Barbering is just for boys? Think again.
“I had one customer who said what do you know about shaving? You don’t have beard”.
Barber Natalie Angold, 31, recounts the reaction of a customer to her being a woman.
“I told him I know more about skincare than you do— I’ve been shaving my legs since you had bumfluff on your chin!”
At the time of year when everyone is again talking about the gender pay gap, hairdressing and barbering stands out as one of the few industries where the pay gap is negligible — it was 0% in the UK in 2018.
Natalie is one of the small, but growing group of female barbers in the UK. The Barber Agency, a specialist recruitment agency, reports that around two out of ten of the CVs they receive are now from women.
But the gender divide between hairdressing and barbering is vast — the majority of women work in hairdressing and men in barbering.
And whilst there may be no pay gap, female barbers face different challenges in getting ahead in such a male-dominated industry.
“Everyone knows of shops in London that just don’t employ women”, says Natalie. “Even some of the ones that do, they want you to fulfil a certain stereotype. Either you’re “one of the boys” or you’re brought in as a kind of trophy and given a spot working on the chair by the window. That’s actually kind of sinister”.
“I know more about skincare than you do — I’ve been shaving my legs since you had bumfluff on your chin!” — Natalie Angold
“In barbering there’s still very few women anywhere near the top, but that’s starting to change. ”
Some barbershops are already challenging the sexist double standards in the industry, not only through the customers welcome to sit in the chair but through the people they choose to employ.
Natalie works for Ruffians, who have five barber shops, based in London and Edinburgh. Founded seven years ago, Ruffians are attributed as being a leader in the recent barber shop revolution and are still setting the standard, both morally and practically, as the current Wahl UK Barber Shop of the Year.
Based in the Shoreditch shop, Natalie works alongside a mixed team of male and female barbers, including Irish barber Hayden Cassidy, 26.
Hayden is one of the most recognisable female barbers in Europe, with an Instagram following of 64k. She cuts hair at Ruffians when she’s not flying around the world talking on stage at events as an educator for clipper brand Andis.
The machismo of barbering culture means Hayden has experienced her fair share of surprised reactions within the industry .
“I’ve talked on stage in places where people literally couldn’t believe a woman was up there cutting men’s hair, like watching a pig fly!”
“Even in London, you do get the occasional person who says can I not wait to get in with one of the lads? It’s rare though. And if I really needed to I can show them my work on Insta and be like there you go!”
In January 2018, Hayden sealed her reputation when she walked into a sweaty underground club in Berlin at 2am to compete in a Barber Battle, a competition of barbering techniques with the winner chosen by the loudest cheer from the crowd. She was the only woman in the competition.
“I remember it turned a few heads among the other barbers before the competition started,’’ she says. The customer kept “drunkenly nodding” during the cut and it was a rowdy crowd, but she proceeded to win the competition.
She began working as a barber five years ago in Dublin.
“I lied and said that I’d been cutting hair for two years to get my first job. I had a few mates who were barbers and just found it mesmerising. I never thought I’d be a barber. I’m aware it’s not seen as a “normal” career for a woman, whatever that means”. She had hoped to be a footballer, before an injury forced her to rethink her plans.
Another female barber at Ruffians who made a similarly drastic career change is Georgina Woolley.
Before becoming a barber, Georgina wanted to be a ballerina. When she began to fall out of love with dancing as a career in her early twenties, her Dad advised her to consider getting a trade.
“It was good advice, but I didn’t see myself being an electrician or a plumber. My background is more creative. Barbering is actually similar to ballet, in a way. You need to be arty, whilst also being disciplined and precise”.
Not everyone could see the link between ballerinas and barbers. “My Gran was shocked. She couldn’t have imagined my Grandad going to the barbers and having his hair cut by a woman.”
She sees a lot of opportunity for women in barbering. “It’s still an extremely male-dominated industry, but more women are coming up. The cuts are out there on Instagram and people can’t deny how good they are”.
She believes having more women in the shop helps Ruffians seem “open to everyone”.
This is a sentiment that Lilly Dillon, director of barbering recruitment agency The Barbering Agency, wholeheartedly agrees with. “Having more diversity in barbering certainly makes women and non-binary customers feel less intimidated”.
“In the past some people were unsure about going into barbershops, about whether they would be welcome”, says Lilly.
This worry isn’t unfounded. Strictly star Karen Clifton ignited a row over sexism in the barbering industry just last month, after she was turned away from a barbershop who refused to give her a standard clipper cut because she is a woman.
In an emotional video posted on her Instagram, she broke down in tears whilst describing her experience, saying “The fact that I was a woman and I couldn’t get my hair cut…we’re not in the Stone Age”.
“No one should be put off coming in to the shop”, says Natalie. “If I can’t do the style you want, I’ll sure as hell be able to point you in the direction of someone who can. The thought of anyone being made to feel unwelcome makes me seriously angry”.
Despite this, the number of women visiting barbers has grown in recent years. The attractive prices of barbershops in comparison to hairdressers are a factor, as anyone who has shelled out a wince-inducing amount for a trim at a salon can appreciate.
But the main draw for female customers, particularly the younger generation, are the styles on offer.
“The cuts are out there on Instagram and people can’t deny how good they are” — Georgina Woolley
“I’ve seen a rise in women coming into the shop and asking for clipper work and shorter scissor styles in the past couple of years”, says Natalie. There are even rumoured returns of the mullet. “A more groomed version on men or women”.
“You’ve seen ugly trainers, now you’re going to see ugly haircuts done well!”
Gender fluidity in hair has gone mainstream. People look to Instagram for inspiration, the men’s wellness industry has exploded — “no more gel that looks like blue goop”, says Natalie — and Timothée Chalamet–Inspired do’s unite us all in hair lust. “Men and women both want better products these days,” explains Natalie.
Barbershops such as Ruffians are proof, not only that there are shops where women will be welcome, but that employing a wider range of people can start to move the dial on sexism within the industry and the gap between hairdressing and barbering.
“I love opening up people’s mindset when it comes to female barbers”, says Hayden. After, all my hands are the exact same as my colleagues.”
One reason for the rise of female barbers, according to recruiter Lilly, who began her career twenty years ago as the first — and for a long time only — female barber to work at Selfridges in London, is the opportunity for greater pay equality between colleagues.
The hierarchical structure of hairdressing salons mean junior staff often “get paid terrible money”, which improves once they move up the ranks. In a barbershop however, a cut costs the same for the customer regardless of who the barber is, and barbers receive the same pay for cuts as other barbers in the shop.
While there still aren’t many women at the top of the industry, barbers such as Natalie, Hayden and Georgina are smashing assumptions that the hair industry needs to be divided along gender lines and are making the most of the opportunities barbering can offer.
“I love opening up people’s mindset. After, all my hands are the exact same as my colleagues” — Hayden Cassidy
In response to the suggestion that barbershops should be a male-only space, Natalie says, “A small number of men do feel more comfortable chatting to a male barber and that’s fine, but if men just feel they can’t have the “male banter” they want to have in the barbershop because there’s a woman there, then it’s a problem with that conversation rather than a problem with the woman”.
“A male-only space?”, she continues. “That’s called a strip club. And guess what…you’ll find women visiting those these days too!”
