That convo with old school Joe about fading techniques threw me off

I was cutting a kid's fade last Thursday and Joe, this barber who's been in the game 30 plus years, watched me work. He said I was overcomplicating my blend by using too many guard sizes. Told me to stick to just a 2 and 1 open and half closed for a clean drop fade. I pushed back at first, thinking he was outdated, but then I tried it on my next client and the blend was smoother in half the time. It hit different because I realized I'd been adding extra steps just to feel like I was doing something fancy. Has anyone else had an old timer simplify your whole approach like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

green.jessica13d agoTop Commenter

Man, sometimes the old heads really do know best, makes you rethink everything.

the_logan13d ago

Hold up @green.jessica, I gotta push back on that. Half the time those "old heads" are just stuck in their ways and won't let go of methods that don't work anymore. I've seen guys swear by a certain way of doing things for 30 years and it's just outdated garbage. They still think you need to scrub everything by hand when machines do it better now. Experience matters but not when it turns into stubbornness.