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Michelle Khare Trains Like a Barber and Gives Her First Real Haircut

Michelle Khare · ▶ 14:34 · 10 min read
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Overview

In this episode of Challenge Accepted, Michelle Khare sets out to train like a professional barber and, by the end of the day, give a real haircut to Garrett, who works with her on her YouTube channel. Her teacher is Woody Lovell, owner and operator of The Barbershop Club in Los Angeles, who says he has been cutting hair for 25 years, including for top athletes and actors. Lovell sets expectations low. Barbering usually takes more than a year of schooling, and students spend their first three months practicing on a mannequin. Khare gets what he calls "the Woody short hair crash course." Between lessons, Lovell talks about the barbershop as a community institution, describes one of his strangest jobs, and explains why his shop now offers therapy.

10 min read
1:47

Step One: The Consultation

Lovell teaches the haircut as three steps, and the first is a conversation with the client. In his view, the consultation sets the tone. If it starts badly, the whole haircut "can go downhill." He also believes that if the client picks up on the barber's confidence, "that's 50% of it right there."

He organizes the consultation around three questions. The first is lifestyle: does the client work out a lot or spend time in the gym? The second is career, since a banker needs a different haircut than someone who plays guitar. The third is product: does the client use styling products?

Khare runs the consultation on Garrett. He exercises five times a week, so she guesses he washes his hair every day, which he confirms. Asked about work, he says he works on a YouTube channel with her. Asked about stress, he says it is "through the roof" because he is nervous about the whole experience. She has never cut hair, and he wonders whether part of his hair will simply be missing at the end. For product, he uses pomade, which Woody had recommended. When she asks if there is anything else she should know, she admits she is "really just trying to delay," and Lovell says he can tell she is stalling.

3:02

Step Two: The Tools and Their Risks

The second step is the tools: clippers, a comb, and scissors. Lovell explains that most of the cut will be done with clippers and guards. Scissors are used only on the top of the hair, which he calls tricky because that is where the barber can get cut.

Khare had assumed only Garrett was at risk. Lovell corrects her: barbers "cut our fingers all the time." He says he once cut a client's ear and that once the bleeding starts it becomes "a mad mess." His point is that barbers make the job look easy, but they are handling dangerous equipment and need "hands of a surgeon." Khare says she thought this was a good idea and is now realizing it is a high-risk one. She is no longer worried about the cut looking good. She just doesn't want anyone to get hurt.

3:42

Step Three: The Process of Cutting

The third step is the cut itself. Lovell first demonstrates on a mannequin head he calls "Gary." The method is to start at the lower part of the neck and work up to the top of the head. The first section is just below the ear. Above the ear, the barber moves to the next guard. At a certain height, the barber sprays the hair down, pulls it up, finds the line, and carries it all the way back, leaving the front a bit longer.

His main technical point is the angle of the clipper. It must always sit at an angle against the head. Poking the blade straight in hurts the client. The motion he teaches is to push into the head and then come up and out, finishing the stroke instead of stopping partway. Lovell says the hardest thing for Khare that day is simply learning to hold and run the clipper, because wherever she sets it down, hair comes off. As Garrett puts it, you can take hair off but you can't put it back.

Her first passes are rough. At one point Lovell takes her hand, turns her palm up, and shows her she was holding the clipper wrong. He tells her to take hair out wherever it looks heavy and to make long strokes. He also tells her to use her free hand to hold Garrett's head steady, since the client's head moves. By his standard, the day is a success if Garrett doesn't leave looking like he got a home haircut. Partway through, Lovell remarks that the cut already looks better and "really, really good."

6:00

The Barbershop as a Community Space

While Khare works, Lovell talks about what barbershops have meant historically. He describes them as places where "all the major decisions went down in town." He grew up in an old-school shop, sharpening his grandfather's razors while standing on a milk crate and running errands for the other barbers.

He remembers cutting Garrett's hair for the first time and says it was the first time Garrett had really been in a barbershop and sat in a real barber's chair. Lovell's account is that an earlier generation moved from cities to the suburbs and lost the barbershop along the way. When younger men walk into an old-school shop like his, he says, "it's like they've stepped into another world."

6:33

Blending, Sideburns, and the Calming Sound of Clippers

Lovell reminds Khare not to forget the sideburns or catch Garrett's ear. Then he shows her how to blend everything together, using the comb to hold hair in the guard. He compares the motion to a lawnmower. He also notes that Garrett has "one of the most difficult necks out there," with strong cowlicks.

When Khare asks whether it feels like a spa, Garrett says anything touching his head makes him want to fall asleep. Lovell compares the sound of clippers to playing wave sounds to help a child sleep. At his shop, he says, staff put on music and let clients relax to the clippers, and some fall asleep.

7:48

A Story About a Prince and a Cigarette

Lovell says his most memorable moments weren't always in the shop chair. He tells of a call from a concierge service: a young Saudi prince checking into the Beverly Hills Hotel wanted an old-fashioned haircut and shave from "the best barber in L.A." A private car picked Lovell up, and he was patted down by security on the way in. He says it was like a scene from a movie.

The prince smoked through the whole haircut, filling the room with smoke. When Lovell started the shave and the cigarette was still in the prince's mouth, he told him to take it out. Lovell says the room went silent. The prince threw the cigarette, jumped up, and started yelling, and an assistant gave Lovell a look that suggested he might be thrown off the balcony. Then the prince sat back down and Lovell finished the shave. He says he was paid $5,000 for the haircut and another $5,000 as a tip. When he asked what had upset the prince, he was told the prince was unhappy that the suite was too small but loved his haircut and shave. Lovell adds that he has "tons of stories like that."

8:59

Close-Up Work and a Minor Injury

Back in the chair, Khare leans in so close to Garrett's face that she asks Lovell whether barbers get that close. He says he doesn't get "quite that close." Garrett says it hurts most when she pushes the clipper straight into his head, which repeats Lovell's earlier warning. Lovell confirms it isn't bleeding and says Garrett will be fine.

Garrett jokes that Khare can be clumsy and tends to knock things over and spill things. He says he's worried about "a little oopsy daisy" on his head, just before she picks up the sharpest tool of the day.

9:57

The Scissors

Lovell's scissor lesson is about which hand and which blade move. Only the thumb moves, and the other blade stays still. This matters because the other hand holds the hair, and if the steady blade moves, the barber can cut a finger without noticing. According to Lovell, the scissors are sharp enough that "you won't know it until the blood is just like gushing down your hand." He tells her to keep a gap between the blade and her finger.

Khare starts with tiny snips, and Garrett says that makes him nervous. Lovell tells her to keep going across, and he notes that she is getting better.

10:48

Therapy at the Barbershop

During the scissor work, Lovell explains why his shop added therapists to its services about five years ago. He describes a stigma around men going to therapy and contrasts it with women, who he says are opening up and talking more. In his view, the barbershop has "taken the front line" on this by telling men it's okay to talk.

He says the service has grown alongside the Me Too movement and alongside men struggling with what masculinity means today, especially young men. He bluntly calls older men "a lost cause." Young men, he says, want to know whether to carry themselves like their grandfathers did or do something different, and what is safe to say. The shop brings men together to talk about what it means to be a modern man, and he describes the response as great.

Asked what is going through her head, Khare says the work feels therapeutic. Having to focus on one thing is calming, and snipping is satisfying. She feels much better than at the start, though she admits the first few chunks were "interesting." When she asks whether she can take more off one spot, Lovell tells her no, it looks good.

11:50

Finishing: Cleanup, Hot Towel, and Styling

The finishing steps follow in order. She removes the cape by folding it down to keep the hair inside, uses a hair duster on Garrett's neck after pulling his collar down, and clears hair from his face. Next comes a hot towel, which she spins to cool slightly before applying, followed by a short neck massage. When she asks how it feels, Garrett answers "mostly good."

Finally she styles the hair with pomade. Lovell explains that this step has to be quick because the product dries fast. She rubs it in, works it through the top, and combs it however she wants the hair to look. The result looks different from Garrett's usual style. Lovell attributes most of that to the styling, not the cut: she combed it the way she thought it should look instead of the way Garrett normally wears it. In his assessment, "the cut is there."

13:22

The Verdict

When Garrett sees the result, he says it isn't bad for a first time and gives it nine out of ten "barbershop poles." Lovell says he is genuinely impressed. He teaches people all over the world, and for a first haircut he considers this very good. He notes that he stood beside her guiding her throughout, but he calls her "a natural." The final tally of mishaps is a few drops of blood from one small nick.

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