Finding a New Hairstylist
I got some unfortunate news recently. My hairstylist of the last half decade is moving away. Not only is she moving, but she's moving soon. Like, "this is your last haircut with me" soon.
Honestly, this isn't too shocking, as she's always had a mercurial streak. Her globetrotting has always been pretty spontaneous. Closing her shop and moving to renting a chair somewhere was also quite knee-jerk.
I'm on a fairly rigid schedule with my hair. Every four weeks, not some "monthly" cadence. Accounting hates me on those "two haircut months" as it can throw off my budget column when I'm being a bit too frivolous.
Even though I'm supposed to be getting an intro to another stylist, I'm not holding my breath. I know the game, when you get dumped, you can't expect to be top of the other person's mind or demand follow through. Nothing personal either, I'm just prioritizing myself.
So now that I'm displaced, I'm on the prowl for a new hairstylist. At the top of the year, I decided I'm going to grow my hair out, and I'm being quite particular about avoiding a mullet as I enter my Ellen DeGeneres era of hair.
While I think I've already made up my mind on who I'll be pursuing for this next chapter, I thought it would be good to document my thought process a bit. I say this, but I'm actually down to two people, that are at different phases of their career. Funny enough, because of this, they both carry drastically different social footprints.
I've mentioned frequency and mullet aversion, but there's a bit more nuance than that. I'm not chasing any particular hairstyle at the moment, so I'm looking for someone that can manage a grow out. I look at this like an omakase experience, trusting the person to not do me dirty.
This is hard because I'm starting over. I was okay trusting my old stylist, because I had a rapport with her. With somebody new though, I'm taking a gamble regardless. This is where I think experience is going to count.
A person fresh out of school may be technically proficient, but I expect them to need a script. If I rolled in wanting the X style, they would probably shine, but that's not what I'm looking for. The hard part is figuring this all out before you're actually in the chair.
So now the matter of vetting ahead of time. I fucking despise social media, but being able to look up and see what they've done is great. Except when you are stalking someone with little to no social presence, and one with an enthusiastic presence.
I love the youthful exuberance, but also, a thick social presence is just marketing to help build up a business. Lacking that presence isn't inherently bad. Hell, my footprint's purposefully small. They just aren't out shaking the tin cup as much to drum up business.
Reddit comes in clutch here, as you can find people talking about a hairstylist, rather than trusting the stylist directly posting their best work as a form of marketing.
The other dilemma with browsing socials is, as I already mentioned, is that they are posting their best work. Social media is a highly curated experience that oftentimes purposefully omits the rough edges. I've had some bad cuts, we all have. Oftentimes, the worst cuts are by the person that's given me the best cuts. It's something that you can't figure out until the rubber meets the road.
Something else I'm weighing out is what it means to go to someone not only at the beginning of their career, but also being extremely young. Like, less than half my age, young.
This isn't ageism, it's acknowledging that in my mid-40s, a youthful trendy cut may not land. Hair's forgiving, but I don't want to be running around looking like I'm trying too hard.
That's also not to say that a young person can only do younger cuts, but it's something I'm thinking about. Most of my own experience has been with hairstylists that are younger, but still closer to my age. This is also where a strong social media presence can sell the skillset.
Worth mentioning, from my experience men generally go to barbers and not hairstylists. By proxy, most social media content is going to be of women. And to take it a step further, it seems like most people really only like to showcase their color skills more than their cut / styling acumen.
I get it, the money's in color and processing. This just happens to make it a bit harder to vet on social media alone, unless those are the services you're after.
Maybe something I should have mentioned earlier in this post, but I've been focusing my search on people that are running their own spots. Nothing against folks that opt to work at a bigger salon, but I've always had great experiences with upstarts.
All of this being said, I have a week or so before I reach out to anybody. I think my mind's made up, but documenting where my heads at has been good. Or it's been bad, as I didn't actually get me over the line.