Never A Dull Blade

Psssst...



Happy 2014! I'm still snipping away happily and love to see that this blog of mine as gotten so much attention, and continues to do so. I got an e-mail today from a barber-to-be in Galway looking to find out what college I went to - how flattering!
My work is going great - I have a wonderful colleague from Bulgaria who calls us the "best barber team" whom I work with each day, and lots of regulars, some of whom even travel from outside of Dublin to get their hair cut by me. Talk about an ego-boost!
But one of the best things is, even though I feel quite confident now as a barber, I'm still learning every day. Still looking at new techniques, watching other barbers, seeing what is currently fashionable etc. Each new trend is something new to learn and I love that.

 - BE

Barber Eile meets Barbereile!

Long ago, in a galaxy far away, there was a girl looking for a catchy blog name... something about barbering... something witty... when inspiration struck! And the blog you are looking at was born!
However, like any good, mildly curiously narcissistic person... she later on went to Google herself only to find out that halfway across the country another person (presumably of similar world-shattering genius and creativity) had also stumbled upon the same name at some point. Yup, down in Tralee there is a barbershop with the same name as myself! (For those of you who don't get the pun in my name have a look at my "About Me" section ).
Now I had long ago forgotten where my barbershop doppleganger was located, but whilst holidaying in Kerry this week my boyfriend surprised me by driving by it and asking me if I wanted to have a look in! Of course I did! There was just one friendly lady inside working away but I asked her if she would mind if I took a few photos of my blog so I could show you all. She said no problem provided she wasn't in them (and the customer in her chair joked that I should make sure I didn't get him as he was meant to be somewhere else at work at the time!). So here you have it, a little peak into the other Barbereile here!

The shop front. Nothing too fancy, nice and local.

The interior. Look at that gorgeous stone wall with the fireplace - And those fantastic huge wooden mirrors!

And I just had to take a shot of this cheeky chappy! He's such a wonderful touch, a friendly dog by the fireplace welcoming in the customers.

So there you have it. I'd suggest for anyone in Tralee to pop in - tell them Barber Eile sent you!

- BE

Dermatitis - a serious concern for barbers

I'm going to get a bit scientific on you all for a minute but I feel this is worth writing about as studies show that roughly 70% of people working in the hair care sectors are effected by a skin condition as a result of their job. (I'll skip adding all my references and what not - I'm sure you're not grading me! But this is something I have thoroughly researched and written reports about whilst training so the information is solid).


Dermatitis is the most common skin complaint of barbers and it can be broken down into two types:
1 -Irritant contact dermatitis which occurs from working with chemicals and continually having wet hands. If your hands are frequently wet or if you are working on the basins all day doing washing (as many apprentices are) you are at higher risk of this. This form of dermatitis often occurs gradually and can be cured but may flare up again if not given sufficient time to heal.
2 - Allergic contact dermatitis which can occur as an allergic reaction of a product or substance often, but not exclusively, found in cleaning products and hair colouring products. Once you develop this you will have it for life. It can take days or weeks to settle resulting in large amounts of time out of work and re-exposure to the product will trigger it again.


Symptoms of dermatitis include: Dryness, Redness, Itching, Flaking/Scaling, Cracking/Blistering and Pain.


The best way to tackle this problem is through proper safety measures and practises in the barbershop. Below is a list of all best practises but even if you only take on a few, they could make a big difference:

• Dry hands thoroughly as soon as possible after any contact with water. Be sure to dry in between fingers and wrists. This is my top, 'must-do' for any barber!
• Use a barrier cream/good moisturising cream daily, (I love the one I reviewed here: Alsatian Soaps' Hand Lotion ) as often as you can after washing your hands, and again at home before bed. Be sure to include in between your fingers and your nails and fingertips.
• Wear disposable non-latex gloves when doing wet work of any kind (shaving, shampooing, colouring) esp. when working with chemicals, and change them after each client. Be sure to remove gloves correctly so as to minimise contact with products (image from HSE leaflet): 
• 
  Check skin regularly for symptoms. It is suggested that salons have a monthly scheduled check for this.
• Remove rings when shampooing as this can lead to a nickel allergy.
• Make sure you are not sweating in gloves regularly as this can also be a cause/trigger. 

I hope you all find this useful and I'm sure it's just a refresher for some but I felt it needed a mention. I have some other topics like this to cover in the future and also a whole new exciting section coming up too! Keep your eyes peeled!


- BE

The Smallest Thing

Potentially moving barbershop... 
(*edit* update - nope! Still, I'm keeping this blog entry here for memory's sake)
With the highs come the lows, and this change meant saying goodbye to two workmates of mine who have been simply amazing to me over the last year. These people affectionately called me their "Irish daughter", and I laughed, sang and even invented a Bulgarian-Irish Hybrid Dance with them! We met up last week for a coffee and promised to keep in touch but what had me almost in tears was something so small and so touching that I can't truly express how much it meant to me without seeming silly:

About a two months before I finished up in my old job my colleague 'N' dropped one of the cups there and it broke. He then came in with two new mugs the next day and told me to pick one so we could have one each. I picked this one (the other has Bart Simpson on it). I'd never had 'my' mug at a workplace before so having a tea or hot chocolate in this cheered me up in work each day. When I left this job it was quite sudden, and I never though about the mug, but when we met for coffee 'N' said "Oh I have something for you" and pulled this out of his bag. I was so moved, and thrilled I get to keep my mug and have a constant reminder of great days working with these two people. 
I keep the mug at home now instead of moving it to my new job. The new barbershop will create memories of its own, and a cup of something warm in my Mickey Mouse mug will put a smile on my face of an evening when I'm tired and need to relax. 
Sometimes it's the smallest things that we treasure.
- BE

Caution: Floor Slippery When Hairy!

The title pretty much says it all!
I was in work today cutting a client's hair from very long to quite short and so there was large chunks of hair on the ground - when I slipped! Luckily I regained my balance quickly by leaning on the chair (and apologising to the client for nearly having an Austin Powers style "oops, I fell again" moment!).
So this is just a short note to say be careful out there! Barbering is dangerous business!

(Get up off the floor woman - you'll cause an accident!)

- BE

Young At Heart

I want to just give a little shout out to one of my favourite customers. 
He's a really cool guy, just comes in, hops straight into my chair and asks for the usual. It doesn't matter how long it's been since I last did his hair, he'll start to chat to me like an old friend and we catch up on everything going on in his life by the time I'm dusting him off and he's good to go. He's a real talker, and greets me like you would meeting your best friend for a drink in your local. He'll tell me all about his family, his holidays, his friends. Who's doing what and when, even if I don't know who he's talking about! He always remembers where we left off our last conversation and will always have a new interesting adventure to tell me about. He's funny, clever, intelligent and charming. When he leaves I'll have my smile on my face for the day.
Oh yeah, and he's nine years old.
I can't wait until his next haircut when I get to hear about all the fun he had at DisneyWorld with his family over Easter, and I get to be young at heart and live through all of the experiences as if I were there as he tells me all about them in detail. 
Thanks little dude.
- BE

Blue Light Special

Okay this might turn into a rant as it's been a serious pet peeve of mine since day one:
The Blue Light Special, also known as Chopshop Haircuts.
Those horrible, cheap "barbershops" that have blue lights inside and have prices so low there is no way they are paying tax (and I know for a fact that some of them aren't...). Maybe we only have them in Ireland, but they are the barbershops that look like this on the inside:

All the lighting in the main window, and inside, are those horrible blue florescent strip lights that look like they will make anything white you wear glow. I have tried to guess as to why on earth someone would think this is sufficient light in any kind of building, with the possibly exception of some trippy psychedelia shop. Perhaps they are installed for the same reason they put them in public toilets - to stop drug users going in as they can't see their veins under the light? But this seems unlikely. Maybe they are giant UV sanitation lights... though honestly if you need them that much I'd just have the place condemned! 
I mean how on earth can you cut in this light? It's gloomy and must put a huge strain on the barber's eyes. 
In short, I don't think you can give a decent haircut in this light. Not for the price of a cup of coffee. Which leads me to my more plausible reason for why I think they are installed: to disguise the bad haircut from the customer. 
These chopshops are the fast food of haircutting. The more clients the better and, again I know from people who have worked in these places, the management actively encourage you to get the client in and out as quickly as possible, spending a maximum of 8 minutes per client... because at their prices it's the number of clients, and not results, that count. Here's my artistic interpretation of what happens:

I hope I never have to work in one of these places, where every day I would feel like I'm walking into a giant tanning bed and my eyesight would probably get up and leave after 6 months. Were I male I would go into one once just to see what the experience is like - does anyone know? Please leave a comment above if you do!
- BE

The Blink Of An Eye

Just a short observation today in work:
One of the barbers blinks in an alternating pattern to her cutting! Snip, snip, blink... snip, snip, blink. She'll take a new section, cut it twice and then blink (repeat for whole head). She ends up blinking far more often than you would normally but I guess by making sure she blinks in between cuts then she always has her eye on the job at hand!
I must keep an eye open (haahaa) to see what other patterns people do. I observed early on that everyone has a unique work rhythm, like one of my colleagues who will comb up his first section of hair almost 10 times before making that first cut and then can speed through the rest, setting a solid line to follow I guess! 
Because I'm aware of these things in others I am constantly trying to find the best flow for myself which means changing it up a bit when I catch myself doing something. I guess that when I do find a rhythm that works I probably won't even be aware of it until someone points it out to me, like my best friend who sticks her tongue out just a little when she's concentrating - the funny thing is though, she'll often be practising her face painting on me when she does it so her face is really close to mine and it makes me laugh!
- BE

Grease Is The Word

Yeeeah... not that kind of grease I'm afraid. But oh how I wish it was...

By and large I don't mind a client coming in with a bit of product in his hair, especially if it's light enough to be brushed out. Heck, I don't even mind if he comes in with enough pomade to drown a hamster in in there once he'll let me wash it out first! But I have two pet peeves... the first being people who want a dry cut with a lot of product in their hair. Not only is this bad for my tools, gumming up my scissors and clippers, but the hair also simply won't cut as well. In a way I feel this is a type of karma. I'll explain this to a client, and if he still insists on just a dry cut... well, it's not my fault that your haircut isn't as good as it could be. The hair clumps together, will slip on the scissors edge sometimes, and won't part correctly when I comb and section it. You wouldn't go in for a hot towel shave and cover my hands and razor in chicken fat before letting me bring a blade near your face now would you?!?


But by far, my second peeve is worse. And if you've a sensitive stomach maybe skip the rest!
People with greasy hair. Now I mean reeeaaallly greasy 'haven't-washed-in-a-month-or-two' hair. You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm sad to say not. I really wish I was! I've had clients actually tell me they only wash it every month or so as if that were the normal thing to do. I've had clients who's hair I've sprayed down only for the water to run straight off. I've had to pick out leaves stuck in the hair, try and comb through matted sections and when you 'dry' the hair it still looks soaking wet. These clients are scarce but they are there. It's unpleasant to handle this kind of hair but it's the SMELL that's the worst. It doesn't smell like dirt or anything per ce... it's a unique smell of grease, sebum and natural oils. But old grease, sebum and oils *shudder*. It's very distinctive and grows stronger as I comb the hair, releasing a fresh batch of oil onto the old and heightening the smell. Now you can tell me all you want about how it's good for the hair to 'self cleanse' with it's own oils but if I have to touch it and smell it then I want it to be clean. If you hair makes me gag, and I've had that happen on occasion, then I'm going to want you out of my chair asap. So the cut will be quick and will be minimal. Ask any barber to tell you honestly and they will say the same. I've worked with one barber who was pregnant and she literally couldn't stomach it sometimes, and when she could, she'd have to wear gloves. Now I know that would be embarrassing for the client, to have their barber wearing plastic gloves, and I've yet to get that far luckily, but could you blame us? I don't want to give the impression I work in a low-class barbershop. I actually work in a very nice one and you'd be surprised the types of gents who seem to forget about the top 5% of themselves when washing! So please... either wash your own hair thoroughly or pay the extra bit for us to introduce your follicles to detergent and don't ask for just a dry cut! If you are concerned about the SLS and chemicals in shampoos then look around and find some natural shampoos in your local health store. Your barber will be happy to use your own shampoo if you bring it in.
Be clean and glorious - not as if you lost a fight with a turkey baster!
- BE

In The Thick Of It

When it comes to hair it seems like the mid-ground is sweet spot for most men.
Too much hair, or not enough, and people feel a little hard done by. Now I've discussed thinning hair a little previously but what about thick hair? It can cause just as many problems...Troy Polamalu knows what I mean!:

Thick' hair can actually be more accurately classified by looking at the hair more closely. There are two main types of hair that fall under the general description of 'thick':
- When the individual strands of hair themselves are thick, as is often the case with afro-carribeann hair types, the hair will be hard to manage, hair to style and give direction too and will often feel dry or coarse. 
- If the individual strand are of average to fine thickness, but there are simply a lot of them on the head, then people often use the term 'thick'. However the correct term for this is 'dense' hair. It can have the same problems are thick hair (hard to shape or style etc.) but it's more likely to be in better condition and very strong and healthy. As I like to joke with my customers, "it's not going anywhere anytime soon!".

Some barbers will use a thinning scissors to take some of the weight/thickness out of the hair but it's important that they know what they doing when using these (and you might be surprised at how many will use them willy-nilly!).
Thinning scissors should really be used more commonly to add texture to the hair, and will often be referred to as texturising scissors instead. They can be safely used through the top fifth of the hair, however, if used incorrectly and brought say, half way down the length of the hair or more, then what will happen is that you will end up with the thickness still at the roots, and then whispier bits of hair as the style grows out. If this is done a few haircuts in a row then the top gets wispier and thinner each time and will look very bad. I've done up a diagram to show this progression better:

So what can be done? Well a good barber will know how to use a thinning scissors well, when to use point-cutting and texturizing techniques, and when to use a shaper razor. Not only that, but if you ask, they will be able to explain to you what they are doing.
But take pride in your strong locks! Keep them well groomed; chose short and sharp, an afro, or long (the weight will help bring the hair down rather than out). And if you find a barber who cuts your hair how you like it, well, remember we are cutting a lot more hair than the average head so we won't say no to a tip at the end of our hard work! Your luscious locks will thank you.
- BE

Regularity

I don't know what it is about me but I have an allure I can no longer deny. Maybe it's my welcoming smile, my friendly banter or some invisible pheromone. In fact in both barber college as well as my work now I get a little bit of teasing about it.

(image from www.annetraintor.com )

The truth is I seem to attract some (hopefully) innocent attention from men of a considerable more mature age! I get sweet little gifts of teddy bears and chocolate. I have one client who glances in the window every day on his way to work to see if I'm there (the other barbers tease me by telling my when my “admirer” looked in for me on my days off). But they are harmless. I think they just enjoy the bit of a chat, some attention and, of course, a nice haircut.

I honestly don't care if who sits in my chair be they young, old, short, tall, whatever. I had a transgender client in the other day and had a cool conversation with him about how he loves getting his hair cut short in a barbers and about hormones for vocal changes. I have a girl who comes into me as she has a very short shaved style at the back of her head.

I'm just as happy chatting about 'kids these days' as I am about current fashions or popular TV shows. I don't follow sports but I pick up bits here and there and if you wanna talk I'll gladly listen.

Some clients like to simply sit quietly with no conversation at all. And that's fine too. In fact I've had a few clients fall asleep in the chair they were so calm and relaxed!

But the best thing for me is seeing those faces return. Having my own set of regulars is great and I'm always especially happy to see one of this growing group of people come in the door. I need to work on my memory so I can start recalling exactly how each of them likes their hair (I know just a few my heart by now) but they walk out happy and having them return 6 or 8 weeks later is a true sign of a job well done to me. Put it down to the cut, the chat or a combination of both, whatever this secret I have is I hope I can hold onto it even if I never find out exactly what it is.

So here's to the regulars! Thanks to you for always brightening my day.

- BE  

The Strands Of Time

A little riddle for you:

What goes from ear to ear but isn't a smile?

What grows as it's peers disappear?

What is a source of confidence to some yet disgust to others?

Have you figured it out yet? How about a little visual clue?

(Image From The Baldy Man TV Show)

Yup, it's the comb-over. A source of despair for many yet, for those gentlemen who chose to sport one, it's a keystone in the pride and confidence they have in their appearance. On a strictly personal note I dislike them as I feel they never solve the problem, however I will gladly cut one if it's what the client wants. However here's the real puzzle... when I talk to men who starting to thin on top or recede they all say how much they dislike comb-overs and how they will just keep it short and tidy and clean on top. So riddle me this: for those gents who have one, did they see a picture of someone with one and think “yup, that's the look for me. My, how natural it looks and what a practical solution”?

I honestly don't understand how someone begins to grow one. In fact I've yet to have a client in my chair who's in the mid-stages of growing one. Would they ask me to keep a it longer as they hope to grow it into a comb-over? Or do they have hair that long all around and one day cut it all short bar a little bit on one side? These questions genuinely baffle me. Perhaps a more experienced barber can shed some light on the matter for me. I certainly would never ask a client! So if you read this I'd love to hear your option on the matter. Just drop me an e-mail or comment below.

- BE

Having The Decorators In

Hi everyone...
Apologies for it having been so long since I last updated. I'm typing this with a horrible head cold, a nose that could run in the Olympics, and my busiest week in a long time ahead of me. Despite all these recent developments, everything is keeping well in the barbers and we are in the middle of redecorating the place! A complete change of colour scheme.
The big boss man has decided to go for a light grey (with a tint of blue) and navy colour combo and I have to say the jury is still out on my decision as to whether or not I'll like it. It's very classy but a little cold feeling. I'll hold judgement until it's finish though. Things have been a bit all over the place as a result with the shop looking like this most days:

However the above image is even a good day! I went into the barbers this week to find the chair at my station was gone! We are getting two new Belmont chairs in (mmmmmm... Belmont) and they have taken out two of the ones we had to make way. I had to seat my clients on one of the much older chairs that they had in the canteen-ish area, which, to be fair, wasn't all that bad and did the job just fine.
Anyway I'll take another photo once the final spit'n'polish is put on and let you all judge for yourself. Right now I'm off to bed with a Lemsip and a warm blanket.
- BE

Arthur's Day Street Celebration!

Like it or hate it you have to admit that Arthur's Day is a brilliantly successful marketing gimmick. For those of you outside of Ireland, Arthur's Day is a day in celebration of Arthur Guinness, the creator of that famous black beverage from this side of the water. Quite simply, at 17.59 crowds gather in the street with a pint in hand to rise the drink aloft and proclaim "TO ARTHUR!". 
It began a few years ago to celebrate the 250th year of Guinness and took off from there, becoming a yearly event. The pub shown at the start of this advert is just beside my barbershop!

Some big name bands play venues all around the city and, to give the massive corporation it's due, they donate all the proceeds from these gigs to a charity that helps start-up companies and charity businesses. 
This year we stayed open during the celebration and as the day progressed we could see them setting up for the celebration outside of the barbershop window. There are at least 6 pubs on our street so the buzz started early on. It began with a few chairs outside, expanded to a whole green area (for some 'Living Streets' festival?) and slowly a few people took a seat and sipped a drink:

Now I must stress that this is RIGHT outside the window of the shop. I took these with my phone while kneeling on our waiting bench inside the shop window. Time went on and the crowds began to gather and by 17.30 we had to take the latch off the door to stop random merry people wandering in! 17.59 stuck and a gentleman dressed as Arthur called time and the cheer went up!:

We all kept snipping on for another hour with the hubbub of the throng filtering in, and then closed up shop and squeezed our way out the door! That's one thing I love about the shop's location - every day brings a different view!
- BE

Hair, There and Everywhere

One thing they should emphasise more in barber college is how, once you have a career as a barber, you will find hair clippings EVERYWHERE on you for the rest of your life!
Barbers must be very careful not to get hair-splinters trapped under their skin as they will itch and may get infected. I was changing my t-shirt the other day (on my day off, in clean clothes and I had showered that morning I might add) and I felt a sharp needle-like stab in my arm and I looked down and there was a hair sticking into me! However the worst so far was when I was cutting a client's hair last week and I suddenly felt a little hair snipping caught right in between my two front teeth - ugh......
Apparently the girls in work keep their cheap underwear for in work and have a whole other set for their days off. Hair destroys bras they tell me so I must start doing the same.
It really makes me wonder how this woman copes!: Woman Weaves Clothes Out Of Own Hair

Towel Folding Tricks

Despite the current state of my bedroom I am, at heart, a bit of a neat freak sometimes. Which is why I love folding the towels in work. My boss always comments on how tidy the hot towels are when I do them and one day I was just feeling a bit quirky and decided to alternate the grey and navy stacked towels I put by one of the sections so that they look like a giant liquorice sweet! And I did rolled towels for another section:

I was chatting to one of my workmates and she was saying how she was making various animals out of towels with her daughter the previous night, so for fun she also showed me how to make a dog!:

Apparently this type of thing is most often seen on cruise ships where the people who clean and tidy your room will often leave your towel(s) in the shape of something cute on your bed. If you go to YouTube you can find tons of videos on towel folding techniques such as this one : Animal Towel Folding Video but I love this very simple one using just a face towel:

I hope you all have some fun at least watching these!
- BE

(Work-)Station In Life

I've found that the barbers I work with take pride in keeping their workstations neat and tidy, and this makes me really happy. At the end of everyday (and sometimes during also) the counter-tops get fully cleaned down and the mirrors polished. Combs and shavettes are kept in Barbicide in between cuts, clippings and tissue-paper are swept away after each client, and used towels and facecloths are put in the wash-bins (one for the navy towels, one for the whites).
However everyone has a slightly different way they like to lay out their tools: 
The barber beside me lines up her clipper guides from big to small, I like it the other way around. 
One of my other colleagues puts their scissors vertically on their mat, I like mine horizontally.
I like to use Black & White Pommade so I have two different tubs of it at my station (I also like the shaping cream and the beeswax cream but we only have one of those open at a time so they hop from station to station).
I use an old Ever-Ready shaving brush to clean my clippers with, the barber beside me uses a nail brush.
Here's my station at the start of the day (the shavette is put in the Barbicide with my combs after each use):

Every place has a spray bottle, a container of talc, a can of Clippercide and a sterilising jar of Barbicide. The white on the left of the image is the sink. I love laying out my tools and having a clean, presentable station. I hope your barber does to!

- BE

The Tipping Point

A quick observation:

When people are paying for a service, no matter how small the cost, they frequently tip.

When people receive the same service from free, 9 times out of 10 they won't tip.

Unfortunately I can not charge people for haircuts etc. as I'm doing my final year apprenticeship so it means I never get any tips either. It's interesting the difference in mentality we have towards getting something for free and getting it cheaply. I got my first tip today and the customer felt the need to ask if it was ok to tip me before giving me it. I guess my service is a bit of a grey area of confusion for people. None the less, I love having someone in my chair, and having a good chat while snipping away and then having them pleased with the end result makes me really happy. Most of my clients seem to be students or unemployed people and I like knowing that I'm helping them save a few euro that they probably need for food more than they do for 'luxury' things like haircuts. Funnily enough, in a vice versa comparision; when my friends come into me they often buy me lunch as a thank you - so I get paid in food! Huzzah!

- BE

Uniformity

(AKA: How I Learnt Very Quickly To Never Wear Wool When Cutting Hair!)
The barber shop I work in now doesn't have a uniform, which I like, as it means you can express a bit of your personality in what you wear. One barber wears light summer dresses with Doc Martin boots. Most of the guys wear jeans and a t-shirt. However when going through my own wardrobe I noted that I have an awful lot of black clothes as in barbering college, as well as my last job, I had to wear all black. In college I would have theory one day a week and be cutting for the rest so I knew that on the theory day I could wear a healed shoe or jewellery etc... something that would be impractical on the shop floor. One day, when we were due to do theory class, I wore in a lovely woollen dress. Clients were booked in however, and I ended up cutting, and it felt like every single hair I cut got stuck in that bloomin' dress! I've never been so itchy!


Then back when I did my first barber training (the basic evening course) I bought a white tunic to wear. Here's a picture of me wearing it giving one of my models a hug! Its a nurse's tunic as the chef's ones which they wore in this barbers didn't come in my size:

When cutting hair most barbers will have a set of clothes they wear in work only. Because no matter how many times you wash a top you'll still find little cuttings caught in the fabric. Polyester is a popular choice however it's not as breathable as cotton in my opinion. While most of the barbers I work with wear t-shirts, one of them wears a smart looking black tunic top that looks like the one of the left below, however I quite like to look of the one on the right as it looks like a bowling shirt!:

I need to think about my image, but to also balance that with comfort and practicality. I have some things that I'd love to wear in work but once I do then they'll be come a "work item"! Forever banished to the Land Of Trapped Hairs Shorn From The Head's Of Many-A-Man! The same goes for shoes. While I do work with one woman who wears open-toed sandals, personally, for health and safety as well as comfort reasons, I prefer flat-soled, closed-toe shoes or boots. As a barber are on your feet all day so comfort is key. One girl only wears high heals and says her feet hurt when she wears flats! Madness! 
I'd love to hear any of your opinions on how important you think appearance is in the barbering profession.
-BE

The Most Important Tool Of The Trade

Forget about the scissors, clippers and razor, any barber will tell you that the most vital tool of their trade is their hands. We often forget about just how important they are, but when something happens to them the reality of this fact hits home fast.

( image copyright to Vincent Tsang: http://vincenttsang.com/ )

I was in work the other day and one of the barbers came in to open up the shop. He was the only barber on that morning but he had caught his hand very badly in a door the night before but hadn't realised it was going to be as bad as it was come the morning. He could barely move it and it was swollen up more than double it's size with the bruising around the knuckles already turning dark purple. Luckily he could still slowly move it a small bit so we hope it's not broken, but the realisation that it would be weeks before he could cut hair again hit him hard, as he saw the fragility of primary tool of his trade and how suddenly they can be put out of service.
Like a dancer injuring their leg or a singer losing their voice, if you injure your hands as a barber there is nothing you can do other than to wait for them to heal; and to be forced away from your craft, let alone your income, can be both tough and upsetting. So I look at my hands, these wondrous things capable of so much, and I appreciate them fully, and I wish our barber a speedy recovery.
- BE