The "right" kind of scissors
posted on:This is part of IndieWeb Carnival July 2024 on the topic of Tools.
I'm a lefty. When I was in kindergarten, my teacher there wanted me to use lefty scissors. I refused. Vehemently. Why, I am not sure. I was a weird kid. Maybe because I was extremely uncomfortable when being the centre of attention, and walking through the whole building to another group to get special scissors was too much attention for my taste and it was freaking me out. Plus, while the handles on righty scissors are coloured the same, the ones on lefty scissors are each a different colour. One could argue that that made them way cooler, but for me this felt like a stigma. Though I never found my being left handed to be a stigma. I've always been ok, if not proud about it. At least that's how I remember it. I told you I was weird kid. I also remember that when my kindergarten teacher showed me those stupid lefty scissors I had already learned how to use scissors: righty scissors in my left hand. It worked. Why in the world would I need those other ones?
Oh, stupid ignorant 5 year old me! Yes, I could cut shapes out, but it was never something I was really precise at. How could I've been? The way the blades are arranged in righty scissors, you can only see where you cut on the left side of the blades. As a lefty, cutting precisely is uncomfortable and unnecessarily complicated that way.
My scissors epiphany finally came a few years ago. I had gotten into stationery and journaling and wanted to cut out characters and flowers and other images on PET tapes or from magazine pages. My skills with the righty scissors finally reached their boundaries. I just couldn't easily and comfortably cut around sharp angles, I often even cut into the image I wanted to free of exess material!
So after decades of using scissors, I bought my first lefty scissors: A tonic studios Tim Holtz 7" Micro Serrated Titanium Snip. What a revelation! It took a while of getting used to. At first it was like I had to re-learn how to use scissors. And I actually had to! You have to hold the scissors at a different angle, and instead of craining your neck to the outside, i.e. the left side of your scissiors, your eyes are now on the other side, to the right of the blades. But the reward is priceless: I can finally cut out any shape I want easily, comfortably, and precisely.
There are lefty produts out there, that are unnecessary at best. But lefty scissors are not that. If you use your left hand for cutting, do yourself a favour and use lefty scissors!
BTW, scissors that claim to be made for both left-handed and right-handed people, are not true lefty scissors. They merely have handles that are shaped to fit both hands. It's the position of the blades that make scissors right- or left-handed. With lefty scissors it's the left hand blade that goes up when you open the scissors. With righy scissors it's the right hand blade that goes up.
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