One Bourbon, One Scotch, and One OOPS!

One thing that I really love about the barber life is that we deal with real life, both the ups and the downs. I often tell people in the chair that they can be open with me and tell me what’s going on in their lives… it’s the “hairapist” side of what we do.

A couple weeks ago, one of my clients called and said “hey, I really gotta come in tonight, can you fit me in?”

He liked to wear his hair about a medium length, and when he came in the door, everything seemed to be okay… then he took off his hat and I saw the other side of his head…

Well, he had been to a party the night before… you probably already know where this is going.

He had tried to trim his own hair with a pair of clippers. Now if you’re not familiar with how haircuts work, clippers are usually used for short haircuts, or for the back and sides of medium-length haircuts and/or certain styles.

He had shaved nearly the entire right side of his head down to 1/4 inch. This length isn’t necessarily a disaster on its own. I cut several styles which do the same thing and leave the hair longer on top. However, he had cut it up nearly to the top of his head, so it was going to take some work to even things out and make it look right, albeit a different style, but not too big of a change. Within a few weeks, his hair would grow back to his original style.

…and then I saw the rest of the story… He had also cut a stripe into the back of his head at about 1/16 of an inch, which changed the whole picture, and I was going to have to get creative.

The good news was that he hadn’t gone any shorter in that section, and that he hadn’t gone any further up than he had, so I was able to bring the whole bottom section down to the same length and blend most of his head up to the length of the longer cut that he had put in.

The bad news is that he had gone up so high on the side that I had to reduce the length everywhere on top and match the other side, and his hair was thinning out toward the top of his head’s back side (which was a big part of why he kept it long to help cover it).

We ended up with a young athletic style cut in a way in which we can guide his style back to where it was originally and minimize the awkward stage that occurs when someone with short hair decided to grow it out.

The big takeaway from all this is that when it comes to hair, mistakes get made. And in most cases, it can be overcome and the person can have their original style back before too awfully long. Sometimes, it will need some guidance and maintenance along the way, but it can be done.