My experience has been the opposite of the majority here. When I was growing up and my town was a place where everyone knew everyone else, haircuts in the (one) local babershop were done with the customer facing away from the mirror, toward the waiting patrons. This made for easy conversation among friends and acquaintances. Now the same town is much larger, the local barbershop has been replaced by dozens of franchise hair cutteries, patrons are mostly strangers to each other, conversation among them is rare and haircuts are given facing the mirror.
The focus of a small town barber shop was as much for social interaction as grooming. Not so much today.
I don’t like facing the mirror, but it is the norm at my current place. ( I don’t ever like facing a mirror). I suppose all I have to do is mention it, and my hair cutter would turn me the other way. Maybe next time…
But I would hate even more facing the waiting patrons. (not an issue at my place, the waiting area is a little ways off). I do not want to have a discussion while getting my hair cut with the nice lady cutting my hair or anyone else.
I’ve never had a cut where I wasn’t facing the mirror. That includes cuts on Canadian military bases, $6 per cut barber shops, salons, and the Supercuts style shops. I’ve also lived all over Canada, in Colorado, and Australia.
The only times I’ve even seen haircuts where people are not facing the mirror was in movies and TV shows where I figured it was needed for the shots of actors interacting. I never imagined it was a real life thing.
Whatever direction is easiest for the person doing the cut. Sometimes toward the mirror, sometimes away. Actually, the new guy tends to turn me sideways, because that gives him easiest access to his tools if he decides he needs to dampen the hair a little more, or wants to switch scissors or combs or whatever.
I don’t know that I’ve ever had a haircut where I wasn’t facing the mirror. Although I don’t go to barbershops, I tend to frequent unisex places or chains like Supercuts or Greatclips.
My barber has me facing away from the mirror, toward the TV showing a football or soccer game. But there are also mirrors on that wall, above those waiting for an open chair. (Not that it matters; without my glasses I can’t see how the haircut is going.)
Ever since my late teens, my habit has been to get buzzed every few months or so (“crew cut, 3 all the way around”), let it grow out until it starts feathering in back, and then get it buzzed again.
When I was younger, I would sometimes go for a year or more between haircuts (mostly because we were dirt poor) and my hair would do strange things in the interim - at one point I had shoulder-length locks to the point that people often thought I was a girl, one time it poofed out like an afro, and one time I ended up with natural dreadlocks that took 45 minutes to comb out when I finally got around to getting it cut again.
Of course, I’ve reached the stage of life where I can just say “the usual, please” and I know he’ll given me a haircut exactly like my previous haircut, which is what I want.
I’ve never been in a barber’s shop anywhere where the customers have talked to each other. The occasional comment passes between the barber and the bloke whose hair is being cut. But for the most part silence reigns.
Enough to get an ass-chewing Monday morning. In the Army, it is an unwritten rule that everyone must have a fresh haircut for Monday morning. I don’t always get everything cut. I don’t usually get the top cut every week. Around the ears, the lower part of the sides, and the back (especially around the neck) needs to get cut every week though. That area is pretty much skin close, so if it isn’t cut every week, it is as noticeable as failing to shave. The shitty part, is even though they are only cutting 25%-50% of my head, it’s still full price for the haircut. That’s over $60 a month to maintain a hairdo that doesn’t even look attractive.
:eek: Find a new barber! There are some places out there (one of the SuperCut/MasterCut ilk in my area) that have Military or Bald Men’s “clubs”, where you pay a flat monthly fee to just trim everything up. Being none of those things (military, bald nor male), I don’t have more details, but I do recall seeing the sign on the door every time I pass.
I’ve been going to small male-bastion type barber shops since I was a kid 50-ish years ago. Never done a Supercuts type place. I’ve had lady barbers, but never seen a lady customer. 8 years in the USAF with haircuts every 2 weeks, 25 years of haircuts three-weekly since.
Always faced away from the mirror, sinks, and workbench; that’s towards the side with the waiting area. Some shops in Dayes offe Yore used to have a mirror over the waiting chairs. But I haven’t seen that second mirror in my last 3 shops = 20-ish years.
And yes, you chew the fat with whoever is there about whatever is in yesterdays’ paper laying around the waiting area. In the ideal case there’s baseball on a TV with ragged reception or better yet an AM radio.
No one forced you to be a grunt. You should have seen my hair when I was in aviation and in Germany. Of course that was a couple of decades ago. But really, unless you are some sort of freak every 2 weeks should keep you well within 670-1. I don’t even have to since I am a part timer now but I start to get uncomfortable if I let it go for more than two weeks.
Oh and to answer the OP, it has been very infrequently that I have faced away from the mirror. I have several regular places I go to depending on where I am when I have to go and each one has always faced towards the mirror. I don’t remember the last time it was the other way. Maybe it was on base. Maybe it’s an AAFES thing?
Funny considering my post from yesterday just 2 slots above, but …
This afternoon I went to my (new as of a few months ago) usual barbershop. It’s normally a three-chair one-barber place but he’s on vacation so some pal of his was filling in. This guy was about 65, maybe 70. And he did the job with me facing the sink & mirror. I asked him about it and he said “In NYC where I’m from, everybody does it this way. Always have.”
I wonder how much the facing / not facing the mirror & workbench is/was a regional thing? Most of my life facing away from the mirror has been Midwest or Pacific Coast.
You should have seen my hair when I was in aviation and in Germany. Of course that was a couple of decades ago. But really, unless you are some sort of freak every 2 weeks should keep you well within 670-1. I don’t even have to since I am a part timer now but I start to get uncomfortable if I let it go for more than two weeks.