Although we are certainly dead sexy and a great time, we’re not talking about dinner and a movie here. Besides, we’re already taken. The dates we are speaking of are our 30- 60-minute blocks of time with our regular clients – the best parts of our days.
Among shop clients, there are two distinct camps. Those who take the next barber available, and those who go to one barber exclusively. They both pay the same price, but only one gets the absolute best from their barber. This is because those men folks that the relationship your have with your barber is one of the most important ones you can have in your life.
It isn’t because we work harder for our regulars than for new clients. We ‘re always going to give the best haircut and service we can on your first time in our chairs, but as you continue to come back to us, we get to know you. Each time you return to the shop, we get to learn more about your lifestyle, habits, job, personality, and most important of all, hair.
It is widely joked about among barbers that there are about 4 men’s haircuts. This isn’t actually true. What is true is that with short hair there are only so many variations upon a theme, which means that the details are everything. The slightest adjustments can make all of the difference in how your haircut wears until you get back in to see us again.
If you keep coming back to see the same person, we can fine tune those details to make your haircut last longer and feel more livable between cuts. With each visit, we can also see how you are using the product we sent you home with, and help you adjust your home styling technique to get the most out of the good goops we recommended. We can help you get a handle on chronic or recurrent hair and scalp problems. We are professionals, and a great resource, so use us!
It can be quite a task to find the right barber for you, more so outside of major cities. It will likely take some trial and error, but here are three tips to make it easier to find your perfect match.
It takes a deep and abiding trust in your barber to get a shave from Sweeney Todd, after all
Look for Lines
If you run across a barbershop that looks intriguing, or you just know of one near your house, it should be busy during prime time, all the time. Around lunchtime or after 5 on weekdays and all weekend, those chairs should be hopping. Or at appointment-only places like this, see how far out they’re booked, and don’t yell at them when it’s 6 weeks (what, you want them to give worse cuts so the demand is less?)
Of course this will only tell you about the shop, not the barbers working there (remember, your haircut is down to the barber working on you).
Yelp
The best review we have ever gotten, and the guy who did it. He deserved to be immortalized.
Plenty of our most loyal clients found us through Yelp, and for most of the shops we know, the reviews there pretty accurately reflect the talent within them. Do remember, though, that not all reviews are created equal.
We work with a large amount of barbers and stylists, and usually know both sides of the reviews that go up. 5 stars are highly accurate, because people do not go out of their way to write glowing reviews for less than stellar service. Between 2 and 4 stars are also pretty accurate, because they thought about it long enough to give a balanced review, as opposed to going straight for either side of the scale.
Those 1 stars though, especially the ones that spin out into lengthy essays, and often written by…well, shall we say, generally difficult people. They often speak more about the person writing them than the shop or service provider. They may have some merit, but take them with a grain of salt.
Ask Around
This is the real world version of Yelp, and perhaps the most sure-fire way to find your regular barber. If you see someone with a great haircut, don’t be shy! Go up and ask them who cuts theirs. We know our clients pretty well, and when they get propositioned on the street in this way (which they often are), they are always more than glad to share our information.
Of course, if you’re in the Chicago area, you can always just come see us! You’ll have to plan pretty far ahead though.
Whether you make an effort to find a barber you like, or someone you ended up in the chair of particularly impressed you, we encourage you to give a barber a second and third date. Before long, you might have a thing going on. A thing in which you end up with the best hair you have ever had.
The Tennant
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