Beauty

There’s no such thing as ‘the usual’ at Mathew Watt’s salon, finds

A gents hairstyle at Mathew Watt’s salon in Edinburgh

The treatment

A gents hair cut and style at Mathew Watt Hairdressing & Nail Bar, Edinburgh. It includes a particularly thorough consultation to make sure client and stylist are on the same page, £30.

Why go?

Mathew’s eponymous salon is nearing three years old but boasts a team with many more years of hair-styling experience. Mathew worked in and managed various wellknown and successful salons across Edinburgh before branching out on his own and partnering up with Alex Macdonald (who runs the nails side of the business).

Through his role as brand ambassador for Akito Scissors, he travels the country sharing and gaining hairdressing knowledge, all of which feeds back into the salon and keeps him and his team on point.

While he stays up to date with the latest fashionable looks he doesn’t blindly follow, as he finds trends in the age of social-media celebrities too capricious. He’ll gladly provide you with whatever style your favourite celeb is sporting, but believes what matters more is choosing a cut that best suits the client.

Regulars won’t fall into a boring “just the usual, is it?” hairdo routine. Every three visits with regular customers Mathew likes to suggest subtle changes or improvements to keep the client’s look, and his stylists’ skills, suitably sharp.

Our spy says

I’d been put off trying a new salon because of the whole ‘telling the stylist what I want’ part, worrying that I wouldn’t explain myself properly and end up with a look that matched their vision but missed my own by a Rapunzel’s-hair length. I needn’t have worried. Mathew sat me down with a coffee and got on with asking questions, listening to the answers and suggesting a plan of action.

(You don’t even have to visit the salon to benefit from his advice. Mathew has embraced the digital age and even provides consultations to his social-media following.)

Unusually, he started with a dry cut, something he does a lot for shorter styles, to keep mess to a minimum and because he finds that shorter hair is more easily cut when dry. Halfway in, sides mostly done (a short fade with scissors and clippers), then came the wash and condition before heading back to the chair and more scissor work, this time focusing on the top, which I kept longer.

Cut complete and Mathew enquired into my daily haircare routine before suggesting a couple of different ways of styling my new do that would provide two slightly different looks.

The results

I left the salon, if not a new man, then one revived. My happiness with the cut lasted into the next day, after I’d washed it and been let loose with hairdryer and products. Two weeks in and I was still satisfied and switching it up between the two styles Mathew had suggested. Two looks for the price of one? A bargain. n