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I hate going to the barber.
I understand for some people there is this amazing bond, where the act of having someone fiddle with your hair opens the sluice gates for all manner of intimate secrets and matey banter.
But whenever I sit in the barber’s chair, staring challengingly at my own reflection, my natural reaction is to close my eyes and drift off, until the obligatory moment when I must inspect the back of my head.
“Ta da!” the barber seems to say, as they hold up the mirror for me to admire their handiwork.
“Cracking” is the only real response. “That looks nice and even. Nice one.”
But in fact, I haven’t been to a barber for around three years now. I prefer the comfort of my own bathroom, where I can be found at appropriate intervals with my own sympathetically-lit mirror; my own clippers and scissors in hand.
The first few times I started out the easy way, just giving it a fairly short crop with clippers (£20 max - but paying for themselves within a couple of cuts), using a number three all over.
However, as my hair is somewhat fine and straight, having it very short does tend to make me look 13, so I branched out. Leaving it a little longer on top, sweeping it to the side, or messily chopping into the whole lot; the good news is you can’t do wrong these days. If it looks awful, it’s probably just very trendy indeed.
And in these hard times of shallow pockets and - mercifully - anything-goes hairstyles, I can claim my aversion to the barbershop experience is a clever new way of saving money, like all those endless tips suggesting you cut out the daily latte to become a millionaire by the end of the year.
Cost cutting
While I found it much more interesting to learn for myself by trial and error, some may not like the sound of this. If you ask me, it’s pretty simple really; don’t hack off too much in one go, use sharp scissors and if you are trying something beyond a simple crew cut, enlist the help of someone else to get a second opinion.
If you feel you need some pointers, there is plenty of help online, but it’s much more fun to find your own style (both in terms of the end product, and the cutting itself).
In fact, recently my father was so happy with the level of proficiency I had reached with the BaByliss in hand, he entrusted his head to my artistic whim.
And then gave me a fiver, so it couldn’t have been all bad.
IMAGE by Flickr user batega
