Tag: Haircuts

  • ODDS and ENDS: Haircuts, Dog Haircut, and Hats

    (An’ I don’t really care if you think I’m strange…)

    As a balding man, haircuts are a very funny thing. What hair I do have still grows and needs to be cut periodically. Yet, with a significant smaller amount of hair on my head, having to pay full price for a haircut does make me feel like I am being taking advantage of. Shouldn’t there be a bald man’s discount?

    My dog also has to get periodic haircuts, but that’s called grooming, but in the good way. She gets her trim every three months, and when we enter into the final weeks before her cut, she is a hairy mess. She’s a little Chewbacca, if I were to describe accurately.

    I am a fan of hats, and that was before I started balding. When I was doing costuming in my college theatre department, I would try to come up with any excuse to put a hat on a character. In my real life, I’m a baseball cap and beanie guy. But what I would love to be is a fedora guy. And not one of those short brimmed hipster fedoras; no, I’m talking a classic wide brim 1930’s or 40’s fedora. But I think for the look to work, you have to be in a suit. Fedoras are formal, while a ball cap denotes a casual or sporty aesthetic. So, I need to wear more suits is what I’m saying.

  • Haircuts

    I am a balding, middle aged man. I look like my father, who is a very spry senior man, who has been bald since the first time I remember seeing him. My brothers are bald, and my paternal grandfather was way bald! To be in this family is to be a bald man. I knew this when I was a child, and my uncle, my dad’s brother who was also bald, told me that I needed to grow my hair long before it’s too late. We all knew it was coming. And I did grow my hair very long for a period of time in the late 90’s.

    Around the age of thirty, I started to notice that things were beginning to thin out on top. I wasn’t too worried about it. But the year that I was engaged and leading up to our wedding, I did use minoxidil to keep what hair I had. It was an act of vanity as I wanted to look as youthful in the ceremony and pictures as possible. Somewhere around forty, my hair just took off for the hills. I started wearing a ballcap, not because I was ashamed of my head, but because one Summer I got an awful sunburn on the top of my head, and now I can really feel how cold winter winds can be.

    I say all of this because haircuts are an odd conundrum for the balding man. What hair I have left still grown and needs to be cut and shaped. Yet the quantity of hair I have is significantly less than the average head. I had a barber. He was a good man. But I began to notice that what used to take him thirty minutes to do, was now taking ten minutes to accomplish. And I could tell he was trying to stretch it out.

    That is why I started cutting my own hair with a shaver. Sure, I save money, but now is a chore I need to do every three months. The shaving part is easy; cleaning up all the little hairs is a pain in the butt. (My father still sees a barber, but I know he goes for the social aspect.) I have gotten pretty good at it. Start to finish, including cleanup, about thirty minutes.

    I have thought about growing out my hair, my kid wants me to do it, but I don’t think I’m the type of guy who can pull off bald on top, long in back. Besides, I already had long hair.