First Home Haircut

I had been toying with the idea of do-it-yourself home haircuts for a while. My hair is very simple. It's basically a crew cut or, at most, a crew cut with a slight taper from the really, really short sides to the really short top. How much effort is it really? Was it worth my spending $15-25 per month? Of course when I lived next door to my barber, and she only charged $10, the decision was much simpler.

So a friend recently inspired me to try it, as he cuts his own (very, very short) hair. When we were at Costco ("The Cost Company," as like to call it) as few weeks ago, they had a Conair home haircut kit, complete with electric razor, clips, instructional video, scissors, and even a beard trimmer. And it was fairly cheap (like $25). We bought it.

Yesterday I decided it was time. I made the Mrs watch the instructional video and set up outside for my hair cut. She put the #2 clip on the razor and started cutting away. It was going really well for a while. Then she took the clip off and started using the bare electric razor to trim up the line around the ear and back of the neck.

While she was doing this, Jessica (my 3 year old) came around and was showing me something. Ilissa stopped for a moment to talk to Jessica as I handled whatever it is she was showing us. And then, quite carelessly, Ilissa ran the razor into the side of my temple, shearing a 2 inch line almost to the scalp.

After some heated exchange of words we both calmed down, ultimately agreeing that it was only hair, after all. She finally admitted that she should have been paying more attention, especially with a buzzing razor near my head. Oh well.

In the end, we put a #1 clip on and just shaved the whole thing as short as it has ever been. I kind of like the way it looks and feels at this very, very short length. You can hardly see the razor slash on my temple with the hair this low. And I actually ended up doing most of the shearing the with #1 clip, with Ilissa only doing the edging.

So in the end I'll call it a success. Home haircuts are possible, if your style is simple enough. Maybe in the future we'll venture into fancy things like tapering, but for now a very short crew cut will be my very thrifty style.