Your child's first haircut at our Berea barbershop

Before you bring your child in for a first haircut, tell them what the room looks like. Vintage signs on the walls, mirrors, and a barber chair. Aaron Hughes has been building out that nineteen fifties look slowly and on purpose, and none of it has to be a surprise on the day.

Most of what makes a first haircut go smoothly gets settled at home. The rest you can ask us for once your child is in the chair.

Use the words they will hear

Say the words out loud at home first. Haircut, cape, comb, scissors, clippers, mirror. Tell them the clippers buzz, and that the buzzing stops when we stop.

Try not to make it sound like a test. A child does not have to sit like a statue for a whole haircut. Tell them they can speak up when something bothers them.

If sound bothers your child, or a hand near the ears, or the cape sitting against the neck, tell us when you book and tell us again when you sit down. We would rather know before we start than find out in the middle of the cut.

Tell us what to take off and what to keep

A plain description gets you further than the name of a cut. Tell us what you want gone, what you want left, and what went sideways at the last haircut if there was one. A picture helps. So does pointing at your own head.

If you want the names anyway, here is what they mean. A fade takes the sides from short at the bottom up to longer higher on the head, with the change spread out so there is no hard line. A line up is the clean edge along the hairline and around the ears. A kids’ haircut can be simpler than both. Shorter all over, with enough length left that the hair still falls the way it already does.

For a first visit, ask for the simple version of what you want. There is less for your child to sit through, and it grows out without much styling.

Who is cutting

Five of us work the chairs. Aaron Hughes, who opened the shop in June of 2021, MaryJo Rodefer, Austin Gabbard, Will Webb and Jonathan Connor. Each of us keeps our own regulars, so if your child settles in with whoever cuts their hair this time, ask for that barber by name when you book the next one.

Ask us what we are doing and we will tell you. That goes for the child as much as the parent, so if your child wants to know what the comb is for, or why we keep going back over the same spot, they can ask in the chair.

The shop’s name gives them something else to ask about. It comes from two things. Aaron is a Yellowstone fan, and his mother, a cosmetologist, loved willow trees.

Coming in from around Berea

We are on Clay Drive in Old Town Berea, and families come in from around Madison County. Some of our customers drive in from Richmond, and some come down from Lexington, about forty minutes north.

With a young child, pick the hour first. We are open Tuesday through Saturday and closed Sunday and Monday. Every open day starts at ten, and Saturdays run to two, so a Saturday cut has to fit inside that window. Book the slot that lands when your child is usually at their best.

Around here the reasons tend to show up on the calendar. Picture day, the start of a sports season at Madison Southern or Berea Community, a semester turning over at Berea College, family coming through town. Getting a first haircut done ahead of one of those is easier on everybody than squeezing it in the night before.

Before you leave the chair

Look at the shape from the front, then the sides, then the back, while your child is still sitting. If something came off shorter than you pictured, or one side looks heavier than the other, say so then. That is the moment to ask us to even it up, with the cape still on.

Ask how the cut will sit as it grows. If your child has a cowlick, a part they push their hair into every morning, or a spot nobody is allowed to touch, point at it while we are still talking about the shape.

A neck cleanup is worth asking about before you go. It is a service on its own, for the stretch between haircuts, when the edges go shaggy before you are ready for another full cut.

Start at the mirror at home

Stand your child in front of the mirror and let them point at the part they want left alone. Bring that with you to the chair. It gives us a starting point your child has already agreed to.