Lessons in cutting hair at IBMC
“God didn’t make a bald man with an ugly skull.” — Char Mcallister, who knows scalps
Nothing sparks joy like getting quality care while saving a buck. And when it comes to a man like me, whose thinning hairline slowly marches to wherever it is thinning hairlines march, trusting my scalp to the conscientious students at the Institute of Business and Medical Careers (IBMC) on North Main Street makes sense.
The barbering school shares a campus with other IBMC programs like pharmacy technician and dental assisting. The accredited, for-profit career college also has campuses in Fort Collins and Greeley.
Char Mcallister, the lead instructor, spends the greater part of her day strolling the aisles of the bustling shop, minus the familiar red-and-white striped barber pole or Old World barbershop quartet. Clipboard in hand, her seasoned eyes train on young recruits harboring dreams of launching careers making people look their best from the neck up.
Mcallister knows what to look for. “I’m making sure there is no hair around the ears,” she explains, by the expanse of rows of barber chairs, a forest of tools and mirrors with names of students taped to the edges. “What length it is. Making sure it’s evenly balanced.” Her careful critiques are sincere, accompanied by plenteous, figurative handholding. Plus laughter. Lots of it. Forever mindful that her charges are learning, germinating. Trial and error. Rinse and repeat.
Mcallister, who started out in cosmetology, brings 30 years of experience to her supervisory role. “I always wanted to be a teacher,” she recalls, as earnest students armed with clippers, combs and blow dryers sculpt masterpieces. “I would line up my little dolls and I would teach them,” she adds. The business of cutting and styling hair, she maintains, involves “creativity, making people feel good. You have to be passionate, dedicated. You have to work hard. This is not a 9 to 5 type job. We want clients to be happy and bring other people in.”
We’re creatures of habit. Mcallister embraces this reality while helping to keep existing customers pleased while attracting new ones who may be thinking twice about entrusting their heads to students. “Some people are hesitant,” she emphasizes. “If it takes students longer” to complete the job, “they understand. And in most cases, if a client isn’t satisfied with the result, they’re usually forgiving. They understand that hair grows back.”
My barber was an 18-year-old man named Arthur.
He went about his work in a fluid, professional manner. We talked as he snipped. “I began cutting friends’ hair when I was younger,” the Niwot High graduate tells me. “I still do it. It’s what I like.”
The road to completion of the yearlong program is rigorous. Earning a barber’s license in Colorado requires proof of graduation from a barber school. Moreover, you need 50 academic credits and a minimum of 1,500 contact hours. Classroom subjects include hair anatomy and physiology, coloring and styling, and treatment of scalps.
Students must also pass two multiple-choice exams. “You take the practical first and pass it and then the written test,” she explains. “Some students don’t test well. If we notice a student struggling, we help supply them with tips” geared to help them develop strategies for choosing the right answer. “It’s the process of elimination.”
Mcallister never underestimates the importance of our crowns. “Your hair is part of your personality, whether a color, a cut, a style. We notice it about someone before we notice their eyes.”
Speaking of which, I began to feel self-conscious as she eyed my semi-chrome dome. Was she secretly chuckling about my predicament, labeling me a loser? “When you started balding, did you feel bad about yourself?” I nodded. Growing
up, “I hated my red hair,” she chimes in. Her honesty was comforting. Birth pangs of the Longmont I-hate-my-hair support group.
With more men skipping hair transplants and just shaving it all off, Mcallister says it doesn’t always come out looking quite right. “Some shave it off, but there are still bumps and bruises that are noticeable.” Those guys, she believes, “shouldn’t shave it all off.”
I ask her what’s trending for women. “The shag is back!” she reports in her sing-songy tone, referring to a style that was popular in the early 1970s. Actress Goldie Hawn famously wore a shag in her films. Today, the term goes by names like the Wolf Cut or the Curtain Bang. “Also, perms and big hair are coming back.”
Scattered here and there are mannequins. The kind you see at Kohl’s. But with one glaring difference: These mannequins only have heads. Mcallister says they’re invaluable teaching tools. Practicing on the heads “really helps them build their skills. And they (the mannequins, that is) don’t yell at them,” she adds, laughing. “When they get pretty bald, we play mannequin bowling!”