Tutorial videos show one head. Your clients will have dozens of different ones.
Barber Tomasz Wierzbicki, who has been cutting in Melbourne for eight years, shared something he wishes someone had told him in his first year of training.
Tomasz Wierzbicki, Barber: I used to place my fade at the same height on every client because that is what I learned from watching videos. Then I had a client with a flat occipital bone and the fade looked completely wrong. The guideline I was using visually was in a different spot anatomically on his head than on the heads I had been practising on.
The occipital bone, the parietal ridge, and the temporal recession all vary significantly between clients. A fade that sits at the right visual height on a round head can look too low on a narrow head or too high on a flat one.
Tomasz now starts every consultation by running two fingers along the parietal ridge to locate it before picking up a clipper. It takes about five seconds and changes where he starts the blend.
- Palpate the head before setting your guide height
- Photograph your work from multiple angles to review placement
- Ask your educator to show you three different head shapes side by side
The technique does not change. The reference point does.