BOWL OVER While some men are racing back to their trusted barbers, others plan to keep snipping from home, even as lockdowns lift. Those in the latter camp should avoid this dated approach.
Illustration: Kagan McLeod
For the recurring series, That’s Debatable, we take on a contentious issue of the day and present two spirited arguments—one in favor and other emphatically opposed. Previous installments from the series are here.
YES, CUTTING YOUR OWN HAIR IS CHEAPER AND MORE CONVENIENT
It was an end-splitting reveal: Last month, George Clooney, the Oscar-winning actor and former “Sexiest Man Alive,” told “CBS Sunday Morning” that he’s used a Flowbee to cut his own hair for years. It sounded ridiculous—improbable, even. But in this year of social distancing, Mr. Clooney’s decision to maintain his hairline with a tiny clipper-vacuum hybrid of 1980s infomercial fame also, oddly, seems practical.
While most barber shops were closed, many men trimmed their own hair. Some, like Dan Grossberg, who favors scissors and standard clippers, not a Flowbee, will never turn back. Mr. Grossberg, 40, a revenue-operations director in Woodbridge, N.J., dislikes the way barbers either ignore him while silently snipping or pry into his personal life. To avoid awkwardness, he’ll continue shearing solo post-Covid.
George Clooney, shown here on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in December 2020, said he cuts his own hair with a ‘Flowbee’ vacuum.
Photo: Getty Images
Naturally, there’s a learning curve. It’s tricky to symmetrically trim the back and not over-prune the sides, an error that Brison Bickerton, 50, a commodities trader in Rowayton, Conn., said results in “Dr. Spock ears.” To achieve a flattering cut, Mr. Grossberg advised, sit between two mirrors, angled so you can easily see the back of your head.
“If cutting your own hair is good enough for Clooney, it’s good enough for me,” said Luke Mayeux, a media coordinator for Disney+ in New York. Equally compelling is the financial argument: Mr. Mayeux, 34, saves at least $40 each cut, or approximately $500 a year. And if you believe time is money, adjust that estimate upward. Mr. Bickerton no longer wastes minutes on trips to his professional trimmer. “It’s more convenient to do it myself,” he said.
NO, IT’S A LOPSIDED DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN
Few things can decimate one’s self-esteem like a bad haircut, and some men feel that taking their strands into their own hands only invites disaster. Mikko Nissinen, 58, artistic director of the Boston Ballet, cut his own hair several times this year. “Unfortunately it has been really inconsistent,” said the self-proclaimed perfectionist. He spent long, maddening hours failing to even out the right and left sides of his cut. Having “accepted defeat,” he looks forward to settling back into his precise barber’s chair once his state’s Covid numbers drop. “When people are masters of their trade, it makes me smile,” he said.
Some men consider the relationship with their barber sacred. Before the pandemic hit, Chris Leuth, 36, co-founder of virtual fitness platform Hustl’d Studio, had seen the same skilled barber in South Boston every three weeks for four years. Mr. Leuth tried re-creating his barber’s signature short fade during lockdown but “shaved a chunk off by mistake.” His efforts to fix it only “made it more atrocious.”
When barbershops reopened this summer, Mr. Leuth high-tailed it to visit his guy at Sim’s Barber Lab, which had been outfitted with pneumatic sanitizing spray guns and glass partitions between the chairs for added safety. “It was kind of hard not to hug him. It was a reunion of sorts. You see a guy every 2-3 weeks and then you don’t see him for 4 months, you have a lot to catch up on,” said Mr. Leuth. “When I go there, the conversation is great. And all I have to do is sit down and he knows what I want.”
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