Through the barber’s eyes: Tom’s Buzzcut by BarberBruce

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“Finally! Last cut of the day" I sighed to myself.
Now don’t get me wrong I really love my job but today was the busiest day of the year.. back to school after the summer. Since 9am this morning I’d had boys flocking into my shop requesting haircuts and I was knackered. Sitting in the waiting area was a tall blond haired young gentleman who had hair that was going to be a nightmare to cut. From what I could see from where I was was that he had faded sides starting off bald at the bottom an slowly progessing to longer hair growth near the top of the head. The top was neatly groomed and required precision cutting and styling. I was so tired and really didn’t want to do this final haircut.

All day I’d cut the hair of school boys starting at 9am right through until now, 6pm. I hadn’t had a lunch break and assuming that each client takes about 15 minutes that means I’d cut almost 40 heads of hair. I’d done a wide variety of different hairstyles! I swept the brown hairs off the tiled floor before calling up the final boy of the day.

“Evening" I called out to him as he walked over.
“Hi" he replied
“That’s a fine head of hair you’ve got" I commented
The boy grinned in response

I sat the boy down and proceeded to wrap him up in the barber’s cape.

“So a good tidy up?" I asked
“No, actually I want a buzz cut please" he said
“Are you sure?!" I exclaimed
“Yep, I’m positive"

These words were music to my ears. I was really not looking forward to doing his haircut and a buzz cut would make my final cut of the day and easy one.

“What grade buzz are you wanting?" I queried
“I’m thinking 1 or 2" he replied

I said that we’d better go ahead with the grade 1 and we can easily go shorter if he wanted to. Oh! And did I tell you, the young man was called Tom and he was 16. As I prepared my clippers Tom asked me if he could give his hair one last look at in the mirror so he stood up and wondered across the barbers to the tall mirror. Here he spend the most part of a minute running his fingers though the top of his hair and styling it up as well as rubbing his fingertips over the shaven sides. Is seemed as though he really didn’t want to part with his hair.

“Ready?" I called over to him.
“Oh, yes, sorry" he said and he began to wonder over.

He sat himself back down and allowed me to commence the haircut. I quickly brushed out the top of his hair before placing the clippers on young Tom’s forehead and tilting them towards the top of his head. I slowly began to pull the clippers back towards Tom’s crown shaving off lines of hair as I went. I continued to remove the hair until the top of his hair was cut neatly and evenly all over.

“Head forward please" I requested
Tom did as I asked and popped his head down so I could continue.

Once again I cut up towards his crown shaving off the blending and fading his previous barber had cut. Tom’s hair was quickly being transformed. I carried on the simple shaving action until the sides and top were equal in length. That was the majority of the haircut done. I pulled over a mirror to see if he was happ or if he wanted me to go shorter with the grade 1. Tom looked at himself in the mirror and rubbed his hands over the sandpaper textured hair.

“Urm... I’ll try a grade one please" he asked
“Of course!" I replied

I quickly switched over the guard on the clippers and repeated the haircut but with the grade 1 this time. Although it’s only one guard shorter the grade one made Tom’s hair look much shorter and thinner resulting in more of the sling below being seen through the hair. You must remember that Tom had light blond hair so it’s barely visible when cut this short. To complete Tom’s new military look I removed his sideburns and gave the back of his neck a pretty sever trim.

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