A new hair style interest

The time has come. N has finally started showing an interest in his hair style. He’s not being too fussy about clothes other than fit and irritating parts on his clothes. But I’m sure that will come over the next few years. But it appears getting further into the tween years hair is now by on his agenda.

In the past haircuts have been simple. Just a trip to the barber and we’ve asked for a little boy cut. A trim all over, straight across at the back short around the years, and shorter at the front than they first cut, because it will flop and look like a silly fringe.

We’ve previously gone to the next village for haircuts for him, which is just a small barber shop with a mum and a daughter. It’s cheap but it does take a long time because they chit-chat with every single person who goes in there that they seem to know. And sometimes only one of them there so you’ll have to wait even longer.

Then the OH used to take him to to our sister-in-law’s sister who is a hairdresser. That means a last minute informing after school club that he won’t be there that day and losing money each time they go for a haircut. Plus they have to travel for nearly a 2 hour round trip to go. It just seems a bit pointless for me when we can just nip into town. The advantage of course, is that they have a set time so there’s no hanging around.

Open timings got out of sync, there were missed appointments and when N needed a haircut I just took him into town to one of the barbers shops.

Now he’s a convert. Probably because most of the guys who cut the hair are quite young and trendy and it’s fun to sit and watch them taking the mick out of each other. And some of the customers joining in.

The only downside is having to wait and it’s a busy barber shop. We’ve not quite worked out when the quiet time is to go because usually want to get in there early before something on a Saturday. But we’ve tried that, sat there for a while and then found the key was just too long for us to still get to swimming lessons. We also tried on the first Friday the school holidays assuming that most men would be working but we found the instead of it being full of kids it was actually round full of men waiting for obviously their Christmas haircut.

The other thing that N has to contend with is deciding where the hell just go with whichever barber is free when it gets to his turn or if he’s going to wait for one in particular. It seems there’s one who is really popular and N has had him twice. He cuts his hair nicely and tries to do fancy stuff with it which obviously by the time he washes it and goes home it’s going to be totally flat and back to normal. But N says he is a bit rough with his hair.

The last few months with not being able to get to the barbers, has meant that his hair has got a bit longer and nothing has decided he likes it longer on top now. So we had to work out what we’re going to ask for at the barbers. Usually it’s quite easy just to say what length it is on the side and top but now we have to think about how short on the sides how long on the top.

This time N ended up with a different barber who we’ve only seen once. It seems he’s a winner. He stays (mostly) out of the banter, and was chatting to N to find out whether things were ok, and what he liked doing sports wise etc. I think it’s nice that children get to experience more than just sitting in silence. After all, how are they going to have the confidence in future to ask for what they want when they’re going into the barbers on their own in years to come. With short hair there’s not much room for error.

N was really happy with his hair afterwards. The OH wasn’t as impressed because he thought it needed more off the front and top. But it’s fine for what N wanted and it’s now encouraged him to start actually ‘doing’ his hair.

Before this cut, he rarely combed his hair.  Now he’s there in front of the mirror after his shower, combing it, flattening it and making sure it looks smart. It’s a little redundant given he then goes to bed on semi wet hair and by morning it’s sticking up and out.

With it longer on top, Father Christmas brought him some light hair gel.  (We’d tried my texturising gum which smells amazing, but he wasn’t keen on that, and it’s less manageable to cope with).

So now, every morning, he’s there checking his hair is neat and putting a bit of gel through it on the top to get it flat again.  It does suit him this length. It’s still short on the sides, but not as short. The only problem is that it’ll probably need trimming more frequently before it gets too overgrown.

I now have a tween who’s thinking about what he looks like…although he still says too many people he knows spend too much time messing with their hair.  I’m sure he’ll try more things in future years, but for now, the hair interest has started.

When did your children start thinking about their hair style?