Last week I got a nasty surprise when I went to get my hair cut. I recently moved house but decided to stay with my old hairdresser. Unfortunately this now means that a trip to the hairdresser is just over an hour round trip in the car. To top this, on my last visit I got a parking ticket which cost me almost the same as the haircut and all due to having to wait while he finished his previous client.
It’s not the first time it’s happened and my new home city has more barbers than you could shake a stick at. One of them is just 2 minutes walk from my front door, ⅓ the price of my current and now somewhat distant hairdresser.
So if I chose to ‘stay local’ I could walk 20 yards for my haircut, feel great about my hugely reduced ‘haircut carbon footprint’, save a huge amount of time and money on petrol, parking and the haircut not to mention the risk of another price doubling parking fine and yet, it’s not that straight forward.
I have now been going to the same hairdresser for about 4 years. He has changed the style of my hair, majorly for the better in my view. While he cuts my hair we chat, exchange details of great places to eat or to visit in London. He has also been a mine of information with great contacts in so many fields from builders and all sorts of other recommendations on trades to contacts for the Perfect Gentleman. So it’s not as easy a decision as thinking about the cost (with or without the occasional parking ticket)
Building a new relationship with your hairdresser (or barber) is not a straightforward thing.
Firstly there is the element of the quality of the cut, I’ve walked around the town and looked at many of the hairdressers and they look, well a bit ordinary, functional but lacking in originality or flair.
There are one or two I would trust with my tresses but I know my current hairdresser cuts my hair perfectly, how many times do I need to risk a bad cut before I’m sure it’s worth moving. Then there are all the other peripheral advantages of my current chap.
It’s a dilemma, I recently read an excellent article on the web describing how to talk to your hairdresser on his terms; how to describe what you want in language he or she will understand. But even if you can describe what you want to a new hairdresser there is a risk, there is a huge amount of trust to be built up, not a straight forward matter.
I get my hair cut about 12 times a year. I could save 12 hours a year and by paying for the parking on my phone, or by actually paying for a couple of hours, not really an issue of cost in Hertford where parking costs are not huge, I could remove the possibility of getting another ticket. The one issue is that he doesn’t trim beards. But I am already on that trail and that is a matter I shall cover in a future article.
I think, on balance, I have decided to stay with my current hairdresser. I’m very happy with the way he cuts my hair and a relationship like that is not easy to replicate, even if I have to pay the odd parking ticket.
