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Barber Hacks: How To Save Yourself A Lot Of Money

MY CLIPPER COLLECTION


I have a collection of clippers, so many in fact that I’ve probably spent a couple thousand dollars on clippers that I don’t use. They sit in a suitcase in a spare room awaiting a time where one of my lead instruments sings its final swan song and dies.

I don’t need other clippers, I still use the first set of Andis Masters that I originally bought, and could use them for every cut if I wanted. I like my Masters, especially with a fade blade on them, I fade some beautiful cuts with those Masters.

Things are changing in the barbering scene though. Clipper companies have caught on to the fact that they can cut the cord and sell us barbers 3 sets of the same clipper (battery life, and you need at least one with a fade blade) and are unrolling new clippers at an alarming rate.

We can have 90 percent of the efficiency of our corded clippers with a cordless? I need to buy at least 3 right?

INSTAGRAM KING

I’ve always been this way though, constantly searching for that tool that will make me magically better at what I do, that will up my game to Instagrammable-beyond-all-compare, to make me the most popular barber from here to Toledo.

It has to be the tools right?

Nope.

Tools help us, they make our barbering lives easier. They allow us crisp lines and different types of finishes on the hair, they allow us the convenience of speed and the power to mow through hair at an advanced rate.

The question I ask myself is why do I feel I need more than 1 clipper?

Well, I couldn’t do without my detachable blade clipper, it is easily the most powerful of the bunch and takes off bulk and sinks in guidelines like no one’s business. I can’t imagine cutting without one…

...unless it was an Andis Master that I was cutting with. Without these two tools I would feel unlike a barber at all. I say this knowing that I can fade with just my scissors, but the time investment that that would take would be insane.

So already I have two clippers that I can’t live without...and one of them I can outfit with any sized blade I feel like from balding on up.

I ask myself, then why do I need Oster 76s, Oster 10s, Oster Fast Feeds, Wahl Balding Clippers, Wahl Five Star Seniors, Wahl Cordless Magic Clips, Andis Cordless Envy LIs, and five different trimmers on top of all this?

Well, I guess you could say I’m curious about how other barbers are making their clippers work so well. If I see one barber do an incredible haircut with a clipper I’m not using, the gears start grinding in my head, I start asking myself, “Do I need that too?”
“Will that clipper make me a better barber?”

This is especially prevalent in the Instagram age. The number of times I have seen other barbers asking about the type of equipment that another more experienced and slick barber is using is inumerable. I’ve done it. You’ve probably done it as well.

MY ADVICE

Here is my advice to younger barbers, and barbers who own a million clippers like I do. Learn your tools, and stick with them until you have them mastered. You should be able to do any haircut with the tools you already own.

You might have to learn a trick or two to get a bald line out of the hair, but those aren’t that hard to come by, search the internet, join some of the larger Facebook barber groups, ask a Master Barber, or a fellow barber.

Invest in your education, not your tools.

IN CONCLUSION 

Take it from me, I always go back to my tried and true, my best clipper friends, because they are the best tools for me, the ones that I know the best, the ones that will never fail me. There are some days that I look at the investment that I’ve made on clippers and I sigh thinking about the money that I could have saved.

But every once in awhile I like to use the cordless magic clips. And the seniors. And the fast feeds.

And I kind of want those cordless seniors. And I kind of want to try the Babyliss clipper line as well.

Thanks for reading this week,

Crowbarber.

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