I have become a master a cutting hair. A good example of this is how I cut a fringe or bangs if you’re from over the pond. Fringes are usually imbalanced, to heavy, too thin, uneven, too narrow or just totally impractical if done badly. Using as little tension as possible I let the hair fall exactly how it would naturally and then i use a super quick slicing technique cutting through the hair as it sits directly on the forehead. This is the only way to achieve a flawless finish.

‘Cowlick’s’, uneven hairline’s, curly, super-straight, coarse, fine, thick, I can work with pretty much any hair type. But It’s not just fringes that I excel at. My years of experience have given me the ability to understand head shape and face shape, working with what I’ve got to create something beautiful. It’s all about achieving the most flattering shape possible and not following trend.

I cut hair without over styling. I try to make sure that my clients have every opportunity make it look the same even after it’s been washed and blow dried at home.  So much is made of the styling when it comes to a salon appointment, so much that I think somewhere we’ve lost our ability to cut hair.

The things I see and have seen. Uber successful, mutli-award winning, hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram hairdressers who have no idea to cut hair expertly. The models always look great when they’re finished. But the moment they wash it at home only then will the true horror of the haircut really reveal itself. Of course I style hair and I blow dry, but these processes are used to enhance the work that has already been done, not cover up what hasn’t been done properly. Cutting hair is truly an art. It is without doubt the hardest of mediums to conquer, because the parameters are always different always changing. If you think about it, there are no two similar heads of hair. Every single haircut presents its own complexity when working with it. Every single haircut is never the same. Ironic when you think there are thousands of clients that turn up for their appointment and ask ‘same again please’. The idea that one haircut will even be similar to the next is completely misguided.

Cutting is ultimately about practise and experience and time. In my salon I allow as much time as I need to cut hair properly. Salon’s today are bound by the constructs of capitalism and revenue, churning clients in and out as fast as possible to achieve as much money as possible. Like many industry’s the approach is all wrong. In this game it simply doesn’t work like that, not for me anyway.

So, the art of cutting has been lost, perhaps that’s why everyone refers to themselves as stylists instead of hairdressers. They reliance on blow-drying and styling a guise to cover up their mistakes.

That being said, If you’re looking for the big Buffon blow dry the likes of which you see in most of the supposedly high-end salons dotted all over central London, I’m definitely not the person to come and see. In my battered past I remember working for a salon that specialised in that kind of work in Holland Park…..

I had no money. I was broke financially and emotionally. Everyone had turned their back on me. All I had left was a shitty studio flat in Clapton and my cat called Liam. The circumstances of my demise were mostly within my control, but some were beyond my control.

So I took the Job. I had no choice. It wasn’t long before I realised that this particular salon was even more vacuous than other salons I’d worked for in the past. The salons owners had been in the same spot for thirty-five years.

My first day I watched the stylists to give me some idea as to what I was up against. They were lazy. Ill equipped at the most basic of functions, none of them could even section the hair cleanly. From my position at the side of the salon floor it was like watching a toddler walk, anticipating a fall at every step. I watched in disbelief how they inaccurately layered haircuts. They all cut hair without really understanding what to do, their finishing was always with thinning scissors even when it wasn’t needed. They’d rather skip through the process quickly rather than taking the time to do it properly. All of them showed various degrees of misguided flair and bravado believing they were the best hairdressers on the planet. It was embarrassing and slightly comedic.

After lunch I watched one of the owners, a small leathery faced woman with a hair style more befitting to an understudy of one of Jim Bensons creations apply foils to a women who looked like Gandalf’s sister. I’d never seen such careless, sloppy, untrained application of highlights anywhere and I’d worked in hundreds of places. Her flair and cavalier approach was the only thing that allowed the foils to stick to the colour she was cakhandendly slopping on to it. She didn’t even fold the foil, she crumpled it up like a five-year-old trying to bake a potato for the first time. The end result, a half head of foils taking a mere thirty minutes to apply was shocking. Absurd. I laughed privately into my sleeve keeping a covert eye on the salon floor knowing full well that someone would be watching me, the mirrored rooms of salons an unnerving myriad of scrutiny at the best of times.

But then I watched them blow dry and actually it was like a ballet. Any misgivings within their work was ironed out with their abilities to create movement and bounce, the standard was truly amazing. But watching the appointments from start to finish was like riding a rollercoaster. I’d cringe as they crudely applied their substandard skills to cut hair, loosen up a bit watching them blow dry and then when they began detailing their cut at the end, I could feel myself scrunch up again, my shoulders practically hugging my ears in sheer embarrassment to what I was witness to.

My first two or three clients that day went without incident, but my timings were way off. The rest of the stylists were so used to thrusting their clients through a conveyor belt simulation in lighting quick speed, they couldn’t understand why I took so long. I felt like grabbing one of them and screaming ‘BECAUSE IM DOING IT PROPERLY!’

By the end of the first week during my morning break I shuffled out of the shop down a side street and had a little cry to myself about the salon, its patrons, my life in general and the prospect of having to earn a living in this way. That same afternoon I was reading an article in the Evening Standard about high society and they listed all of the go-to salons that these high-end women might visit. The salon was listed. At the bottom of the article there was a cartoon drawn by a contributor that I thought was appropriate for the salon. I cut it out and pinned it to the staff notice board, the quote read. ‘The higher your hair the close you are to God’. I left the salon soon after.

If you want an expertly cut haircut my cutting abilities stretch to all the different disciplines. For those of you that have been lucky enough to find me and for those of you that have bothered to read my website, all I can say is welcome. You’re on the precipice of getting a haircut with a hugely experienced and talented hairdresser.