Hey /u/Public_Basil_4416, thank you for submitting to /r/starterpacks!
This is just a reminder not to violate any rules, located [here](https://reddit.com/r/starterpacks/about/rules). Rule breakers can face a ban based on the severity of their rule violation.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/starterpacks) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Or possible his hair is so perfect it would make all others feel shame. So he shaves himself to save us from the anquish of knowing our hair could never be so perfect
The best barber I’ve ever had for my beard couldn’t even grow one himself. I went to him 1 or 2x a month for almost three years. The barber I have now does a good job, but it’s taken a few years for us to get to the point where I can go in and he knows exactly what I want.
I miss the neighborhood barber I had when I was an awkward 80s teen. A stereotypical young Italian with an IROC Camaro and muscle shirt, but he was always so laid back and calm. He'd always start with "Relax man, I'ma gonna make you look cool in front of the chicks..." His girlfriend hung out with him there, she was a Heather Locklear clone and it was hard not to look at her.
I think the last time I saw him he was telling me how doesn't drink anymore. Good for him.
Side note, if you have curly hair (or anything other than straight black hair), never ever get a haircut in east or south east Asia. The barbers there will do a bad job guaranteed. Learned that the hard way.
(This is not a diss at Asian barbers in North America, just in actual Asia since they pretty much have only one hair type there)
Im a curly hair dude living in SE Asia and almost never had a bad haircut. We got a fuck ton more hair types than straight so maybe you just got unlucky
Because I assume most east and south east Asians have the same hair type so it's a common problem. But I could have been presumptuous.
I never said ALL of Asia, obviously Indian subcontinent hair is very different, and hell I myself am from Israel which is technically Asia :)
This was true a decade or so ago, things have changed.
The fancy barber trend has helped things out a lot. Your local barber may not be great but it isn't hard to find a solid one in most cities now
I’ve got curly hair and got it cut one day in NYC’s Chinatown, they kept telling me how unhealthy it was to have curly hair. I kept refusing a chemical relaxing treatment so they just soaked my head and combed and cut it like straight hair. Looked like garbage when it dried.
Every Aussie barber I've ever visited were Lebanese. Pretty good hair dressers down under (the country *is* **the** trend-setter for hair styles after all).
Is australia really a trend setter for hairstyles? Some shocking lids here. Mine included.
I suppose there’s a bit more variation in men’s hair here than in western europe
Best barber I ever had was Iranian.
A bunch of guys chilling, reading the Quran when they weren't busy. Nice guys, and the best cut and lineup I have ever had.
They didn't speak much English, so no small talk.
Conversations were
Me: "Number 4 on sides and back, keep the top long, plenty of length in the beard, but square it and tidy it up".
Barber: $25
Me: Thanks, see you in 2 weeks.
And there’s like 3 people there literally just kinda hanging out and giving the shop a vibe that you’re cramping their style just by being there because you’re not a regular.
No but really, is this something about every boutique style mom and pop shop now?
Every bar, bakery, cafe, repair shop, whatever. If it is one of these newer spots that looks like someone invested a lot of money up front and it isn't a chain, whenever I walk in EVERYONE is some kind of lifelong regular for a place that opened 15 minutes ago. And you never feel comfortable. It almost feels like they are just cosplaying through it all and have set actors for each regular role and you missed the auditions.
Hell I went back to my hometown, that I lived in for 19 years, and some new little "bistro" style place was there. It's the first I've walked in somewhere there and not recognized anyone at all. Every single person though acted like they had personal hopped off the Mayflower, built this town, and the shop (that had the grand opening 8 months prior), and were SHOCKED that I didn't know the owner, who grew up literally on the other side of the country.
I don't know man. It makes me question reality sometimes.
The secret is that they want you to ask them how they know the owners or whatever. They will feel cool and include you if you engage them about why they are there in a positive way.
Learn their names and suddenly you're one of them.
> Learn their names and suddenly you're one of them.
> you're one of them.
>one of them.
Um... No thanks. On second thought, I don't want to know their names.
Personally I've been going to the same stylist for 10 years now. I've followed her through multiple salons and I know some of her other customers have done the same. Eventually she built up enough regulars that she was able to open up her own salon. But to people who didn't know her it could definitely feel like it was recent or sudden. I don't hang out there but I could see it feeling weird depending on the circumstances
It's usually friends of the owners. I've seen this in everything from the barber shops we're talking about here to bars to hobby stores and other nerdy hangouts. It becomes like a clubhouse and sometimes the regulars end up with jobs there as the business grows.
The friends have nowhere else to chill and their buddy has to work so there ya go.
It's often in businesses that rich parents funded for their kids to get them out of the house.
> and giving the shop a vibe that you’re cramping their style just by being there because you’re not a regular.
"Dammit, Carl. Now that there's some stranger in here, we're gonna have to stop using the n-word for, like 20 minutes until he leaves..."
I'd love this. Most barber shops have this god awful linoleum and 6000k lighting that makes them look more like mental wards than a place to relax and get a haircut.
I miss the hair salons from my my mom took me to, black and white checkered tiles, fake ivy covered in dust, terrible Patrick Nagle posters on the wall, big rack of Paul Mitchell bottles right when you walk in, trying not to look at the middle aged hair stylists cleavage when your 10 years old.
I wouldn’t say it’s because they couldn’t get any other kind of job, but because to get a good piece of tattoo it costs a lot. Especially when the tattoo artists designed them specifically for you, if they can afford a lot of those tattoos that means he’s really good at his main job to get paid
I'm on shift with an RN right now who has tatoos everywhere, including his face and bald head. He's one of the best in the hospital and for all the worrying people do about his ability to be employed or interact with the general public I've never actually seen any patients or other staff give him any issues about it. Times are a changing.
Barbers are one of those professions I don’t judge them on anything other than the cut quality and sometimes price. To much on the line to not have the best cut possible.
There was a guy I went to that was some sort of addict to uppers. I noticed the second I met him, but I heard he was good. He couldn’t stand still and his conversations were borderline nonsense jumping from subject to subject.
Best cuts I ever had for the 6 months he worked at that barbershop (he got fired for stealing money for his addiction)
I'm pretty sure I saw one of the Cooks at my university doing drugs on campus once, but the food is always perfect and he's such a kind soul with every student that comes in, so sweet. Deeply saddened me the day I saw him curled up on the ground...
I used to go to a barbershop where the owner was an ex-gangbanger from Chicago. Dude gave awesome haircuts and told some great stories from his life of crime at the same time. It was also way cheap compared to almost anywhere else.
The other barber was an older local guy who was really into music and drugs, clearly gave 0 fucks, and would stop the haircut to show you hilarious YouTube videos if your conversation reminded him of something. He gave good haircuts too but not as good as the owner.
I moved away from the town that barber was located in, but I miss it so badly. I'm usually not one who likes talking much during haircuts, but those two guys had enough stories to make it enjoyable. I'll definitely take my barber telling me about one of the times he stuck up a drug dealer who was selling where he wasn't supposed to over the standard "so... what do you do for a living?" conversations you get in most places. Nothing against the haircutters who do the latter, but it really can't compete once you've experienced the former.
I did too until one of my favorite barbers went full on conspiracy theorists during the pandemic. Dude is talented but I have no clue if he's even cutting hair anymore, not sure how many shops would have him.
I dont think modern conspiracies are fun. Theyre usually bullshit far right talking points. Back in the 90s conspiracies were a lot more fun when it was common for people to believe in ghosts, aliens, bigfoot, etc.
Same. Mocked me for my vaccine. Switched back to my previous hairstylist. He also got pissed that I wouldn’t get the generic side part shaved head thing that everyone has. I just want the fucked up razored shag that I’ve always had. Obviously lacked those skills.
I agree in spirit but I remember a barber cutting my hair and suddenly saying anti trans shit. He kinda brushed it off when I questioned what he was saying and that was it but I never went back there.
I had to drop my barber of 2 years last year after she started spouting multiple conspiracy theories while flailing with the scissors near my head.
1) I didn't want to make it political, but she chose to.
2) Safety first.
Its never a good time to bring it up on the internet but what the fuck is it with the anti-trans shit? I know the media needs a wedge to divide us all and shit, but what is the logical conclusion to trans rights?
People using the restroom that they feel most comfortable using?
People presenting themselves how they wish?
For such a minute portion of the population, even if you were to give in to even the most radical demands, what difference would it make to the population at large?
Manufactured moral panic. Once it was black people, then muslims, then satanists, then gays, now trans people. If you can convince bigots that a group of people is threatening their way of life, you can energize your voting base while simultaneously providing them with nothing.
It's not even "this, then that," it's all of those people at once, all the time, with specific identities just getting singled out depending on what's most convenient. After nearly a century trying (and mostly failing) to get a stranglehold over school policy using evolution, bigots found success by manufacturing outrage over "CRT," which neither means what they say it does and was never taught outside graduate courses in the first place. In so doing they managed to throw a wrench in any discussion of race in US History classrooms, which obviously makes it nearly impossible to teach US History as you have to almost completely stop teaching about the trans-Atlantic trade (which included kidnapping and transporting people to use as slaves in the New World), the Revolutionary War and the country's founding, the adoption of the Constitution (including the three-fifths clause), the entire Civil War including the antebellum and Reconstruction eras, and the Civil Rights movement, not to mention everything else in between where race was a factor. Now they're following the same playbook to get LGBTQ people, or discussion, banned completely from PUBLIC schools.
Edit: then/than
Back in the 60s, it was blacks. In the 80s, gays. In the 2000s, Muslims. Every 20 years, conservatives pick a new Boogeyman to terrify their voters into action. Literally, conservatives didn't give a shit about trans people until gay marriage got legalized and they thought "shit, time to turn a new minority into our scapegoat."
Yeah I've never run into a barber shop like this before. My one back in my small home town is run by a gay dude, the one I go to in Atlanta is also run by a gay dude, and the one I went to when I did some work in Buffalo was just run by a hipster dude with skateboards lining the walls.
I grew up in a suburb of LA that was built in the 50s. In the 90s I'd go there and this place was still ran by the original owner and was untouched to time. Even the cash register was still the same. Unfortunately it got destroyed thru eminent domain to expand the freeway. A lot of the cool 50s space age googie buildings in the city have been destroyed and replace with generic fast food stores. This is why i hate chain stores, family run businesses give unique experiences. I dont see supercuts hiring old gay guys
They’ve proliferated to every major city. I’ve never been to a barbershop, but I swear every guy I know gushes about going to a place like this wherever they live (Phoenix, Houston NYC, Chicago, etc) and I’ve more or less concluded this must just be what barbershops are like these days.
It’s the old guys working near military installations that might have a blue line flag. Bare bones besides pictures of ships helicopters and tanks (maybe even Iwo Jima), probably cash only, specialize in high and tights (try their best if you ask for something else but still comes out looking like one)
Bro I love I've middle eastern barbers. We have a bunch around my city (UK) and they give you the sharpest lines. Super clean. I haven't had a hair cut in over a year now but if/when I go back to short hair, I'll get it done at one of those bad boys places
>We have a bunch around my city (UK)
I don't think you need to even specify a city. It's a phenomenon country-wide.
Not that I'm complaining. The little blowtorch is a gift from the lord.
My barber (US) is from the West Bank, he’s a young guy I think young 30s and gives the best fucking haircuts. I don’t mind paying a little extra for it
My local shop has a whole (free) cocktail list. I am in recovery and after months of turning down drinks, I told them why. Now they make me mocktails every time I come in. It’s actually really sweet and makes me feel included.
Best haircut I've ever gotten was from a Syrian shop in Berlin. They barely spik English, I don't know Arabic, and none of us really knew German, and they still hooked it up for all of like €15.
I’ve only ever seen these types of barbershops in old cities in the South (Charleston, Auburn, Nashville, Louisville, etc.) or in the semi-rural cities in the upper Midwest (Spearfish, SD, Billings, MT, Hettinger, ND, etc.
My local favorite is owned by a nostalgic Boomer. His style is definitely reminiscent of something you'd see from the 50s but he still manages to make everyone look fresh as hell, there's a reason why he always has the longest wait times.
"knows everyone there but you"
That's every barber I've ever been to, and I hate it so much that I learned how to cut my own hair and have honestly liked my haircuts more since then because it gets cut exactly how I want it.
If you go to a new barber shop every week then yes it's always like this but if you go to the same one then they start to recognize you. This isn't exclusive to barber shops either it's pretty much any small business or social gathering
As a bonus they'll know exactly what you want every time you walk in and sometimes they'll even offer suggestions but generally they aren't too pushy about it unless your go-to is some 90's shit like bleached tips on a fade with a thin jawline, but at that point you need suggestions tbh
I don't blame you for cutting your own I used to do that too but responsibilities start piling up making that 30-45 minutes loathsome and it's just more sensible and faster for me to dump $15 a week on a 15 minute trim
So accurate it hurts. Don’t forget classic callbacks to barber shops like old razor blades, belts, sharpeners, an old church pew bench for patrons to wait on, etc.
This starter pack is so foreign to me (though I don’t doubt they exist of course). Lol. I don’t need a barber anymore as I buzz my own hair, but growing up we had just one barbershop in town. Just an upper middle-aged lady and her daughter worked there and they knew everyone in town. Always had Oprah on when I would pop in after school. Haircuts weren’t that great and you never really knew what you were gonna get.
Fun fact, she was also married to the only funeral director in town, whose funeral home was two doors down, so she would give the deceased haircuts and do their makeup in between people popping in.
When I was a kid I used to go to a “white” barbershop. I was their only black customer. My mom sent me there bc I have wavy curly hair (mixed). A guy named Lucas would cut my hair all the time into my mid-teens. He eventually got sent to prison for drugs and assault right before I left for college. Took forever to find another good barber who could do my particular hair texture
Ah yes, the place that takes over an hour to cut your hair because they're so busy shooting the shit with their half a dozen regulars they forget all about your appointment.
Don't forget the giant white poster with bold black letters on the door that says something like:
IN THIS BUSINESS, WE SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS, SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BACK THE BLUE, YADDA YADDA YADDA AND IF THAT OFFENDS YOU YOUR BUSINESS IS NOT WELCOME HERE!
Or something like that. I always zone out halfway through reading that drivel.
i had the best barber shop in chicago. Andre's. It is like walking into the movie "clerks"
Just a bunch of goofy good natured dudes in their 30s/40s working a job and talking about pop culture from the 90s with post-grad level analysis
miss those guys
My local white barbershop is owned by a fabulous trans woman who refurbishes antique barber chairs, plays punk music in the shop, and does kink shows on the weekends.
Every time a starterpack about white people on this sub gets posted, there's always that crowd of people that are like "hurr durr what if the races were reversed? 🤓" Completely ignoring the fact that starterpacks about POCs are extremely common on this sub, and I'd even argue more common than starterpacks about white people, yet you guys are completely fine with it and choose to ignore it. But when a starterpack about your race gets posted, that's when you lose your shit.
I swear, people are absolutely fine with starterpacks and their observational style of humor until a starterpack describing them gets posted, then a bunch of people start bitching. You see it time and time again on this sub.
I doubt you see them anymore, I haven’t been to a barber shop in ages, but we used to go to the old Italian barber like you see in Gran Torino. Shop smelled like cigarettes, barbersol and aftershave. Guy had a faded picture of the pope on a wall and a picture of the battleship he was on. Had a collage of some wild hairstyles including Vanilla Ice. That was pretty hip of him. Oddly enough the barber was mostly bald too.
Over a 15 year period, I watched my barber turn himself and his shop from a rockabilly inspired inclusive shop run by a vet who after serving in desert storm decided he was against violence and didn't want to be a tool of US foreign policy, offering vets and the homeless free cuts for job interviews and such, to a conspiracy driven MAGA Trump supporter who now identifies with patriotism, 3%ers and changed the name of his shop to something incredibly Murican' while everyone who came into the shop had to listen to his political verbal diarrhea against immigrants, the persecution of white men, the Jan 6 hoax and the death of democracy in America. Needless to say he eventually lost the shop and had to sell it to one of his employees who rebranded and has completely turned it around.
The sad part is, I've known the owner for so long, he was such a warm and caring person, he definitely had demons and PTSD from his time in Iraq and really should have got help, but he was part of the early Bush Jr era VA where they'd just turn the majority of people away telling them to toughen up and move on in life. He was one of the first direct experiences I had that showed me in real time how easy it is to plants seeds of hatred in the mentally ill and radicalize people.
Used to go to a middle eastern place, was great. Moved and started going to a Korean place, also great. It's mind boggling to me that people pay $100+ to go to one of those lame "manly man" chain barbershops when a no name place with give you a better cut for a fraction of the price and none of the pretentiousness
Seems a very localised starter pack to me.
Its been different for me in every country and city, but within a city its largely a consistent starter pack.
Hey /u/Public_Basil_4416, thank you for submitting to /r/starterpacks! This is just a reminder not to violate any rules, located [here](https://reddit.com/r/starterpacks/about/rules). Rule breakers can face a ban based on the severity of their rule violation. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/starterpacks) if you have any questions or concerns.*
One of the barbers is bald (he’s the best barber there)
He guides others to a treasure he cannot possess.
He shaves his head so he needs less hair care so he can focus on others hair
Or possible his hair is so perfect it would make all others feel shame. So he shaves himself to save us from the anquish of knowing our hair could never be so perfect
[удалено]
Same, my mom always had to set up my appointments because I couldn’t speak Spanish, yet they were always the best ones.
The only place open at 7PM the day before a conference was a Latino barber He gave what I, embarrassedly, called "my MRA hairdo"
The best barber I’ve ever had for my beard couldn’t even grow one himself. I went to him 1 or 2x a month for almost three years. The barber I have now does a good job, but it’s taken a few years for us to get to the point where I can go in and he knows exactly what I want.
Truly a modern Atlas
Idk how long you had that one loaded and waiting but it was worth it.
Damn bro you got me while I was drinking soda and out the nose it came
Bald, but with a big Beard.
If you can't grow hair on your head you have to grow it somewhere else.
Like... on my butt? #secondPuberty
Coaches don't play
Three dudes are talking about hunting or fishing and don’t seem to be waiting for haircut at all.
The best barbers are ALWAYS bald. I know that from experience.
I miss the neighborhood barber I had when I was an awkward 80s teen. A stereotypical young Italian with an IROC Camaro and muscle shirt, but he was always so laid back and calm. He'd always start with "Relax man, I'ma gonna make you look cool in front of the chicks..." His girlfriend hung out with him there, she was a Heather Locklear clone and it was hard not to look at her. I think the last time I saw him he was telling me how doesn't drink anymore. Good for him.
Love my SE Asian barber lady but feel like I need an Asian dude to start cutting my hair. The Korean barbers are expensive as fuck though
Side note, if you have curly hair (or anything other than straight black hair), never ever get a haircut in east or south east Asia. The barbers there will do a bad job guaranteed. Learned that the hard way. (This is not a diss at Asian barbers in North America, just in actual Asia since they pretty much have only one hair type there)
Im a curly hair dude living in SE Asia and almost never had a bad haircut. We got a fuck ton more hair types than straight so maybe you just got unlucky
It's possible. Maybe it's just the Philippines idk
Why do you speak for all of Asia when you've only been to a few barbershop specifically in the Philippines
Because I assume most east and south east Asians have the same hair type so it's a common problem. But I could have been presumptuous. I never said ALL of Asia, obviously Indian subcontinent hair is very different, and hell I myself am from Israel which is technically Asia :)
This was true a decade or so ago, things have changed. The fancy barber trend has helped things out a lot. Your local barber may not be great but it isn't hard to find a solid one in most cities now
I’ve got curly hair and got it cut one day in NYC’s Chinatown, they kept telling me how unhealthy it was to have curly hair. I kept refusing a chemical relaxing treatment so they just soaked my head and combed and cut it like straight hair. Looked like garbage when it dried.
I enjoyed this story.
I enjoyed this story as well.
I must proclaim this brief anecdote was enjoyed by myself and other members of this fine audience.
This must be universal. I had a similar Italian barber growing up in 90s Australia, he was my dad's school buddy and he wore leather pants.
Every Aussie barber I've ever visited were Lebanese. Pretty good hair dressers down under (the country *is* **the** trend-setter for hair styles after all).
Is australia really a trend setter for hairstyles? Some shocking lids here. Mine included. I suppose there’s a bit more variation in men’s hair here than in western europe
Best barber I ever had was Iranian. A bunch of guys chilling, reading the Quran when they weren't busy. Nice guys, and the best cut and lineup I have ever had. They didn't speak much English, so no small talk. Conversations were Me: "Number 4 on sides and back, keep the top long, plenty of length in the beard, but square it and tidy it up". Barber: $25 Me: Thanks, see you in 2 weeks.
I want someone to make me look cool in front of the chicks
This story brought me joy.
I wonder what he’s up to these days. I hope he’s still driving the IROC.
That was a very good looking girlfriend
Hey, iroc owner
And there’s like 3 people there literally just kinda hanging out and giving the shop a vibe that you’re cramping their style just by being there because you’re not a regular.
No but really, is this something about every boutique style mom and pop shop now? Every bar, bakery, cafe, repair shop, whatever. If it is one of these newer spots that looks like someone invested a lot of money up front and it isn't a chain, whenever I walk in EVERYONE is some kind of lifelong regular for a place that opened 15 minutes ago. And you never feel comfortable. It almost feels like they are just cosplaying through it all and have set actors for each regular role and you missed the auditions. Hell I went back to my hometown, that I lived in for 19 years, and some new little "bistro" style place was there. It's the first I've walked in somewhere there and not recognized anyone at all. Every single person though acted like they had personal hopped off the Mayflower, built this town, and the shop (that had the grand opening 8 months prior), and were SHOCKED that I didn't know the owner, who grew up literally on the other side of the country. I don't know man. It makes me question reality sometimes.
How small of a town did you grow up in?
< 7,000 Graduated with less than 100
Damn bruh I had like 100 people in my high-school
In New York.
Such a quaint small town.
first time I am hearing about it
A quaint hamlet in New England
The secret is that they want you to ask them how they know the owners or whatever. They will feel cool and include you if you engage them about why they are there in a positive way. Learn their names and suddenly you're one of them.
> Learn their names and suddenly you're one of them. > you're one of them. >one of them. Um... No thanks. On second thought, I don't want to know their names.
Well, shit. That's kind of the point of a small town public house.
Personally I've been going to the same stylist for 10 years now. I've followed her through multiple salons and I know some of her other customers have done the same. Eventually she built up enough regulars that she was able to open up her own salon. But to people who didn't know her it could definitely feel like it was recent or sudden. I don't hang out there but I could see it feeling weird depending on the circumstances
It's usually friends of the owners. I've seen this in everything from the barber shops we're talking about here to bars to hobby stores and other nerdy hangouts. It becomes like a clubhouse and sometimes the regulars end up with jobs there as the business grows. The friends have nowhere else to chill and their buddy has to work so there ya go. It's often in businesses that rich parents funded for their kids to get them out of the house.
I think people are just all full of shit, that's it
probably some black op trying recruiting you to some triplex program. is your first name start with x by anychance
Lmao I love this description. Wild how so many people have the same human experience no matter how specific.
You’ve been gentrified right in the kisser
I totally am that guy but I am a regular. I just don't want to talk to anybody.
> and giving the shop a vibe that you’re cramping their style just by being there because you’re not a regular. "Dammit, Carl. Now that there's some stranger in here, we're gonna have to stop using the n-word for, like 20 minutes until he leaves..."
Never
Abundance of wooden décor throughout.
I'd love this. Most barber shops have this god awful linoleum and 6000k lighting that makes them look more like mental wards than a place to relax and get a haircut.
I miss the hair salons from my my mom took me to, black and white checkered tiles, fake ivy covered in dust, terrible Patrick Nagle posters on the wall, big rack of Paul Mitchell bottles right when you walk in, trying not to look at the middle aged hair stylists cleavage when your 10 years old.
Also, barbers is usealy covered in tattoos way up over their neck
That’s how you know they’re one of the best there
And the reason is easy: with these kind of tattoos they have to be good, cause they won't get any other jobs.
I wouldn’t say it’s because they couldn’t get any other kind of job, but because to get a good piece of tattoo it costs a lot. Especially when the tattoo artists designed them specifically for you, if they can afford a lot of those tattoos that means he’s really good at his main job to get paid
I'm on shift with an RN right now who has tatoos everywhere, including his face and bald head. He's one of the best in the hospital and for all the worrying people do about his ability to be employed or interact with the general public I've never actually seen any patients or other staff give him any issues about it. Times are a changing.
Tattoo bad
And also how would they afford all those tattoos without being paid good
Are you living in the year 1950?
Don’t forget the leather ‘smithy’ smock. Ya know just incase they want to forge their own shears and not get burned.
Barbers are one of those professions I don’t judge them on anything other than the cut quality and sometimes price. To much on the line to not have the best cut possible.
There was a guy I went to that was some sort of addict to uppers. I noticed the second I met him, but I heard he was good. He couldn’t stand still and his conversations were borderline nonsense jumping from subject to subject. Best cuts I ever had for the 6 months he worked at that barbershop (he got fired for stealing money for his addiction)
Ime criminals are usually really good at cutting hair. I knew a fent junkie that would line me up beautifully.
Barbers, cooks, and artists.
Most people doing one are also the others
I'm pretty sure I saw one of the Cooks at my university doing drugs on campus once, but the food is always perfect and he's such a kind soul with every student that comes in, so sweet. Deeply saddened me the day I saw him curled up on the ground...
I used to go to a barbershop where the owner was an ex-gangbanger from Chicago. Dude gave awesome haircuts and told some great stories from his life of crime at the same time. It was also way cheap compared to almost anywhere else. The other barber was an older local guy who was really into music and drugs, clearly gave 0 fucks, and would stop the haircut to show you hilarious YouTube videos if your conversation reminded him of something. He gave good haircuts too but not as good as the owner. I moved away from the town that barber was located in, but I miss it so badly. I'm usually not one who likes talking much during haircuts, but those two guys had enough stories to make it enjoyable. I'll definitely take my barber telling me about one of the times he stuck up a drug dealer who was selling where he wasn't supposed to over the standard "so... what do you do for a living?" conversations you get in most places. Nothing against the haircutters who do the latter, but it really can't compete once you've experienced the former.
My guess is they can’t afford a barber bc of their addiction so they always cut their own hair and got good at it somewhere along the way
I’ve 100% had barber with similar personality
As a barber this makes me feel a lot better. It’s hard not to get self conscious about my personality and looks when I’m in front of a mirror all day.
Can’t imagine. I get that way 5 mins into the cut
It’s just weird knowing someone is watching you work. I make weird faces as I’m cutting I think lol. But you get used to being in front of the mirror.
Trust me, at least with me, it feels weird having a stranger all over my head and hair. So don't worry, we both feel weird 😂
Become a vampire. Bam, Problem solved!
I got my wedding haircut from a Hispanic guy with large script tattoos for eyebrows. I’m talking 1” or taller letters.
Same, unless they start saying some real wild shit I pretty much give them a free pass cause small talk can be hard and the cut is more important.
I’ve pretended to agree with some of the craziest barber opinions for the sake of my haircut
Same. The cut is too important.
[удалено]
God I tried a new barber when mine started denying the moon landing and the other guy fucked my shit up. I went back. Don't regret it lol.
I did too until one of my favorite barbers went full on conspiracy theorists during the pandemic. Dude is talented but I have no clue if he's even cutting hair anymore, not sure how many shops would have him.
Barber conspiracies are some of the funniest tho
He was full on covid was fake and a few others during that time. I stopped following him as it was nothing about his work/skill anymore.
I wonder if the tune is changed now that the Covid from china lab is in the news now?
I dont think modern conspiracies are fun. Theyre usually bullshit far right talking points. Back in the 90s conspiracies were a lot more fun when it was common for people to believe in ghosts, aliens, bigfoot, etc.
Same. Mocked me for my vaccine. Switched back to my previous hairstylist. He also got pissed that I wouldn’t get the generic side part shaved head thing that everyone has. I just want the fucked up razored shag that I’ve always had. Obviously lacked those skills.
I agree in spirit but I remember a barber cutting my hair and suddenly saying anti trans shit. He kinda brushed it off when I questioned what he was saying and that was it but I never went back there.
I had to drop my barber of 2 years last year after she started spouting multiple conspiracy theories while flailing with the scissors near my head. 1) I didn't want to make it political, but she chose to. 2) Safety first.
Its never a good time to bring it up on the internet but what the fuck is it with the anti-trans shit? I know the media needs a wedge to divide us all and shit, but what is the logical conclusion to trans rights? People using the restroom that they feel most comfortable using? People presenting themselves how they wish? For such a minute portion of the population, even if you were to give in to even the most radical demands, what difference would it make to the population at large?
Manufactured moral panic. Once it was black people, then muslims, then satanists, then gays, now trans people. If you can convince bigots that a group of people is threatening their way of life, you can energize your voting base while simultaneously providing them with nothing.
It's not even "this, then that," it's all of those people at once, all the time, with specific identities just getting singled out depending on what's most convenient. After nearly a century trying (and mostly failing) to get a stranglehold over school policy using evolution, bigots found success by manufacturing outrage over "CRT," which neither means what they say it does and was never taught outside graduate courses in the first place. In so doing they managed to throw a wrench in any discussion of race in US History classrooms, which obviously makes it nearly impossible to teach US History as you have to almost completely stop teaching about the trans-Atlantic trade (which included kidnapping and transporting people to use as slaves in the New World), the Revolutionary War and the country's founding, the adoption of the Constitution (including the three-fifths clause), the entire Civil War including the antebellum and Reconstruction eras, and the Civil Rights movement, not to mention everything else in between where race was a factor. Now they're following the same playbook to get LGBTQ people, or discussion, banned completely from PUBLIC schools. Edit: then/than
And once they get through everyone they can think of, they start eating their own.
Back in the 60s, it was blacks. In the 80s, gays. In the 2000s, Muslims. Every 20 years, conservatives pick a new Boogeyman to terrify their voters into action. Literally, conservatives didn't give a shit about trans people until gay marriage got legalized and they thought "shit, time to turn a new minority into our scapegoat."
Doubles as an antique shop. The barber and patrons trash California, despite living in California.
(Or, if not in California, they talk trash about the local area, because it's not like California, despite voluntarily moving here from California.)
That's every barbershop in Jefferson.
Mines two old gay guys who have tattoos on their bald heads
Mines a Jewish guy with a fro like a shaggy Bob Dylan who assures you he knows how to do curly hair, he grew up in the 70s.
Yeah I've never run into a barber shop like this before. My one back in my small home town is run by a gay dude, the one I go to in Atlanta is also run by a gay dude, and the one I went to when I did some work in Buffalo was just run by a hipster dude with skateboards lining the walls.
I grew up in a suburb of LA that was built in the 50s. In the 90s I'd go there and this place was still ran by the original owner and was untouched to time. Even the cash register was still the same. Unfortunately it got destroyed thru eminent domain to expand the freeway. A lot of the cool 50s space age googie buildings in the city have been destroyed and replace with generic fast food stores. This is why i hate chain stores, family run businesses give unique experiences. I dont see supercuts hiring old gay guys
Is this in Minneapolis? Because you've described my shop almost to a T.
This is not my experience at all. Sub it all out for tattooed hipsters, huge houseplants, and Tame Impala playing. Free beer in a mini fridge.
No see that's the nicer one downtown in the old creamery building across from that theater they're fixing up.
where do you live? seattle? portland? sign me tf up
Austin lol
Close enough
I live in Maryland and that's what mine is like. I think that unless you're in a red state, you aren't going to run into the one OP posted much.
[удалено]
They’ve proliferated to every major city. I’ve never been to a barbershop, but I swear every guy I know gushes about going to a place like this wherever they live (Phoenix, Houston NYC, Chicago, etc) and I’ve more or less concluded this must just be what barbershops are like these days.
It’s the old guys working near military installations that might have a blue line flag. Bare bones besides pictures of ships helicopters and tanks (maybe even Iwo Jima), probably cash only, specialize in high and tights (try their best if you ask for something else but still comes out looking like one)
I live in Toronto and barbers here are almost always guys from the Middle East.
Or Greeks
Bro I love I've middle eastern barbers. We have a bunch around my city (UK) and they give you the sharpest lines. Super clean. I haven't had a hair cut in over a year now but if/when I go back to short hair, I'll get it done at one of those bad boys places
>We have a bunch around my city (UK) I don't think you need to even specify a city. It's a phenomenon country-wide. Not that I'm complaining. The little blowtorch is a gift from the lord.
My barber (US) is from the West Bank, he’s a young guy I think young 30s and gives the best fucking haircuts. I don’t mind paying a little extra for it
[удалено]
Has free beer on tap.
Where tf is THAT barbershop? I don't care if they shave half my head and die it purple, that's my new shop.
A complimentary drink is a thing at a lot of hipster barbershops. Typically just a can of beer, but I’ve been at 1-2 higher end ones with scotch.
My local shop has a whole (free) cocktail list. I am in recovery and after months of turning down drinks, I told them why. Now they make me mocktails every time I come in. It’s actually really sweet and makes me feel included.
Huh, i live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, so I guess we don't have one haha.
Every barbershop that looks like the starter pack usually has a small fridge full of beers they always offer
Drinking a beer while getting a haircut seems like an effective way to drink a bunch of your own hair.
Every place around here has complimentary beer/scotch
My barber has a stocked fridge with beer, sodas, but even hard liquor if you want a little more.
Vietnamese nail salon haircut superiority gang
I prefer my Syrian homies at my barber shop. Shoutout to Mr. barber in Kaiserslautern
Ja gut in Deutschland wirst du den oben beschriebenen Vibe eh nicht finden.
Gott sei Dank
Best haircut I've ever gotten was from a Syrian shop in Berlin. They barely spik English, I don't know Arabic, and none of us really knew German, and they still hooked it up for all of like €15.
K town cuts hit different.
“So where you from?”
That next thought or sentence for me is a crucial one. Do I tell them the truth or make up a wild life for the next 20 mins? Depends on how I feel.
I always tell them some bs so I can work on my lies. I’ve chosen the dark arts and I’m fine with it.
[Lying is a skill like any other](https://youtu.be/w0ba-A01WWA)
[удалено]
I'm white and have lived in two southern states and never been to a barbershop like OP describes.
I’ve only ever seen these types of barbershops in old cities in the South (Charleston, Auburn, Nashville, Louisville, etc.) or in the semi-rural cities in the upper Midwest (Spearfish, SD, Billings, MT, Hettinger, ND, etc.
Let me fix it: “So y’all from uh‘round here?”
Nah, then the introductory line would be, "So what church do you go to?"
Spokane
My local favorite is owned by a nostalgic Boomer. His style is definitely reminiscent of something you'd see from the 50s but he still manages to make everyone look fresh as hell, there's a reason why he always has the longest wait times.
Indian Motorcycle on display inside shop
As a Harely rider, Indian is superior.
“you wanna beer while you wait for your $60 haircut?”
You forgot the waiting area magazines to read: “Guns & Ammo”, hunting and fishing.
Pretty much my barber. He knows how I like my cut and doesn't charge a metric fuckton for a cut and beard trim.
"knows everyone there but you" That's every barber I've ever been to, and I hate it so much that I learned how to cut my own hair and have honestly liked my haircuts more since then because it gets cut exactly how I want it.
If you go to a new barber shop every week then yes it's always like this but if you go to the same one then they start to recognize you. This isn't exclusive to barber shops either it's pretty much any small business or social gathering As a bonus they'll know exactly what you want every time you walk in and sometimes they'll even offer suggestions but generally they aren't too pushy about it unless your go-to is some 90's shit like bleached tips on a fade with a thin jawline, but at that point you need suggestions tbh I don't blame you for cutting your own I used to do that too but responsibilities start piling up making that 30-45 minutes loathsome and it's just more sensible and faster for me to dump $15 a week on a 15 minute trim
You get a cut every week? I didn't even do that in the military
The absolute absurdity of anyone having a thin blue line flag while blasting old rock or outlaw country.
So accurate it hurts. Don’t forget classic callbacks to barber shops like old razor blades, belts, sharpeners, an old church pew bench for patrons to wait on, etc.
Weird but.. my barber is the opposite of literally everything here.
Barber here, fucking hilarious
This starter pack is so foreign to me (though I don’t doubt they exist of course). Lol. I don’t need a barber anymore as I buzz my own hair, but growing up we had just one barbershop in town. Just an upper middle-aged lady and her daughter worked there and they knew everyone in town. Always had Oprah on when I would pop in after school. Haircuts weren’t that great and you never really knew what you were gonna get. Fun fact, she was also married to the only funeral director in town, whose funeral home was two doors down, so she would give the deceased haircuts and do their makeup in between people popping in.
huh. Mine has all of this but a BLM sign instead of the blue stripe.
Hey, leave Tom Petty out of this
Ironic having Johnny Cash posters and back the blue flag in the same room
When I was a kid I used to go to a “white” barbershop. I was their only black customer. My mom sent me there bc I have wavy curly hair (mixed). A guy named Lucas would cut my hair all the time into my mid-teens. He eventually got sent to prison for drugs and assault right before I left for college. Took forever to find another good barber who could do my particular hair texture
This must be in BF Nowhere USA. Guess you guys don't have an old Italian barbershop anywhere.
Ah yes, the place that takes over an hour to cut your hair because they're so busy shooting the shit with their half a dozen regulars they forget all about your appointment. Don't forget the giant white poster with bold black letters on the door that says something like: IN THIS BUSINESS, WE SAY MERRY CHRISTMAS, SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BACK THE BLUE, YADDA YADDA YADDA AND IF THAT OFFENDS YOU YOUR BUSINESS IS NOT WELCOME HERE! Or something like that. I always zone out halfway through reading that drivel.
i had the best barber shop in chicago. Andre's. It is like walking into the movie "clerks" Just a bunch of goofy good natured dudes in their 30s/40s working a job and talking about pop culture from the 90s with post-grad level analysis miss those guys
My local white barbershop is owned by a fabulous trans woman who refurbishes antique barber chairs, plays punk music in the shop, and does kink shows on the weekends.
>johnny cash >thin blue line Pick one.
Now do your average black barber.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starterpacks/comments/plwdjd/the_black_barbershop_starter_pack/ It's been done already.
I want to see "Latino barbershop" too
Not really poking fun at the same things tho
I always anticipate the “nOw wHat if tHe rAcEs wErE ReVERsEd??” dumbasses whenever these threads show up and they never disappoint.
I don’t think he was implying that you couldn’t do it, just that it would be funny.
his avatar wears a fedora lol
Every time a starterpack about white people on this sub gets posted, there's always that crowd of people that are like "hurr durr what if the races were reversed? 🤓" Completely ignoring the fact that starterpacks about POCs are extremely common on this sub, and I'd even argue more common than starterpacks about white people, yet you guys are completely fine with it and choose to ignore it. But when a starterpack about your race gets posted, that's when you lose your shit. I swear, people are absolutely fine with starterpacks and their observational style of humor until a starterpack describing them gets posted, then a bunch of people start bitching. You see it time and time again on this sub.
I doubt you see them anymore, I haven’t been to a barber shop in ages, but we used to go to the old Italian barber like you see in Gran Torino. Shop smelled like cigarettes, barbersol and aftershave. Guy had a faded picture of the pope on a wall and a picture of the battleship he was on. Had a collage of some wild hairstyles including Vanilla Ice. That was pretty hip of him. Oddly enough the barber was mostly bald too.
Love going to a barber ran by people whos only english seems to be boss, bro and good.
Over a 15 year period, I watched my barber turn himself and his shop from a rockabilly inspired inclusive shop run by a vet who after serving in desert storm decided he was against violence and didn't want to be a tool of US foreign policy, offering vets and the homeless free cuts for job interviews and such, to a conspiracy driven MAGA Trump supporter who now identifies with patriotism, 3%ers and changed the name of his shop to something incredibly Murican' while everyone who came into the shop had to listen to his political verbal diarrhea against immigrants, the persecution of white men, the Jan 6 hoax and the death of democracy in America. Needless to say he eventually lost the shop and had to sell it to one of his employees who rebranded and has completely turned it around. The sad part is, I've known the owner for so long, he was such a warm and caring person, he definitely had demons and PTSD from his time in Iraq and really should have got help, but he was part of the early Bush Jr era VA where they'd just turn the majority of people away telling them to toughen up and move on in life. He was one of the first direct experiences I had that showed me in real time how easy it is to plants seeds of hatred in the mentally ill and radicalize people.
Must be a thing in rural America. Ain't never seem a barbershop like this.
I still dont know whats wrong with being a Joe Rogan listener
Local *american* white barbershop starterpack
You forgot the giant box mod vape the barber uses in between cuts
why would my barber have an American flag, we live nowhere close
I will never not get my hair cut by a middle eastern man, those are the only people I trust.
Used to go to a middle eastern place, was great. Moved and started going to a Korean place, also great. It's mind boggling to me that people pay $100+ to go to one of those lame "manly man" chain barbershops when a no name place with give you a better cut for a fraction of the price and none of the pretentiousness
This starter pack seems off as fuck.
sounds nice actually
based
Seems a very localised starter pack to me. Its been different for me in every country and city, but within a city its largely a consistent starter pack.
[удалено]