The haircut that was too short! by Jasper P

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Honestly I’ve never been given an awful haircut. I’m still only 16 though so there’s plenty of time for me to have a bad barber shop experience. I’m a boy and back when I was 12/ 13 I used to have real nice messy skater hair which was thick and medium length. I’d usually get a trim every 6 weeks. The summer vacations had begun and we were about to go away as a family for 4 weeks. It had already been 7 weeks since the last time I had a haircut so I was really trying to get to the barber before we left to get a quick haircut. The morning before the flight I woke up early and ventured out to the barbers. When I arrived the door was shut and a sign was pinned up saying "I’m on vacation for a week, I’m opening up on the 16th July" . This was the only barbers in town so I had to return home and hope that I could find somewhere to get my hair done while I was on holiday. I spent the first week with my long hair but soon came to realise that long hair like my hair was currently is too long to have when on holiday in Spain where it’s 35+ degrees centigrade and every time I got out of the pool or the sea it would need drying which took ages. As I was spending a further 3 weeks here I figured that I would have to find somewhere to get my haircut. After some browsing through google maps we found a local barbershop. I decided to visit this barbers as my hair was getting really sweaty and annoying now. When I arrived I tried to speak English with him but he understood nothing. I had to resort to google translate and translate simple words like "trim" and "haircut". They barber seemed to understand so I tentatively sat down in the barbers chair. The barber followed the standard process of dressing me up in a cape and he began to comb through my long messy hair. He started lifting up the hair and pointed at different areas making gestures I just had to play along and nod in agreement! The barber then proceeded to pick up the clippers and he fiddled with the blades. I’d usually just get the haircut done with the scissors so I was a bit shocked to see the clippers being pulled out. I tried to gesture and shake my head but the barber really didn’t understand and just carried on. He tapped my head forward and I got that he wanted me to tilt my head forward. The cold metal blade was placed on my neck and he proceeded to cut the hair shorter with the clippers. All I could do was hope that he wouldn’t cut too much off and that he didn’t ruin my hair. Annoying the barbershop was small and there wasn’t even a mirror so I had no idea what he was doing. He continued to shave the back removing huge hunks of my precious hair. He made his way around the sides above the ears and to the sideburn area. He just kept on shaving and I honestly had no idea how short he was cutting my hair. Finally the clippers stopped and he walked off in search of some scissors. I quickly rubbed my fingers over the shaven areas to feel much shorter and rougher hair. When he returned he sprayed my fringe with water and began to cut it. This barber really seemed to love cutting hair as he kept on cutting removing the length and reducing my bang to a mere few centimetres. You must remember that I still didn’t know what I looked like so my nerves were building up fast. Next he brought out a proper straight metal razor blade, honestly this scared me a bit as my usual barber never used one of these. He rubbed white foam all over my neck and around my ears and where my sideburns were before taking the razor and shaving off all of the hairs down as close to the skin as possible. The final touch was the application of some styling gel which he put in the top of my hair and styled it up. Job done! He removed the cape and pointed to the price list €4.50 that’s cheap I thought especially seeing as though he had spent a good hour on my hair. I just hoped that it looked okay. I paid the barber and rushed to the local public toilets were I could find a mirror to admire the haircut. I really didn’t know what to expect.
How short would the sides be?
Were they faded?
What grade did he use?
Would I like it?
I stood in front of the mirror and held my eyes closed and slowly counting down from 3 before I opened them to reveal my new hairstyle. Wow! It was a drastic change. The sides were no longer messy and long and thick but he had trimmed them shorter and pretty close to the skin. The clippers had removed the bulk of the hair and it made me look so much older. I was not sporting a skater haircut anymore that’s for sure. And my messy bang, well it was not a bang anymore, he had cut it all off and he had restyled it up in a quiff. Where he had used the proper razor the skin was incredibly smooth and soft even though it was a bit red and irritated. Did I like it? Well I did miss my skater look and the new hairstyle was a bit on the neat side for my liking but it looked really quite nice. It’s only hair I told myself and it would grow back in a little while. During the holiday the shorter hair kept me so much cooler and it was so much quicker to dry and wash. The ‘bad’ unwanted haircut seemed to had become a bit of a success. I took some photos of the freshly shaven sides and showed them to my usual barber who told me they were a grade 3. I loved the haircut so much that I decided to get the short haircut every summer and grow it out in the winter. And why did I get the bad haircut you may ask? Well I managed to mis translate ‘trim’ and I actually asked for a ‘short haircut’ and it was all my fault so I couldn’t be mad with the barber!

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