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This has been my primary focus for over 40 years, and in that time, I’ve developed a unique method to get the very best from any hair; The Diamond Dry Cut™. It’s allowed me stay at the forefront of a changing industry and keep clients happily returning. Over 100 clients have stayed with me for over 40 years.
Across those five decades from the 1970s, I’ve watched the ebb and flow of different industry fashions and training methods, and seen the core training around cutting slowly diluted.
On hair, the A-line is an elementary foundation for above the shoulder Bobs, but is widely misused. I’m not sure if this is from a lack of thought or lack of advanced training - most hairdressing training seems to stop at Bobs. But it’s at the heart of so many haircut-car-crashes and most of the corrective cutting work I do for new clients.
Now I shouldn’t really mind because it’s really easy to fix and give the clients the best haircut of their lives when all they’ve ever had is the ‘Lazy A-Line’ regardless of their overall style.
The A-Line rose to fame around the Bobs of the 1960s and it was very specifically engineered for that geometric haircut sitting on or above the shoulders. Apart from giving a strong interesting outline, it energetically compensates for the thicker hair at the back and balances the weight with the less weighty sides. This throws the hair slightly forward towards the face and minimises movement so the crisp line stays evident. Great for hair on or above the shoulders, not good with long hair, particularly textured or curly hair unless you are planning to enter Crufts! And it’s really really not the base line for short layered guys’ haircuts.
1. Shape
An A-line past the shoulders on textured hair creates a pyramid shape, too flat around the eye level and too wide around shoulders/chest. Not attractive. One of my new clients with beautiful thick long hair called herself Hagrid (from Harry Potter) before we got rid of the insanely inappropriate A-Line which had also made her work so unnecessarily hard on blowdrying to try and compensate for a bad haircut. She is a style icon and now has over a million followers on social media.
Like the well dressed Englishman whose sartorial elegance isn’t noticed until 15 minutes after he has entered a room, great hairdressing has an element of understatement. It shouldn’t overwhelm the wearer but help them look and feel wonderful. When someone with a great haircut walks into a room the first thing that should be noticed is that the wearer looks great. Secondly it may click that the hair is beautiful, and maybe with some further consideration, that a great hairdresser has been at work. But the awareness and realisations should always be in that order.
The word ‘healthspan’ has been absorbed into our daily lexicon. It pops up as often as lifespan now as the movement to maximise health progresses. Healthspan is the length of time a person is healthy, not just alive, and was coined by gerontologists in a 1987 Science article. A period of life in which you are healthy and free from chronic disease or disability.
