The Future of the Barber Shop - The Barber Shop Environment

For the last year or two since I have been out of college, I have found myself in the classic rut system. I have always worked well with my hands and have a good grasp on being able to visualize my results beforehand. I have been thinking of looking into the field of barbering. I live in a small town in Ohio, where few barber shops exist. As with a lot of other areas, I can see that the major chain styling salons have pretty much taken over. In our county there are only about five barbers.

My cousin and I, who is currently in the Air Force, were talking this idea over for a year or so, to maybe take up this practice. His wife is a certified hair stylist managing a Fantastic Sams in Fort Collins, CO. My cousin's and my opinion is that it would be nice to have a reliable barber shop in our area that would make it effective and enjoyable to have a haircut. Too often times when getting my hair cut in a chain facility, I feel like a sheep being herded to the clipping. I would feel that men in general, would enjoy the haircut much better if there wasn't so much of a system involved and waits of up to one hour in the chains in our area.

The environment in which you get a hair cut means a lot to me. As a child, we would be taken to the local two chair barber shop and receive a fine haircut and enjoy a great conversation with the barber at the same time. In the chain hair salons it always seems to me that so many people come through there in a period that in some cases I've been going to the same woman, at the same salon in the mall, for over a year and a half and she still doesn't know my normal cut. To me that is sad.

The reassurance that the barber knows you and knows what you like is far more enjoyable. True, that the environment you get your haircut must be more developed to the times and the area. In our rural area, people find themselves talking more about sports, fishing, hunting, Nascar, and farming. I have yet to go into a chain salon and talk about any of them. In fact most of the time the person cutting the hair would not even have a clue if you brought up any of the subjects above ... again it's sad. I still don't know a lot about the business of barbering, but I would like to know more about it. Questions like can you make an enjoyable living at it? What is the general income of a barber on average? And if done right, will there still be a future in it? Maybe our area needs a Manly place to get a cut with Nascars, mounted animals on the wall, and a genuine caring about what the barber and client talk about.

Thanks to Brian for this article. He makes some very good points about the setting and the environment of the barber shop, and how different it is to the chain cutting shops. Where you get your hair cut should matter. It can turn a haircut from a dull chore into a good experience. In many barber shops you have to wait for a while to get your cut, at least during the busy times, but unless I am in a real hurry, I enjoy the waiting; the conversation, the atmosphere - it's relaxing. And that isn't the same in a chain shop.

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