If you're a guy looking to cross the bridge from the ever increasing costs from an ear shearing barber to the increasingly closer price bracket of a proper hairdressers, J2 in Edinburgh's Bruntsfield may be the easiest step in the program you can find.
From since I knew what a short back and sides meant, I can only recall going to the same old school barber and it always costing £5.
The barber in question was a family friend, who had cut my Dad's hair in the same fashion up until he retired when I was about sixteen. This threw me into the world of the unknown. Making appointments. Leaning back into a sink. Actually having to have an open discussion on how I wanted my hair rather than just getting 'the usual'.
For a few years I stumbled from clippers to post, before landing in Edinburgh where barbers cost as much for a haircut as a decent dinner and every salon seemed to be full of shiny chain salons or scenes from 'Loose Women'. Except with less celebrity guests and steamier windows.
Until I found J2, situated quick literally in the heart of Bruntsfield, sandwiched in between Subway and Globetrotter chippy.
Four years and dozens of haircuts later I'm still not comfortable with leaning my head back into a sink but I am comfortable where I'm doing it.
Super keen desk staff who seem to care more about the job rather than just the qualifications they might be aiming for.
Typical over-mirrored walls, but with a small and quiet workspace, in which I've yet to hear a bad song over the speakers, so you always feel like you're getting a haircut rather than just a booking to get out of the way before the next slot.
I've had my haircut from the stylists whose job it is to sweep up the floor after, right up to the owners and the value has always been more than worth it in both longevity of the cut and first impressions from folk the next day.
Sadly I can't comment on the styling for women, or hair colouring, or anything that doesn't involve a pair scissors but it's full marks from a guy who spent far too long getting butchered by blunt razors for half the price. read more