Do any black barbers actually know how to properly cut an Afro anymore? Through the entirety of my…read moreadult life, I've had this problem with black barbers basically wanting to give you one of two types of hairstyles. Either they're going to cut your hair to a skull cut which means they're damn near gonna make you bald. Or, they're gonna do some type of braid or lock thing so that the brothers can connect back to nature. To me the natural form of a black person's hair is un-braided, un-locked, and (most definitely) not completely cut off.
I had given up hope on barbers. But, I still just wanted someone to give me a decent shaped Afro without making it into the flat whopper sandwich shaped haircut I consistently have gotten when asking to just have my Afro shaped properly and neatly. I spoke to the owner of this particular for barbershop prior to showing up. He assured me that they were there and they'd be working a reasonable amount of time and I could come and get my hair cut. Once there I spoke to him, but he quickly finished up with the customer he was with, and I ended up getting my haircut by a different person. Red flag!
Anytime you get handed off to someone else other than the person that sold you on the program, things are not gonna go well. Anytime the business operator listens to you layout your concerns about getting your hair done the right way and they hand you off to someone else, you begin to wonder if the person really took what you said seriously? Are they giving lip service but maybe just playing along?
I think the second barber that I was handed off to, after listening to my description of my experiences with previous haircuts to the owner, was not only awkward, but I think he was a little fearful of me. Because I did show some passion for the concerns I was raising. But it's only to say to the person please don't give me that bullshit haircut that barbers like to give people that ask for their Afro to be preserved instead of eradicated!
The haircut that I got was something closer than to what I would want yet wasn't quite there. I could tell by the way the barber talked and the way he acted that he was really uncomfortable. So, when he thought he was done, I left it at that. Pursuing any further refinement could lead to me losing the bulk of my hair. Fortunately, for me where he stopped still left me with a substantial portion of my hair.
This might be the last black barber I ever go to! I realize I would probably get better treatment if I were getting my hair done by a woman. Because men -- especially black men -- particularly black men -- really do think that their hair is something to be gotten rid of.
I believe my hair is precious. That may be why Ethiopian women tend to look at me and think I'm a relative of theirs. These are generally light skin people with long hair and they do not believe in cutting off all their hair. Their men may get short haircuts at times. Other times they may wear Afros. They seem to value their hair.
P.S. I don't know why Yelp jumbled all of the pictures that I added. They were in order - now they're all mixed up. Those reading the review will have to read the captions to each picture. Still just to help you out the haircut I got from this barbershop Blends Headquarters on El Cajon Blvd are the ones with the long Afro, which should be about four pictures. 2 to 3 other haircuts that I got from other barbers none were not good haircuts. There's probably a total of 10 to 12 from those haircuts. One of me in a black button up shirt is a tapered haircut I gave myself as damage control from one the endless log of bad haircuts. Finally, there are four pictures I pulled from online. This not only show the person reading this review fresh but it also shows the owner if he reads this post that I've looked online and I've seen multiple haircuts that look pretty good. And here are some of them. Yet, when you go in to a barbershop these days, you don't see the charts that used display various haircuts -- We're not all professional barbers. We don't all know the lingo or what type of hairstyle fits which description. It helps to have pictures that you can look at if you're not yourself a professionally trained barber and do not know all the terminology this industry uses.
