You're here because you need a haircut, right? I get it. The process proves unnecessarily hard. And the anxiety involved in switching styles overwhelms even the coolest cat. Although the core styles haven't changed much since the early 20th century, icons aplenty can shift and reshape the status quo with a simple visit to their high-end salon. They'll leave with a gravity-defying haircut you envy, fetching camera-wielding paparazzi along the way.
And don't get me wrong, the captured celeb looks great. No matter the hairdo, it seems they can do no wrong. Publications suddenly proclaim the current moment the era of the upright bob — that's a fake haircut, but indulge me — and you're left wondering, "Why doesn't my hair look like that?" or "How do I even ask for that?" Stop that. Starting points abound and can act as a way forward toward your desired haircut. Using a classic style like a crew cut as the foundation, for example, one can tweak it a little to add edge or skew conservative.
Unless you're forced to abide by rigid grooming regulations – a la the military, although they've since adapted their code to include ponytails, buzzcuts and dreadlocks — there's no sense in limiting what your hair can look like. Minimal research — aka a quick Google search — reveals millions of ways to wear your hair. But look around, men's haircuts aren't that different from person to person, and switching styles isn't rocket science. The good ones stick around and the bad ones are blips.
It's also important to consider length. Some styles take months — if not years, depending on how fast your hair grows — to achieve. Others are quick yet irreversible decisions. Before you go bald or commit to billowing layers, think about it a little more simply. Look at yourself in the mirror; then at your photo reference; yourself in the mirror again; the haircut once more; envision it all over again. Bring the photo with you but be ready to make adjustments, albeit minor.
"A photo reference, whether it be some cuts you've seen (from a celebrity standpoint) or just looks you've seen on social media, can be a really great jumping-off point. At that point, you're not necessarily discussing very strict terms in regards to texture, length or whatever it may be, but it's more so trying to look at that photo, see if it works with that person's personal style and then tailoring something to them that's going to be close. There's no such thing as one-size-fits-all for this," Rob McMillen, co-founder of NYC barbershop Mildred, tells us. He also offers his opinions on how long you should wait between appointments. "If you keep it really short, [you should go] two to three weeks; if you keep something medium length, three to five; and if you have a longer look, maybe it's five to seven or even longer."
That means the haircut your favorite athlete wore last week won't look identical on you — or your friend or your father — and especially so a week or two after it's cut. Tailoring a style to your face shape, aesthetic, activities and schedule requires assistance from a trained barber. First, figure out your face shape. Then, seek out a style you're interested in, find a local barber, book an appointment and get the look you've been yearning for — or something close to it. And bring whichever photo you need.
AI Generated·May contain errors
Yeah, it's like someone tried to walk in and get in before him, but I was like, I can't do it.
It's like, and then he got mad too. It's like, geez.
Oh, wow. Yeah, I think I saw him coming in.
Yeah, because it was like, and then he...
Because I didn't know if it was... I couldn't see all the way over to where you guys were.
It's like, still, it's like, geez.
It's like, I don't blame you if he's squeezing in or anything, but...
It took him like 20 minutes to fart.
Well, that's what I'm saying. It's like, geez, dude, if you would have...
Not farted, and you would have flipped in, you might have got hurt, but it was like, God.
And then he was over there playing Southern California.
It was like, over there making sure it was like, nothing was getting in.
It was like, God.
He farted over there, and then he tried to park next to us, and then he pulled in right here.
Yeah, I thought I saw that. I was like, geez.
What is he doing?
I was like, look, he's gonna try to get in before you...
Oh, you told him that?
Yeah, that's what was happening.
Yeah, no, you were right. You called it. That's exactly what it is.
And then I asked him, were you able, and he almost tried to say yes, and he was like, no, you're not.
I swear to God on everything. Even my client was standing there, and it was like, dude, that's...
But I doubt your real name is Abel. Let me see your driver's license.
All of a sudden, it's all Chris Sanchez.
Although I know an Abel, it's like, God damn.
They're like, on every half an hour.
On the half an hour.
I get here at 7.30, and then the first turn credit, I'm supposed to do at 9 o'clock, but
now I've allowed the guys to come in at 8 o'clock, and 8.30, and everything.
And then if I start at 8, like, on Saturday, on Friday and Saturday, I open at 8.
And so then if I, on those days, you know, I even let the guys come in at 7.30.
You know, just to be, you know, the guys that couldn't get in, or, oh, it's booked, and I couldn't...
And I'm like, well, you can come in before it opens, but that's all I really can do.
Unless it's like, you know, a super emergency, you know, I can do whatever it is.
You know, you gotta try not to...
I've went down that road before, and it turns into a non-emergency path.
You open half day on Saturday?
Yeah, just until 2 a.m. every day.
And really, I should be, it's like, you should be working every day all day.
It's like, there is no day off.
But, uh, I did that for a year.
Now it's time to enjoy six days a week, and have one day off.
How long have you been here?
Uh, three years.
And it'll actually, and I'm sorry, it'll be three years, uh, January...
January, I think the 7th, or the 4th, or the 8th.
I ended up with zero clients. Didn't have one person.
Didn't care.
Just cause I knew my ability.
It was almost like Andy Warhol.
They're like, don't open unless you have client time.
He's like, wait a minute, I'm Andy Warhol.
It's like, I'm just gonna open.
You know, they don't find me.
I never paid Google, I never did anything.
And then they said, how did you do that?
Because everything is real.
Everything is...
Everything here is what they say it is.
There's no magic trick.
And we're like, oh, just hope it's 50 hours,
cause we used 25 hot towels and whatever.
And he's like, nah.
He's like, just hope it's this one.
It's gonna be complete fire.
You don't need to have a hot towel on early Christmas,
you can have one.
You don't need 20 of them.
That doesn't do anything more for the epidermis.
But guys, the crazy twist is,
I take my educator license
December 14th.
So if I become a teacher,
then I'll probably open up the school as well.
Yeah.
Just cause it's $20,000 per student,
you're gonna borrow the school and everything,
and you figure you can run 50 students.
And it helps the people out,
cause you figure, okay,
what does an instructor make out of it?
$40,000 or whatever it's like.
Or, you know, $45,000, it's like,
alright, I'll pay you $56,000.
I mean, for me,
it would be $56,000 over here,
but you're a clean cut,
you look good, you do the right thing,
you make $60,000, you do all that.
Sir,
superior integrity and respect.
That's what it's like, and this school has to be the same way.
Sir, school of barbering.
So it's like, what does your school do
differently than many of the other schools?
We have all babyless equipment,
it's all cordless, we have Dyson blow dryers,
we have Mizutani shears, the best of the best.
And then you get to learn
texture, direction, all the stuff
that you're not learning at these other schools.
You know, where they're doing very minimal, basic teaching.
I want to go into a little bit more detail
along with standard curriculum,
but I want to bring them into, you know, 2020 tier.
And if you have the patience for it,
you know, it takes a lot of patience
to take on
to take on teaching
you know, the steps you need to take.
Yeah, really instructive.
And so what I'll do is this,
and this is how I bridge that gap.
And so what I'll do is this.
Teaching them the written book work
is, I can do that with a monkey.
I mean, that part is nothing.
It's the most basic book work
you've seen in your entire life.
It's at a 5th grade reading level
as far as I'm concerned,
the written curriculum for the barber.
So they will pass that.
And so with the,
it's my main objective to teach them
the practical, which is also very easy.
But I'll add the antidote
of teaching them
extra stuff too on top of that.
But it's easy.
It's a 60 question test.
Even though you've got to run through the different chapters,
but you get 8 months to run through it.
So it's like, if you can't get the students up and going
by then, then you fail as a teacher.
Just in the sense that you're not good enough.
And guess what? They all fail as teachers so far.
So that's where I come in to
rewrite the whole game.
And it's like, well how can you teach these students?
It should be pretty easy
in the sense of, hey guys,
if you're doing your proper work and everything,
and the school's set up and designed correctly,
you should pass.
It isn't quantum physics.
It's a barber school, a barber class.
It's pretty easy.
And that's where a teacher
can just say you wanted to bring someone
aboard and say,
I'm really going to allow you
to make money
and
whatever a high school teacher might make
or whatever,
$60,000 a year or whatever, bring someone on
for $80,000 a year.
But you really just hire
one instructor
for the
book work side of it,
which is the easiest side of it.
You just run through your chapters
and then you give them quizzes.
I'll be quizzing
the students in the morning, every morning.
So every morning, how I'll have it set up
is you hit book work for three hours.
So you go into the classroom with the
two woman teachers or
the one woman teacher or whatever it is,
or me and that woman
and you do book work
for the first three hours.
After that, whatever chapter we're on
with the practical, you're going to do.
So we're on hair washes and hair cutting isn't until the end.
Guess what? Hair cutting isn't until the end.
So it's like, you know,
there will be no pandemonium in my school.
Which I've seen a lot of pandemonium
guys doing this, that
and you'll get kicked out if you come to my school.
That's what I'm saying.
You have those that think that
they're going to run the show.
Those are the ones that are out of there.
And they're out of there immediately.
And why are they out of there? Because we're not doing it for the money.
And when you're not doing it for the money,
it becomes successful.
And then you make a hell of a lot of money.
It's almost like reverse engineering
and reverse psychology.
You have those ones
that are going to be doing it because that's what they want to do
and they're serious about it.
And you have ones that are going in there just to be fun.
And check this out, and there's another good thing
though, but a bad thing in a way.
The good thing that these schools have
exploited and turned it into a bad thing.
These guys get financial aid,
pays them for the school, so
the school really doesn't care whether they
graduate or not. That's why they're in such a
disarray. But the state board's
adding new guidelines and implementing
things to update the structure.
I have a feeling that they're going to fall in love with me.
And that's going to be the
part where it's... If I happen
to flick my heart of hearts, I don't
want to pass that test. I don't
want to open a school. I don't want to
have millions of dollars. I don't want to do all that right away.
This is easy right here.
But we'll
see what happens. And if I do
get the license, then I will know that I must
open the school.
And there's a... One of the barber schools
is up for sale now, so it's like
you just give it up
personally. Say, hey, I'll buy all this ---- in here.
How much do you want? Write it in the check.
And search school
of barbering opens up.
And it's easy to get the students
in. Like having students
come over? Not overnight.
I called DVR,
the rehabilitation place that pays
for these guys to have a license.
I'd call them and tell them to send me every single dude that you have.
And that'd
probably be about $25 to start.
And I'm in full contact with them.
Hey, how's it going?
Do you have a planned stop or are you still waiting?
Oh, it'll be here
what day is it today? Thursday or Friday?
Friday. It'll be here
Monday. And it will be here Monday.
And I have your number too and I'll call you too
when it gets here. Alright, awesome.
Appreciate you.
Because now it's come to the point where it's getting a little
bit too busy for me. In other words, it needs
to be structured again.
I need to start implementing employees
and things need to go in another
direction of some
sort.
Because you see, man, you can keep
going and buying $40,000 watches
and you can just write a homeboy check to the school
for $40,000 and call it a wrap.
And say, hey dude, forget about
the watch. It's not going to yield you anything.
And I say women, because say
your wife over here, just pretend that she was an educator
or whatever. Okay, well then she goes over and
makes a lot more. But I'm just saying
pretend that she wasn't and is like, okay
then she goes over there and makes $65,000 a year
or whatever. And she's not having
a hard job. Someone
who comes out of retirement can do it. It's like you're
teaching curriculum out of that book and everything.
It isn't that.
It's someone who's nicer
and is able to vibe with the students
like that.
But there's
100,000 instructors, but I'm just
saying it's
building and finding the right ones.
That's going to be more of a process
than getting the students in.
Because I feel like I could do it all myself
and I'd probably be greedy the first year
and just run 25 students just me
and then, you know what I mean,
and graduate all 25 of them.
And then call the State Board of Barbers and Cosmetologists
and say, hello, daddy's home.
Look what I've done.
And I plan to
do much more.
But you've got to think of
all those angles and having those
conversations are monumental
because through one of those
conversations, someone will bring up something that you
might not have thought about and then you
have to cover those
grounds.
But I just see in the barber
field of any way, shape, or form of anything
that there's nothing.
I'm on
another level just
to where I really believe that it's...
And then when I
was at the school, I got to get a little taste of
how much these guys gravitate towards
me as being like an attractor
or whatever it is that you are.
And so like you're barbering and they all come
and so I just say the school
would be very easy to formulate together.
And then eventually what you do is
you humble yourself and say, okay, I'm going to stop
soaking the million a year and I'll actually
hire someone else and I'll get myself out of the business
and start buying real estate
and putting people in homes and
moving forward like that, trying to do it.
And see,
look at his haircut now. See how it went just real
smooth with his fade and everything?
Just so it's nice and clean. That's the
ghost fade and that one is the best.
That's for people who don't want to have,
and I'm showing your wife to where it's like,
you don't want to sit here and take the clippers
and then come up. That's too
high for him. He likes to have that
nice, good hair that he can
mess with up here. I'm going to soften
that, but he has that nice
gradual effect of the
shadow fade.
I find that for the gentleman, this one looks much better.
For them getting a fade.
Actually, my father, he's
80, 40 years old.
He likes my hair.
So he wants to
Yeah, he wants to
come in and
Yeah.
Pretty busy. It's
gotten busier. Nice.
Yeah.
I want to go
get a room over there for a few nights or
whatever.
Yeah, it's a nice room.
They just redid it. Oh, really?
Yeah, they just redid their
rooms. It's beautiful.
What do they charge for a night?
22 for the first night.
Well, compared
to other ones, it's about like
three.
But it's a suite.
Yeah, they're all suites.
Do they do just one of you?
I'm sure
they do.
They don't have to.
No, they don't.
Yeah, they're
pretty flexible.
They probably wouldn't want to give me the old one because I don't gamble.
So it's kind of like
And it's kind of, you know, you're shooting them
in the foot, so I don't want to do that.
But I do want to stay.
Just for a couple of nights.
Restaurants.
Oh, I would love to go to a restaurant.
They have very good food.
Yeah.
And I mean, just taking a week off in the sense of
kicking your legs up
at Sandia, and then after that
checking out of that hotel after
a couple of days, and then going over
to Ditzmeyer.
Yeah.
It looks like some gorgeous stuff.
Like you said, it's just
a tiny bit of lunch.
My accident that was meant for you, I was like,
well, what is this supposed to be for?
So I figured it had something to do with travel, but I still figured
Here, Jimmy.
Nice.
Awesome.
Look at it standing up
to your nose.
And then right over here
in the mirror.
Awesome.