I can hear you all already. ‘Eighty pounds for my two-year-old? Who does he think he is?’ This might be difficult for some of you to read and perhaps even more difficult for you to understand, but there is no difference between a child’s haircut and an adult’s haircut. In fact a child’s haircut is more difficult, especially when they’re under eight. The wriggling, the impatience, trying to get them to sit straight while they arch their backs in contempt like a restless cat on a hot tin roof, it’s dangerous bordering on sadist when you think what could happen. I mean I’ve never cut a child but imagine a mistake? it doesn’t bear thinking about. The catastrophe, the sheer maddening horror of cutting a precious little cherub right in front of an aghast set of wide eyed parents. Naturally It would be my fault, it wouldn’t be the child’s fault. It wouldn’t be anything to do with the fact that they never stopped moving throughout the whole haircut, picking their nose while I cut their fringe….

I want all parents to please read this disclosure before they ask me to cut their child’s hair. Charging the appropriate amount comes as a huge surprise to many. I guess if all you’re used to is mediocrity it’s difficult to accept if something is of superior quality. Alas In an unregulated industry This is where we find ourselves.

The only way I can fully describe what a child’s haircut is to me is an example of one of my regular’s. His name is Seb. Seb is nine. He’s a good kid. The best actually. He’s quiet and polite, he sits and moves in any way I want him to. He couldn’t be more helpful to the cause of a great haircut. He is the perfect client. He never complains, he never protests and the best quality he has for a nine-year-old kid is that he lets me get on with it. This is unusual. His status as a regular is because of his diligence and his very real understanding of first-hand experiences of  bad haircuts in quick fix, one stop shops lazily thrown together by his parents. His mother told me the last time she brought him in that when asked if he’d like to go back to the barbers, without a moments hesitation he looked up at her in the rear view mirror his eyes white with fear shook his little head vigorously and emphatically murmured ‘I want to go to Marcus’. Of course, he wants to come to me. He’s not going back to the local barber shop to pay five quid to look like he’s just been discharged from hospital, sore from the ubiquitous drilling of the clippers, jaded by the experience so that anyone wielding a pair of scissors in his direction in the future is treated with utter contempt. No, he wants to come in here where he’s gets treated like his style means something. Because to him it does mean something. Probably his nine year old peer group notice that he has an effortlessly cool well-balanced haircut  only adding to his prowess amongst his peers. It’s important for him. I also think he likes the idea that he’s the only one that  knows it because his parents are clueless. They still think of him loving dinosaurs and sucking his thumb watching Aristocats. Yeah he still sucks his thumb but this year Santa became an illusion. This year he chose his own shoes jacket and clothes and somehow within all of that search for his identity and style his haircut has become a big part of his departure from little boy, to little boy with a sense of what his style is.

I treat Seb’s hair with guile discipline and high skill. His hair is quite thick so it’s of utmost importance that I distribute the weight perfectly, working with its texture and leaving it a little loose over the ears, a particular request of his.

When I’m finished it’s perfect he knows it and I know it. he looks like John Squire in the early days of the Stone Roses but it’s not over styled. Seb plays with it a while, brushing it this way and that way and every time the hair falls, it falls perfectly, always in balance, always making it look effortless.

When his dad picks him up Seb is looking in the mirror beaming from ear to ear admiring himself like he’s the only one in the room. ‘ I can tell that you’re pleased with that’ his dad says and he is. He should be, because the detail and precision that’s gone into it, the expertise, the balance, the vision is worth every penny of the seventy pounds.

Anyone looking at my pricelist thinking about bringing in their child to have their haircut, should understand that this is how it works in my salon. Also, it should be clear that I take just as long to cut a child’s haircut as an adults, perhaps slightly longer depending on how much maintenance I have to do. I mean, stopping and starting impacts on how long it’s going to take, right? Commands are nearly futile right ? Maybe I shouldn’t do children’s haircuts. Maybe in time that’s what I will do. But until then. This is the word of God.