Cutting conversation
Barbers are much like bartenders, lending a friendly ear to the world’s troubles while cutting a mean concoction.
Seasoned exponent Jen Lawton loves spinning a yarn with customers while taming their locks.
‘‘I field the world’s issues in my chair. That’s what barbering’s about, really.’’
But it was her skill with the clippers rather than conversation that was to the fore at the Hairstylist of the Year national finals in Hamilton.
The Palmerston North woman took top honours in the barber section of the event, staged by the New Zealand Association of Registered Hairdressers.
The win came in the same week as the first birthday of her King St barbershop, JB6 Barber Shop.
‘‘I’m pretty stoked. It feels really surreal. I still don’t think of myself as someone who’d be ‘the best’ barber in New Zealand.’’
JB6 is Lawton’s first shop, but she has been a barber for 10 years.
It wasn’t the first career she looked at, but she fell in love with it after getting a job at Bladez, a popular Palmerston North barbershop.
In fact, six of JB6’S seven barbers had worked with Lawton there. When the long-running barbershop closed down, they all went their separate ways, and Lawton opened JB6.
One by one, former workmates came on board. ‘‘We’d all worked together. We knew we were a good team that gels well.’’
Lawton said being a barber was quite different to being a hairdresser.
‘‘It’s not a quick in-and-out version of hairdressing. There’s a lot of skill involved.’’
The focus is more on clippers and trimmers than scissors, straighteners and dyes. And, of course, there’s the shaping and styling of beards and moustaches.
‘‘I field the world’s issues in my chair. That’s what barbering’s about, really.’’
Jen Lawton, barber