For as long as I’ve known my wife, both inside and outside of marriage, somewhere around every 3 years she cuts her grown out hair really short. What works best these days is she knows how much I love watching her hair get cut, and I especially love the time when the big chop is going to happen.

We routinely get our hair cut at the same time; we just do it in an upscale salon. While the quality in the cuts and styles are exceptional, there is a draw back. With the way the salon is configured I don’t have a good way of watching her haircut from the waiting room area. I can sneak peaks, look in mirrors and snake my eyes around other stylist, but there is no direct line of site to watch the spectacle of my beautiful young wife caped, cut and styled.

Before my wife and I hooked up she used to get her hair cut in a barbershop. That sounds really hard to believe, but her ex got his done there and she found someone in the shop that has really good hands. After we started dating and decided on using a mutual cutter, we went there a few times. At that time (over seven year ago), I witnessed a really good shearing, going from below shoulder to boyish over-the-ears short.

I told her long ago how much it turned me on to watch her get cut there, but the down side is them not doing color and the quality of the haircut is much better at our current trendy salon.

But here we are at a week to go and she wants to go back to the barber so I can sit directly in front of her, in the audience of chairs, and watch the whole transformation take place. I am so looking forward to it.

Three weeks later:
I am one lucky guy; last night was an amazing experience. We went to her barbershop. It’s fun to say it as her barbershop. We had this discussion one night while lying in bed and discussing haircuts and where to get them done. She startled me when she said it just like this, “how about we go to my barber?” I was thinking what is a beautiful young lady doing going to a barbershop, but she felt comfortable with it.

Anyway, about last night.she got home last night and changed into wearing a blue plaid short skirt, white blouse and sandals. It all went together so well. She had already straightened her hair for the day and it lay nicely over her shoulders.

We arrived to the shop, walked in and sat down in the waiting chairs. In the chairs was a father in one seat getting clipped by a female barber and his small son in the other (with the male barber that we used). My wife commented how cute the young lad was looking and how frustrated he is with the buzzing of the clippers.

This is a classic barbershop, updated and clean, but still has that hair spray and talc aroma in the air. It’s a checker shaped floor with four barber chairs, no hand crank handle, but they have the good solid piece of foot stool to rest your feet on. The chairs all face towards the audience of people waiting, so I had a front row and unobstructed view.

My wife and I chit chatted as our barber finished up the young boy and finally when done handed him off a piece of chewing gum.

“Alright young lady”, said Steve. “Have a seat and we will get started.so what do you have in mind? My wife produced a picture of a severe inverted bob, one that she expected to be buzzed nice and short. Yes this was a radical cut, but nothing new for her.

The attractive barberette in the chair next to my wife peered over at what she was about to get and nodded with approval. He asked her, “Are you sure about this? It’s going to be awfully short!” With no hesitation my wife responded with a positive “Yes!” “Please, I am so tired of this mass of hair in the back.take it all off in the back”.

My wife Renee said she wanted the whole thing done, with washing the hair, blow dry – the whole deal. With her sitting in the chair, Steve snapped open a large yellow caped and draped it around her, letting it rest on her shoulders. Next, with Steve standing behind her, he produced a strip of tissue paper, holding it open, going over her head and getting it wrapped around her neck and securing it tightly; with his left hand holding a tail of her hair, placing it aside and securing the tissue around her neck. He once again created another tail with her hair, moved it aside and securely tightened the yellow cape around her neck. She is now sitting in the chair with the cape surrounding her body and just about a half inch of the white neck tissue showing. Her long hair really stands out and it’s almost a shame that it will all go away.

This is a shop that does not have a sink basin behind the chairs, so he had her stand up and walk over to the shampoo chair. It was a nice view to watch her partially laying down, caped and it absolute heaven getting her hair washed. She enjoyed the experience. Once done he walked her back over to the chair, but without a towel covering her head. She sat down with a huge grin on her face, flexing the cape to poof out and rest over her body as her arms lay on the arm rest of the chair. It was a beautiful site as Steve pumped the chair up about 4 clicks.

He combed all of her hair straight down, with a nice part slightly off-middle. All of the long wet hair looked quite stunning and it was fascinating to think that soon most of it will be laying on the floor. He asked her to sit up straight, uncross your legs and look straight down. Without hesitation she moved her jaw to near her chest, and he simply pulled hair straight out from the back and started cutting it off. He took about three good swipes like that and let 10 good inches of hair drop straight to the floor. It was the second big cut that did the most damage and I heard a loud “plop” sound as a mop of hair hit the floor. Renee smirked at that sound too. Now that the mess of long hair was no longer connected in the back, the real work began.

He quickly worked around the back of her head, creating an angled line that started from about a quarter of her earlobe and then working that line to stop at the bottom of her chin. He pulled the hair down betweens his fingers, in strips at a time, and cut in to define the angle in the back. No sectioning of the hair was done, but just grabbing the long pieces and cutting them to match with the rest of the line. All the while my wife’s chin is comfortably resting on her chest.

Once the arc is created in the back, he picked up thinning shears and ran them up the back of her hair in the section closest to her nape. He cut out the bulk of the hair with the shears so quickly that I hardly realized what just happened; there either was not a lot of attention to detail or her barber was just that quick, but it got the job done.

The sides and front were still hanging long. He placed the thinning shears back on his desk and grabbed his regular cutting shears. My wife had time to bring her head up from her position of resting her chin on her chest and looked me in the eye to see if I was still watching.

He started in on her left side; quickly measured the length to cut on the side with the hair between his fingers. Some quality length of hair dropped on the cape as my wife watched it slide to the floor. He cleaned up the length and angle to his liking and then started in on the other side. He was working the length of each side to be even, but have the part not so in the middle.

Once the right side was completed he followed in to stand right in front of Renee and match the hair hanging in front to the sides. Her long bangs were pretty much already and the desired length.

After a quick going over to adjust the length of the top of her hair to match in and some final touches to fix in the sides, the cut was done. My girl was all smiles and shaking her head from side to side to get the feel for her new short length. Out popped the blow dry which put her in a heavenly state with her eyes closed to enjoy the gentle massa
ge of the brush and warm air.

With the blow dry complete and the tools placed down, out popped the small clippers to clean up the small hairs. She knew immediately what to do, as she fixed on my eyes and bowed her head to look at her feet. I was able to watch from the reflection in the mirror as he buzzed her neck line. These were quick dashes with the clippers and felt completed far too quickly.

Renee brought her head up and whispered a quiet question to me.”is it short enough”? I made a quick head shake of no and I knew she was thinking the same thing. Steve brought the hand mirror out for her to look at her reflection, but also thought satisfied enough that he untied the cape and pulled off the tissue around her neck, dropping it to the ground. He thought he had done her right or maybe just didn’t think she wanted to go too short. Renee said, “It’s too long, can you take it up higher in the back”? This paused him for a bit, but replied “sure, I can take it up higher in the back but there is a point that I should not go any higher”. This comment please Renee and her face was a full smile as she winked to me.

So once again at his counter, Steve pulled out a clean white tissue and wrapped it around Renee’s neck. The cape was snapped back open and engulfed her once again.

He brought out a water spray bottle and wet down the back of her head. He combed the back down again, brought the scissors in hand and placed his fingers at least an inch higher and began cutting in a higher arch. I watched the reflection in the mirror, proud that Renee made this decision. He snapped out pieces of hair, pulling a bit and dropping the wet chunks of hair to the floor. Once satisfied with his new higher outline and blending in the sides to match, he took out his 50/50’s and sheared in the back of her new exposed hair line and made a short buzzed look in the back. Since he said earlier that he would only go so high and short in the back, he knew he was done.

Another quick blow dry with a big flat brush was in order and once again Renee was digging the experience. The bob cut was finalized in style with the blow dry complete and a fresh coat of hair spray was donned to set everything in place. The hand mirror was used to check the back and she was satisfied this will do for now. The cape was unfastened and pulled away, and the white tissue around her neck was undone and dropped to the ground, where it met up with lots of brown hair covering the floor.

The chair was lowered and she stepped off to walk toward me for my satisfaction.I was pleased. She sat down next to me as I waited for my place in the chair next.

I hopped in the chair and Steve quickly whipped around a half grey, half black cape (not sure why a different cape), tucked in my white tissue and pulled the cape tight to secure me in. With a tone of joy in his voice he asked if I wanted to go shorter, you know, real close? My style was currently right around the top of the ear and a little bit of fringe on the neck. My wife of course heard what he said and said, “yep, high and tight, but give him some length on the top. Out came the huge whirly clippers and I got buzzed up the back of my head and around the ears, dry hair falling away everywhere it could go. I looked at my wife and her new short bob haircut as she nodded and smiled as I got some white walls.

Epilogue:

Went returned to the barbershop two more times, where the same cut was performed. Only after that third trip her bobbed hair wasn’t holding that great of shape and it wasn’t neat enough. It’s been said that this is a difficult style to create. And now she wanted color again.

We returned to our old upbeat salon where prices are higher, but quality is better. And sure enough after the first trip their, her hair is holding its shape and easier to manager. But go figure, when she returned to our salon our stylist brought out the clippers to buzz the three inch section of her nape, where the barber used the tool of thinning shears.

Summer is coming and the front of her hair still falls fully in her face, down to her chin. She is getting antsy about changing it and getting bangs. A trip to a new barbershop might be what we need.