I have become a master a cutting hair. With women’s hair a good example of this is how I cut a fringe or bangs if you’re from over the pond. Fringes are usually imbalanced, to heavy, too thin, uneven, too narrow or just totally impractical if done badly. Using as little tension as possible I let the hair fall exactly how it would naturally and then i use a super quick slicing technique cutting through the hair as it sits directly on the forehead. This is the only way to achieve a flawless finish.

‘Cowlick’s’, uneven hairline’s, curly, super-straight, coarse, fine, thick, I can work with pretty much any hair type. But It’s not just fringes that I excel at. My years of experience have given me the ability to understand head shape and face shape, working with what I’ve got to create something beautiful. It’s all about achieving the most flattering shape possible and not following trend.

I cut hair without over styling. I try to make sure that my clients have every opportunity make it look the same even after it’s been washed and blow dried at home.  So much is made of the styling when it comes to a salon appointment, so much that I think somewhere we’ve lost our ability to cut hair. Cutting hair is truly an art. It is without doubt the hardest of mediums to conquer, because the parameters are always different always changing. If you think about it, there are no two similar heads of hair. Every single haircut presents its own complexity when working with it. This approach includes my attention to detail when it comes to men’s haircuts and children’s haircuts.

Cutting is ultimately about practise and experience and time. If you want an expertly cut haircut my cutting abilities stretch to all the different disciplines. I am a hugely experienced and talented hairdresser.

CHILDREN AND TEENS

This might be difficult  for some of you to read , most of you have never given it a second thought, but I’m here to tell you that there is no difference between a child’s haircut and an adult’s haircut. Newsflash. A child’s haircut is infinitely more difficult. The wriggling, the impatience, the awkward silences, trying to get them to sit straight while they arch their backs in contempt like a restless cat on a hot tin roof, while wielding an extremely sharp implement close to their face and neck. It’s like trying to run through a field of stinging nettles without getting stung. And all of this under the usual scrutiny of over bearing parents who only want the best for their little guy or girl.

Commands are futile. It’s a constant battle,  stopping what you’re doing, man handling them into position, only to do it all over again because they’ve moved back to where they were before as if pulled by some imaginary cord. It breaks concentration. It’s any wonder that more children haven’t been cut. I mean, I’ve never cut a child, but its extremely dangerous when they move their heads without warning, even if they are plonked in front of an iPad in a catatonic trance watching their favourite cartoon or film.

Let’s face it, an appointment with a non-compliant child it is fraught with tension. But imagine a mistake? it doesn’t bear thinking about. The catastrophe, the sheer maddening horror of cutting a precious little cherub right in front of an aghast set of wide-eyed parents. Naturally It would be my fault. It wouldn’t be the child’s fault. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that they never stopped moving throughout the whole haircut, picking their nose while I cut their fringe. And yet, throughout every complex child’s haircut, angling myself around them trying to achieve balance and texture there’s always a moment when I think to myself  ‘I’m not even charging full price! How have I let this happen?.’

While cutting a teenager’s hair might lack the physical difficulty of a small child's haircut, it replaces it with a different kind of pressure: the crushing weight of expectation and trend. In reality, a teenager’s haircut demands the same level of technical skill, time, and precision as any adult's, often requiring complex fading, detailed texture work, or adherence to viral, nuanced trends they found online. Yet, due to the industry's arbitrary pricing norms, we are often pressured to offer a "student" or "teen" discount, essentially devaluing the mastery required for a cut that can take just as long, and which the client—and often their parents—will scrutinize ten times more closely. This arbitrary discount means that the same professional who spent years honing their craft is expected to accept less money for the same, or even greater, amount of skilled labor.

You could say well just don’t do children’s haircuts. Maybe in time that’s what I will do. But the underlining concern for thousands of hairdressers, those of us that strive for perfection, is what differentiates a child’s head of hair and an adults? The answer is nothing. The technique, the time, the skill, they’re are all the same and yet we are expected to give some monetary relief to a product that is actually much harder to execute.

Those of us have taken the time to train properly, ( I trained for five years before I knew what I was doing) are in some countries classed as master craftsmen. So why is our skill so undervalued? The answer is hairdressing is completely unregulated in the UK. That’s right. People who work with super sharp implements need no certification. There’s no regulatory board. One can open up a salon and call themselves a hairdresser simply because they can hold a pair of scissors in their hand. This is the wild west. Salons littered with sub-standard hairdresser who haven’t trained properly. So what does it mean to be surrounded by an industry that is saturated with mediocrity? It means that when someone tries to do it properly and charge accordingly we are met with a sense of amazement that somehow we are charging way too much. I’ve spent years trying to explain the dexterity and the skill required to cut hair to the paying public and whenever I have, mostly I’m met with blank faces who either don’t care or don’t understand. All they think about is I could be getting this cheaper somewhere else.

Sure, you can take little Henry to the local salon or barber shop and pay five quid, but most likely he’ll be terrorised by the experience, sore from the ubiquitous drilling of the clippers against his delicate little scalp and jaded never to trust anyone who wields a pair of scissor at him because the finished result has made him look like he had an operation.

I’d like all parents to read this disclosure before they ask their hairdresser to cut their child’s hair. Spare a thought for your hairdresser. Maybe this article might make you think twice about wincing about the price, or even make you wonder why it is in fact so cheap.

Hopefully before you let them loose around the top of your child’s ears.