing results and reduce the damage to your strands. 

Healthier strands, wash-and-go styles, and easy-breezy looks that flatter your face with the perfect shape? We’re in! See 20 of our favorite medium length haircuts, low maintenance and super simple to care for, next. 

20 Best Medium Length Haircuts: Low Maintenance, Flattering, & Easy to Style

These are the best medium length haircuts with low maintenance, flattering shapes for your hair type and face shape, and easy, air-dryable styles that keep your mane healthy.

1. Short-Layered Ends With French Bangs

Thick, straight hair needs a little shaping and direction from the cut to become truly low-maintenance. Softly blended French bangs (angled bottleneck bangs that graze the eyes and cheekbones) pull the look together, while short layering at the ends tapers the fullness of thick hair for a less bulky look. 

This softly shaped cut has the style built in with purposeful layers and flattering bangs, so it’s a great candidate for air drying and minimal styling. We love how this cut looks on all face shapes, and it’s especially great on round and oval faces. 

2. Medium Length With Razored Ends & Soft Side Bangs

Fine, thin hair with straight texture needs some extra shaping from a medium length cut to be wash-and-go ready. Razoring the ends will take away some of the fullness from the bottom of the cut, but that makes it faster-drying and easier to air dry with a gorgeous shape. 

The fullness up top adds a boost of volume and soft, slide-cut bangs perfectly highlight the cheekbones. Ladies with round, heart, square, and oval faces will love how this cut sculpts and slims the face. 

3. Simple Layered Graduated Bob

This medium length graduated bob is a little shorter in the back with layers that add volume and oomph without teasing. Long, sliced layers throughout help bring out any trace of wave in barely-wavy hair and form alluring curves at the ends in naturally straight hair.  

Slide-cut long bangs shape themselves so all you have to do is draw your part line and tousle it with some mousse while it’s damp after washing. This cut works beautifully well on all face shapes – square, heart, oval, and round. 

4. Shaped Bob With French Bangs & Tucked Ends

A bob that’s shaped for fullness at the bottom can be very flattering on heart and oval faces, especially with gorgeously casual French bangs to frame the face.

This low-maintenance cut is slide-cut at the ends to encourage the hair to curl and tuck under, hiding grown-out strands and keeping the style looking polished. The long, brow-grazing bangs will be the highest-maintenance part of this cut.

And if you’re comfortable working on your own bangs, it’s easy to trim off small amounts in between salon visits. French bangs can easily be grown out into the shape of the bob, pushed over to the sides as they grow down over your eyes. 

5. Jaw Length Bob With Wavy Swoop Bangs

Choosing a jaw-length haircut will make mornings oh-so simple! You can easily rock your natural texture, but heat styling doesn’t take long on shorter medium lengths like this. Slide-cut side bangs form a cute swoop shape to look perfectly styled, even when air-dried. 

Part your hair to the side to make this look come together easily. The brow-length side bangs really open up the eyes and accentuate your cheekbones. This cut is perfect for oval, heart, and square face shapes. 

6. Medium Sleek Lob With Messy Bang & Tapered Ends

Fine or thin straight hair works really well in softly blended, sleek styles like this shoulder-length lob. Use layers to shape the front and gently blend the hair rather than to remove bulk or fullness.

Messy, lash-skimming bangs across the forehead bring the look together and give it a casual vibe. 

This haircut is universally flattering on all face shapes, from oval to square. The shoulder length makes it very simple to style and the point-cut, piece-y bangs will air dry into their intended shape with ease. 

7. Choppy Layered Wavy Lob

Layers can completely transform the shape of a haircut and make it much easier to maintain. These freeform, choppy layers really taper and shape this cut in a way that helps disguise grown-out lengths, split ends, and breakage for longer time between trims. 

It’s a really flattering way to frame an oval or round face at this length.

Slightly shorter, it would be great for square and heart-shaped faces. Wavy hair can be air dried, but to achieve this voluminous look, you’ll need to heat style with a curling iron. 

8. Shoulder-Skimming Blunt Lob With Long Layered Bangs

Blunt bobs and lobs aren’t typically low-maintenance since strands grow at different rates and the blunt shape requires more frequent trims. But starting out with a blunt shape and long, layered bangs can minimize the grown-out look and keep this style nicely shaped for a few months. 

Embrace the tousled look at the ends as your hair grows to make it truly low maintenance, giving the cut a more lived-in, casual look. The long layered bangs will blend into the length as they grow, but if you love how they sculpt your face, it’s easy to keep them trimmed! 

9. Shoulder Length With Slide-Cut Side Bangs

This is a beautiful medium length, low maintenance option for women with thick, straight hair. You need a little shaping around the face, which slide-cut side bangs perfectly accomplish.

The cheekbone length visually sculpts and slims the face, while the fullness at the ends gives the cut a dense, healthy appearance. The ends in this cut are pretty blunt with a little point-cutting for a hint of texture.

You can go with more layers for a messier, tousled look if you prefer. In any case, this is a great option for oval, heart, and square faces that want some extra fullness on the sides. 

10. Tousled Point-Cut Collarbone Length Lob

If lots of layers isn’t really your thing (or you want to preserve your hair’s fullness), this easy cut is perfect. It’s best on straight or slightly wavy textures, as the lack of layering can leave too much bulk on the sides with highly textured hair. 

You do get the benefit of shorter face-framing pieces to accentuate your jawline – making this look an amazing fit on all face shapes. The collarbone-grazing length is universally flattering. 

11. Wavy Shoulder-Skimming Layered Lob

Thick, wavy hair can be a beast to tame, but the right cut makes it simple. This layered shoulder-skimming lob removes a lot of the bulk from the bottom of the cut and creates a full, flattering shape around the face. 

The bangs are left long (less for you to style) and the look is styled with a side part for a fast, casual look that’s easily air dried. It’s perfect for square, heart, and oval face shapes. 

12. Long Layered Shag With Natural Waves

The shag haircut is a great low maintenance, medium length haircut. It’s packed with choppy layers that break up the length and keep the strands on top lightweight for extra movement and wave in naturally wavy hair. 

This cut can help bring out and accentuate barely-there waves or shape more defined waves. Short layers begin high up below the crown to give even air-dried styles a tousled, messy-casual shape that’s very flattering on round, oval, and square faces. 

13. Wavy Tapered Length With Curvy Side Bangs

If you’re rocking natural waves with lots of body, your hair only needs a little guidance through layering and shaping to fall into gorgeous styles naturally.

A long side-swept bang slide-cut with scissors will naturally curve into a flattering shape, while heavy layering and tapering down the length of the cut will remove unwanted bulk and weight from the ends. 

You get lightweight, bouncy waves with this easy wash-and-go cut. It’s also super simple to heat style with thinner ends that create less work for you! With less bulk and weight around the midshaft to ends, the look is perfect for round, oval, and square faces. 

14. One-Length Tousled Waves With Layered Ends

Heavily layered styles do help disguise grown-out length and weathered ends in between trims, but they can lose their shape over time as the layers grow out. Try this one-length shoulder-skimming lob for a grow-out proof, simple style that keeps its shape longer. 

The ends are point-cut for an irregular, lived-in look that’s not as severe as a blunt cut. Skip bangs and face-framing pieces to keep styling to an absolute minimum and let your natural texture shine. 

15. Midi Length With Soft, Blended Layers

Midi length cuts are in between medium and long, offering a great option for women who don’t want to part with much length for their low-maintenance style.

Soft layers skim around the face for added lightness and shape, while long, blended layers through the midshaft to ends remove bulk and create a sleeker silhouette. 

Wavy texture hides grown-out ends and makes it easier to postpone trims, but straight hair can easily adopt this cut, too. It looks great on round, oval, and square face shapes. 

16. Voluminous Shoulder-Length Bob With Short Layers

The short layers begin near the ends in this low-maintenance haircut, which enhances the thickness and fullness of strands and won’t leave you with a stringy, thinned-out look.

Choppy, short layers stack up to create extra volume around the bottom, which is spot-on for an oval or heart face shape. 

As the short layers grow out, the cut will adopt a less full, but still flattering silhouette. You’ll only need trims to keep it in the medium length range every 4-6 months. 

17. Medium Length Angle-Tapered Curls 

When you’re cutting curls, it’s really important where the cuts are made within the curl pattern to ensure a neat, well-defined result.

This angle-tapered cut keeps the fullness of the curls on top and around the midshaft level, tapering off to thinner points at the ends for a little face-slimming magic. It’s very easy to keep a cut like this shaped and maintained.

It’ll hold its shape well as your hair grows longer, though you may want to go in for trims to keep the areas of fullness at the most flattering point for your face shape. We love this cut on oval, heart, and square face shapes. 

18. Shoulder-Length Curls With Tapered Ends & Face-Framing Layers

Shorter layers around the face prevent big, bouncy curls from overtaking your face and obscuring your best features. Aim for layers around your cheeks if you have an oval or square face – round and heart-shaped faces look best with layers that begin around the cheekbones. 

Tapered curls are thinner at the bottom to remove some extra bulk and weight. This makes curls more defined and a little bouncier without the extra weight. 

19. Medium-Length Tapered Curls With Layers

Layering ultra-curly or coily hair can give you the dreaded “shelf” look if not done properly, so be picky about who cuts your mane! Soft, strategic layers in very curly hair will taper the length with shorter layers on top and longer layers toward the ends.

This removes heavy bulk from the bottom of the cut and breathes new life into curls for added bounce and body. 

Skip bangs for the easiest low-maintenance look with curly hair. Choose a deep side part to achieve flattering volume on top and show off the tapered layers! This look works well with oval, square, and heart face shapes.

20. Medium Length With Wavy Blended Layers

Blended layers require stylist skill and expertise, but when they’re done properly, they really elevate a medium-length cut. These layers are thinner at the ends so they lay beautifully without showing choppy, ragged edges. 

Paired with waves (natural or heat-styled), they give the cut a seamless, lightweight look that looks great with a trendy middle part. Forego bangs to make maintenance less bothersome and style the face-framing pieces away from your face for a look that’s very flattering on all face shapes. 

Tips and Things to Consider

Of all the characteristics you can look for in medium length haircuts, low maintenance is one of the most important. Precision cuts and blunt cuts are great, but they’ll result in more salon visits, more money spent, and more time styling each day. 

Embracing perfectly shaped and layered midi haircuts that don’t need as much maintenance is so much easier! Here are a few tips and things to consider before you get your next haircut. 

• Know when it’s time for maintenance. Low-maintenance doesn’t mean no maintenance! Know when it’s time for a trim or a little shaping and your cut will keep the most flattering silhouette. If you have long bangs (much lower maintenance than short or blunt bangs), you’ll likely need a trim every 2 months or so. If you can learn to trim your bangs at home, it can make things easier! You’ll know it’s time for a length trim when your ends start looking stringy, noticeably uneven, or split. 
• Minimize heat styling to keep ends healthy. If you find yourself needing trims more often due to split, weathered ends or breakage, you may want to minimize how often you heat style. Heat damage disproportionately affects your ends, which are the oldest part of your hair. Air dry whenever possible (these layered cuts are built for it!), and if you must heat style, leave your ends out if you can. You’ll be able to postpone trims longer and keep your mane looking full and healthy. 
• All layers are not created equally. Anyone can cut layers, but you’ll find that not all layers are cut in a way that grows out beautifully. Look for a stylist who can create artful, blended layers that won’t look stringy as they grow out. You’ll be able to enjoy your cut longer in between trims and have an easier time styling your layers each day. 
• If you’re trimming at home, get the right supplies. One way to make any haircut lower maintenance is to do your own trims at home. We don’t recommend this for heavily layered cuts, which can quickly end up a chaotic mess. But it can work well for lightly layered cuts as long as you have the right shears. Kitchen scissors and cheap shears aren’t sharp enough to cut cleanly, so invest in a good pair of shears and keep them sharp for the best results. 
• Style your hair while you sleep. You can make any haircut require less effort by relying on overnight styles that literally style your hair while you sleep. After a shower, you can arrange your hair in rolls, coils, or braids that will create beautiful waves or curls the next day. Check out some of our favorite overnight styles with these 2 guides: 10 Hottest TikTok Hair Trends and Best Heatless Curls Methods to Try.

Which Low-Maintenance Medium-Length Hairstyle Is Your Favorite?

Our favorite medium length haircuts are low maintenance, flattering, and perfectly layered and shaped to highlight your best features. Which cuts caught your eye and seem like a good fit for your face shape and hair type?

Featuring blended, soft layers to messy, choppy layers and lengths from the jawline to past the collarbone, medium length haircuts are one of the most universally flattering.

By getting a cut with built-in shape and style, you’ll find that you need less time to style your hair and fewer trims in between to keep it looking great. Check out more medium length haircuts and styles here: 30 Medium Length Hairstyles to Try.

If you’re not quite sure which length or haircut would work best for your face shape and hair type, head over to What Haircut Should I Get (Women)? | All Face Types next!