Bristle
A barber working on a customer's hair in a dim shop.

One chair · forty minutes · last cut at four

There is one chair, so there is one of everything

One barber, one mirror, one pot of coffee that is on from eight. Forty minutes a head whether you need it or not, which is why the diary is never wrong and why you will not be waiting in it.

Look at the diary

What it costs

Cut£28

Cut and beard£38

Beard only£16

Hot towel shave£34

Head shave£22

Under twelve£16

Over seventy£18

First cut after chemotherapyfree, always

Fringe tidy between cutsfree

Cash or card, no difference—

Prices have been the same since March and there is no separate list for anybody. If the cut takes twenty minutes it still costs twenty-eight pounds, and if it takes an hour it still costs twenty-eight pounds.

A close shave with a straight razor, in black and white. A row of barber chairs facing a mirrored wall. A portrait of a man with curly hair and a full beard.

Forty minutes

Most shops book twenty and run late from half past nine onwards. This one books forty and finishes on the minute, and here is where the forty goes.

0–5

Looking

At what grew out, what you did to it, and what the last person did to it. Nobody touches a clipper in the first five minutes.

5–10

Washing

Every time, included, at the back sink. Cutting dry hair that has product in it is how you get a bad cut and a cheap shop.

10–33

Cutting

Scissors over comb for most heads. Twenty-three minutes is the number this has settled at over nineteen years, and rushing it shows for a fortnight.

33–40

Finishing

Neck, ears, the bit behind the ear everybody forgets, and two minutes on how to make it behave on a Tuesday morning at home.

If you want it done in twenty, say so when you book and it will be twenty, at the same price. About one person a month does, and that is fine.

A portrait of a man with a short beard against a dark background.

Nineteen years, one room

The shop opened above a launderette in 2007 and moved downstairs in 2011. Same chair, reupholstered twice, same mirror, same radio station and an increasingly well-defended opinion about clippers.

No second chair. There was one for two years and it turned a quiet room into a busy one, which is not what anybody was coming for.

Book a forty
A plain white painted brick wall.

The diary

Booked by phone or by walking in. There is a paper book on the shelf by the door and it is the only one that counts.

Tuesday to Friday

08:00 to 16:00. The last cut of the day starts at 16:00 and the door is locked at 16:40, because a barber who is tired gives worse cuts and better excuses.

Saturday

07:30 to 14:00, and it is full about three weeks ahead. If you want a Saturday in December, ask in October. That is not a sales line, it is just true.

Sunday and Monday

Shut. One day for the family and one for the accounts, the laundry, the sharpening and the ordering, which take longer than anybody thinks.