Image from Joe Leland
Unfortunately, many men today are missing out on the benefits of having a regular barber. As the barbershop tradition has faded, modern men just end up going to the closest unisex salon to get their hair cut. And each time they get they go, they end up with a different stylist and are forced to explain over and over again how they’d like it done. But “a little off the sides” means one thing to one stylist and another thing to another stylist. Stylists also have the tendency (in my experience) to try to correct what they see as mistakes that a previous barber/stylist made. Consequently, a man who goes to a unisex chain salon walks out with a completely different haircut at each visit. Not a good thing if you’re trying to maintain a consistent image.
Every man needs a reliable, skilled barber in his life. Having a regular barber will ensure that you get a consistent, sharp haircut with every visit. You can go in for a trim before a big interview without gambling on whether or not you’ll come out looking like you were attacked by a weed whacker.
Good barbers have a memory like an elephant. As you visit a first rate barber regularly, he’ll become familiar with the many contours of your head and the complexities of your hair and will know how to cut and style your hair just the way you like it. You’ll be able to walk in and simply ask for “the usual.” Plus, your barber can become a good friend, someone you can be comfortable shooting the breeze with and look forward to seeing every few weeks.
But how does a man go about forging this important relationship and finding a good barber? How do you know when a barber is a keeper? To help steer you in the right direction, I called up The Gent’s Place in Frisco, TX and talked to Ben Davis, the owner, and his master barber with 20+ years experience, Von Jackson.
Before You Enter the Shop
Ask around. If you’re new in town or aren’t happy with your current barber situation, the first thing you should do is ask people you know for recommendations. Especially seek out recommendations from men who always seem to have awesome haircuts. Chances are they have a great barber that they’d be more than happy to recommend to you.
Search online. After asking people you know for barber recommendations, check out what the hive mind of the web has to say. In order to find more masculine establishments as opposed to foo-fooey unisex places, Ben and Von suggested that you run Google searches with keywords like “men’s grooming in x-city” or “barbershops in x-town.” Also, check out barbershop reviews on sites like citysearch.com and yelp.com. Finally, be sure to take a gander at the AoM’s world famous barbershop locator. Hundreds of shops have been added to it and the database grows daily.
When You’re at the Shop
Look for confidence. This is a man you’re going to be trusting your noggin to, so you want a barber who’s supremely confident in his abilities to sculpt your hair into a masterpiece. Confident barbers will look you in the eye, smile, and give you a firm manly handshake when you first walk in. If a barber you visit for the first time avoids eye contact and gives you the limp fish, it could be a warning sign that he’s not that confident in his abilities.
You also want a barber who can confidently tell you what would work best for you depending on your requests and your face shape and structure. Barbers without much experience or confidence in their craft will do exactly what the client says, even if what the client asks for will look like crap. A good barber will have the stones to speak up and offer suggestions to the client to help guide them to something more suited for their face. Of course, if the client insists on his crappy cut, a good barber will do exactly what the client asks.
Check how well groomed the barber is. Give a new barber the once over. How is his personal grooming? Chances are if the barber has a crummy haircut and shave, he gives crummy haircuts and shaves. How is his clothing? Pressed and clean? This kind of attention to detail will likely carry over into the haircuts he gives. A great barber takes his personal appearance seriously because he’s in the business of helping men with their personal and professional image.
Take note of the shop’s cleanliness. If just looking in a certain shop makes your head itch, turn and walk the other way. Of course, most city health regulations have eliminated the “lice shops” that were once common in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but sometimes shops get lost in the bureaucracy, so it’s better to be safe than sorry.
In addition to the checking how sanitary the place is, just look for overall organization and order. Again, a barber with an eye for detail will make sure his shop and working area are in tiptop shape. If you notice that a barber has tools all over the place and mounds of hair under the chair, that kind of sloppiness may end up reflected in your hair cut.
Does the barber ask the right questions? When you sit down in the barber chair and the barber puts the hair drape around your neck, listen to see if the barber asks the right questions. Davis says if the first question the barber asks you is, “What number do you want on the sides?” run out of the shop immediately. Barbers who rely solely on clipper guards to cut hair tend to be lazy and unskilled. Besides, haircuts done with just clippers tend to be mediocre. I mean, come on. You can give yourself a haircut if you know what number guard to put on the clippers. Why pay a man $10 to do something you could do yourself?
Jackson says a good barber will ask you questions like, “What do you like about your hair?” “What don’t you like?” “Do you want to change your style?”
Does the barber ask for feedback during the cut? During the haircut, a good barber will stop and ask you for feedback. They’ll let you look in a mirror and ask if your hair is still too long or if your hairline’s shape on the back of your neck is to your suiting. By asking for constant feedback during the haircut, a good barber can preempt any haircut disasters. Bad barbers, of course, won’t ask you for feedback until they swivel you around in the chair to look in the mirror. By then it’s too late. You’re destined to walk the streets looking like a doofus until your next haircut.
Conduct an interview. When you visit a new barber, he’s applying for a new position as the go-to man for all your grooming needs. As with hiring any new employee, make sure to conduct a solid interview in order to get a feel for whether he’s the right man for the job. Davis suggested that your questions focus on two areas: the barber’s experience and the barber’s personality.
To get an idea of the barber’s experience, ask him how long he’s been cutting hair and where he’s barbered. If he’s a relative noob, tread carefully. Unless you’re willing to be this man’s practice head, find a barber with more experience. Also, Davis suggested that you ask the barber how busy he is. Great barbers have lots of clients. If he tells you he’s on his feet from open until close and that you need an appointment to see him, you’ve probably found yourself a quality barber. If he says that he spends most of his time playing checkers with the local crazy person and that you can walk in anytime, well, there’s probably a reason for that.
After you get an idea about his experience and how in demand he is, ask some questions to get a feel for his personality. After all, you’ll possibly be spending 30 minutes with this person at least once a month, maybe more if you go in every two weeks. Part of the appeal of the barbershop tradition is the camaraderie men enjoy there. If your personality clashes with the barber’s, it can suck all the joy out of getting a haircut.
Davis also recommend taking mental notes on any clues about the barber’s personal life. Barbers and hair stylists are notorious for having a lot of drama in their lives. If they say stuff about switching shops because they didn’t get along with the owner or they’re having lots of family problems, this is a warning sign that you won’t be able to count on them. Barbers with lots of drama in their lives have a tendency to cancel or show up late for appointments. Eventually, they end up leaving and have to go to another shop. Even if the barber cuts hair like a genius, it might be more trouble than it’s worth to fit your schedule around a barber’s personal turmoil. Go with someone more reliable.
Start out slow. Of course once you’ve gone in and talked to a barber, even if you’re feeling like he’s not the right guy for the job, it’s hard just to get up and walk out. And even if you’re thinking that a new barber fits the bill, you won’t know for sure until he cuts your hair. The best way to figure out how skilled the barber is without risking a dopey hair cut is to simply ask that he clean up your hair line around your ear and your neck. It’s hard too screw up and even if he does, it’s not too noticeable. Just from the 10 to 15 minutes you’re with him and the quality of the trim, you should be able to get a good idea if the barber is a keeper or not.
Any other tips on picking a good barber? Share them with us in the comments.
Big thanks to Ben Davis and Von Jackson at The Gents Place for allowing me to interview them and for their great tips. If you’re in the Dallas area, be sure to stop by The Gent’s Place barbershop for a guaranteed good haircut.
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Sadly, my hair is a bit of a rat’s nest at the moment. I’m not happy with my current barber and am likely to be forced the unisex salon route. A year ago, though… now THAT was a different time!
I had the World’s Greatest Barber: George Tomasic of Tar Heel Barber. The man was brilliant. He knew everything there was to know about the art of cutting hair and the even more subtle art of conversation. Whatever your preference, he was engaged, interested and able to dive right in: politics, technology, sports, business. Anything.
He died last January two weeks after taking his last appointment. He wouldn’t put down his scissors until he was too weak to stand. The reaper had to fight him to take him and I do believe the reaper would think twice if he had to face George again!
So this is my little tribute to George: a Man’s Man and World’s Greatest Barber. You are still missed!
http://www.chapelhillnews.com/news/story/38797.html
Some of my first memories, and definitely some of my best memories happened in the kind of barber shops that are steadily disappearing. My favorite Barber story is about the man who use to cut my hair as a kid. His name was Trenny. He lost his leg in the war and had a prosthetic, but when he was in the war he was coming home on a train when a customs guy stopped him and proceeded to arrest him in Spanish. Trenny, being Mexican, obliged the man and tried to tell the man, in Spanish, that he was in the Army and not an illegal immigrant. The man wouldn’t listen and took him to the station. While in the station the officer was talking to another officer about Trenny in English. He wasn’t saying very nice things about him. Trenny looked at the guy and said in perfect English, “You know I speak English and I understand what your saying.” The officer, dumbfounded, said to him, “Well if you speak English why didn’t you say so?” Trenny looked at him and said, “well you were doing such a good job in Spanish I didn’t want to discourage you.” Trenny you will be missed.
Many years ago I frequented a traditional “two chair” barber shop in Chicago. The old Italian barber was classic – straight edge around the ears, lather and talc on the neck, the whole bit. The only problem was that I don’t think he could see very well anymore and thus gave a pretty bad haircut. I’d have to have my wife cut the parts he’d missed when I got home. So after a dozen or so bad cuts, I began to lurk outside the shop, peeking into the window until the older barber was busy and the younger barber was free. Sometimes I’d go weeks without getting a haircut at all! The shop has long since become a taco stand and I moved away, but I’ll always remember the shop fondly.
A barber just opened up within walking distance of my workplace. He’s been cutting hair for years and just decided to venture out on his own. Anyway, he did a great job! He used clippers AND a comb on the sides and scissors on the top. Doesn’t look “bowlish” in anyway. And it was cheaper ($15 compared to $20 plus)!
p.s. One of my ex-girlfriend’s usually cuts my hair and does a great job too. However, sometimes it looks better than others.
I have recently discovered the joys of going to a barber shop when I was the best man in a wedding. The groom took all of the groomsmen to his barber shop in Waynesboro Virginia. It was my first time in a good barber shop (I was in one that should have been called a butcher shop in west virginia once). The barber looking at my head was able to tell me what I wanted before I could tell him. He used clippers on the sides and scissors on top and the crowning moment was the hot towel, hot lather and straight razor on my neck and sideburns followed up by a brushing of talc. It was fantastic. Needless to say my next haircut at Super-cuts was disappointing and I have now been searching for a good barber in my area. Anyone know of a good barber in Pennsylvania in the Valley Forge area? Possibly the Blue Bell Area too.
A couple months ago I learned the value of a good barber. One of the barbers at my regular shop just retired, and the only good barber left in the shop is pretty slow, so I thought “why not try out a salon for a change?” Big mistake. I get my hair cut pretty short…it’s cut to about 1/8 of an inch and I let it grow for about a month before the next cut, so it’s never very long. The barbers at my regular shop generally cut it almost entirely with clippers (without guards…they NEVER use guards) and I like the way it comes out.
Well, the stylist at the salon immediately tells me “I don’t use the clippers very much. What size guard do I use?” I should have left the chair immediately, but I went through with it. She cut my hair all over with one guard and it wasn’t short enough. So she had to cut it again with the smallest guard she had and it still wasn’t short enough. It looked like it had been growing for a week already. She left the front longer than the top when it should’ve been the same length. She didn’t taper the sides. She just barely tapered the back, and only after I made her do it. I wasn’t the least bit happy with it when she was done, but I wasn’t in the mood to sit there and try to tell her how to do it right, so I paid and left. I went back to my regular barber shop 2 weeks later and this time, I didn’t care how slow the barber was. It didn’t take any longer than instructing the stylist at the salon, and it came out looking exactly the way I wanted it. I just hope this barber doesn’t retire any time soon.
The problem I run into today is not having any barber shops in my area. Sound crazy? I’m in the Army, stationed in Germany and right now in Iraq. The “barbers” here are from India (I think) or locals brought in to cut our hair. You can’t tell them what you want, there’s no conversation and in the end they’re just trying to get as many people through as they can. The barber shops in Germany aren’t much better-high turnover rate of cutters, and the only real barber is always booked out. I remember visiting Red’s barber shop in Corpus Christi TX when I was in high school. I didn’t know at the time, but those were the best haircuts I would ever get. Maybe I should look into opening a traditional barber shop in Germany!
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