Scissors can be sharpened and you probably have something in your home that you can use to make better cuts!

Sharpen the beveled side of your scissors and hone by snipping the scissors together, they are self steeling! The best methods for sharpening scissors are on diamond or ceramic plates or rods, or fine belt sharpeners like the Work Sharp Original Knife and Tool Sharpener.

If you don’t have these tools you can use a honing rod or even a piece of hardened steel like a drill bit. The concept of sharpening is the same as a single-bevel blade… you maintain the angle the manufacturer put on it.

Like knives, scissors have varying angles, from 0 degree (such as children’s safety scissors) to 25 degrees (such as delicate specialty kitchen scissors). The typical scissor blade angle will be somewhere between 40-45 degrees.

Once you’ve established your angle, sharpen like you would any balde until you raise a burr on the non-beveled side. Swipe the burr off with a cermaic rod or honing steel and then check the pass-through of the scissors as they open and shut. They might have drifted during the dulling process if the edges forces each other out.

Shop our best sharpeners with angle guides for scissors: