Saving Money by Staying In-House: Haircuts

 

Yes. My sweet husband is the center of this money-saving escapade. ;-) Can you imagine why this poor expression is on my husband's face?

The dear man is about to get his hair cut. By a first time barber-- never trained, without a clue what to do. As I prepared to cut his hair, I was extremely nervous, too. On the bright side, we had a brand new set of hair scissors, a hair razor, and several safe guard clip sizes. Plus, the cost of the hair cutting set is covered by using it only two times! Whoo hoo-- $15 every two to three weeks is now going into our savings. Not to mention that if I completely messed up, his hair will grow back again, and he has several hats/caps to choose from. ;-)

Before I tell you about the experience, let me show a couple of "after" pics.

<--- Front    Back--->

See? All turned out well! :-) Maybe next time I will video the process.

I love my husband's hair, so this was a very nerve-wracking process for me. As I began cutting and getting into a "groove" of sorts, I became more comfortable and confident.

To begin with...

I took a pretty large size safe guard (third largest or so), placed the razor against his scalp, and "shaved" up. I started at the sideburn on one side of his head and shaved up to just above his ear. I went around his head to the other sideburn along this imaginary line (just above the ear). Everything underneath this line was shaved up using this safe guard.

**Tip: In order to help with blending between sizes, shave up, and then roll the razor up and away from the head when you reach where you want to blend. Do not keep the razor against the scalp when you reach the point where you want to blend.

Next

I took an even larger safe guard size (the largest size I had), and went above the imaginary line to cut the rest of his head. Although I was going to cut above the imaginary line with scissors, I knew I wanted the amount of hair I had to actually cut to be lessened. My darling man had a lot of hair on top, so using the largest safe guard worked. If you are touching up on your man's hair, then you may just want to skip this step and go straight to the scissors.

**Tip: As you cut the hair, brush through it with a comb continously. Brushing through the hair helps to get any cut hair out and to give you a relastic view of the damage you've done. ;-) (Just kidding about the damage part. haha)

But I was scared of the scissors...

My husband has SUCH GOOD LOOKING hair! So far in the process his hair looked fine, but scissor cutting is scary.... OooOooOoo! I decided to cut the hair around the ears with the left and right ear guards. To help trim up the ear, neck, and sideburn areas, I took the safe guards off and used the razor itself. I was very careful when not using the safe guards because I did not want to cut my husband. My movements were very deliberate and steady. I combed his side burns down and trimmed the sideburns up to the place where they naturally stop growing. I combed his side burns to each side and cut to the place where they naturally stop growing. I trimmed in the same manner around his ears and along the edges of his neck.

**Tip: Tilt your ear guards at an angle away from the scalp so that you do not create a bald spot on your man's head. :-/

Time to face my fear....

I couldn't back away from the scissors any longer. My husband had to show me how to scissor cut. Figuring out how to hold the scissors and the hair also took a little bit of fumbling. I combed all the hair forward toward my husband's forehead and began by trimming what hung over into his forehead. (I didn't trim much because I wasn't sure how it would look when combed the way my husband would comb it to style it.) After trimming what hung over into the forehead, I ran my fingers through a small section of his hair (in the opposite direction of the forehead). I held that small section in between two fingers, adjusted the length that was above my fingers, and cut what was above my fingers. In this same pattern, I covered the top of his head until the length was to my liking.

**Tip: On the top of my husband's head, I cut with the hair in my fingers going up and <--> horizontal. On the side of my husband's head, I held the fingers in my hands such that the hair in my fingers was going out and vertical.

**Tip: Wet your comb and the hair. It's much easier to see how the hair will look later on after you finish.

**Tip: Take your time! My first time cutting took me over 30 minutes. I wanted to make sure I was doing every right: choosing the right safe guards, getting the right amount of hair in my fingers, and getting the right look. It's better to use a larger size safe guard at the first and decide to use a smaller one to make the hair shorter second than it is to start with a smaller size safe guard that ends up cutting the hair way too short. Same with scissor cutting. Safer to keep the hair longer at first and then shorten than it is to cut it short from the beginning and realize you cut it too short.

Concerns and Complaints

My dear husband complained about only one thing throughout this long process: the safeguards had somewhat pointed comb edges. Since I am not quite as graceful and gentle as I would like in my haircutting skills yet, I did poke him several times. They don't cause bald spots or an actual puncture or wound. It's more or less just a poke that can be uncomfortable.

After cutting his hair, the clean up was pretty intense.... Clean all of the safe guards I used. Clean the blade. Clean the scissors and combs. Dump out the water I used for the combs. Sweep up the hair. Shake out the cloth that covers the person getting their hair cut. And both my husband and I had to take a shower afterwards because of the little pieces of hair everywhere. So yes... clean up was pretty crazy. If it were not so chilly outside, we would have done the haircutting out there, which would have made the cleanup more manageable.

Hopefully, I will remember to video the next time I cut my husband's hair! It's such an honor to be able to take care of this little "chore" for my husband. (Think about it: I get to be near him, put my fingers in his hair, stand super close to him.... ahhh! How wonderful it is to be married!) More importantly, what a privilege it is to be able to bless my husband.

God bless you and keep you,

~Raquel