The ideal length of the back of any man’s hair should just reach the third vertebra on his thoracic spine. That’s the T3, for my fellow doctors out there. Not your T2, not your T4, and definitely not your T5. You’re not the Feral Kid from Mad Max 2.

If you don’t already know exactly where that is—and you should!—just use your fingers to count the nubs on the back of your neck. If you can’t feel any nubs, that means you need to get your out-of-shape neck to the gym immediately.

Now, I can’t emphasize this enough: it’s very important to get this length exactly, precisely right. I’ve personally conducted dozens of in-depth scientific experiments to get the perfect length of the male mullet for critical mullet-utilizing actions, including:

1. a) whipping the ends of your hair in your enemy’s face right after you make a witty comeback in an argument
2. b) proper flow and waviness when dancing to “Poison” by Bell Biv DeVoe
3. c) covering your eyes during a nap
4. d) hiding essential items behind your neck, like a switchblade comb, a zip gun, or the keys to your Lamborghini Diablo
5. e) world domination

2. Conditioner

The right conditioner is essential for maintaining an elite level of shine, sparkle, richness, and texture in your mullet. It might look to you like my hair is pure, jet-black beauty. But the truth is it’s actually a thousand different shades of black. Some layers of my hair are onyx black, some are ebony black, some are charcoal black. Some are slate black, some are carbon black, some are coal black. Some are Vantablack, some are licorice black, some are blackness-of-space black. Some are black-hole black, and some are just really, really, really, really, really dark black.

There’s also black-leather-jacket black, and black-pearl black, and black-mirror black. And blackstrap-molasses black, and squid-ink black, and storm-cloud black, and night-shadow black.

Like a million different facets of a thousand-carat black diamond, they are all layered and intertwined and cascading in a perfect symphony of liquid perfection.

And the conductor of that symphony? The conductor is my conditioner: Pert Plus.

It is actually a shampoo-conditioner combo, so it saves me five minutes in the shower every morning.

Pert Plus has this priceless, secret, all-natural ingredient you can only find in the most hidden depths of the rain forests of South America, called dihydrogenated tallowamidoethyl hydroxyethylmonium methosulfate. I’m pretty sure it was discovered by Magellan in, like, some rare Tibetan water lily. Then Pert Plus bought up the world’s supply.

Every morning, smear that green, gooey goop into that scalp of yours, work it into a rich, hydrating, foamy lather, and watch while Pert Plus and its precious dihydrogenated tallowamidoethyl hydroxyethylmonium methosulfate clean and condition and highlight every single shade of luminous, glorious, sackcloth-sun black, volcanic-sand black, wetsuit black, or Vulcan-zombie black in your hair.