TIL why my fade lines kept coming back even after blending

I've been barbering almost 4 years, but I finally figured out why my fades always had that little line no matter how much I blended. Turns out I was flicking my wrist outward at the end of each stroke, which lifted the clipper blade off the skin slightly. My mentor watched me for like 2 minutes and pointed it out. Has anybody else dealt with a bad habit like that that took forever to notice?

3 comments

3 Comments

taylor.brooke5d ago

Oh wow, that wrist flick thing sounds frustrating. I had a buddy who was a mechanic for years and he told me he always leaned way over his engine bay when tightening bolts. One day his coworker took a video of him from straight on and he realized he was torquing everything off-kilter because his whole body was crooked. Took him forever to fix that habit.

lilyt235d ago

My barber school instructor always told us to watch the wrist angle in a mirror, but I noticed something else. 3 years in I realized I was tilting my head down and looking at my work from an angle, which made me think i was blending better than i was. When i finally looked straight on with my head level, i could see the exact spots i was missing. Might be worth checking your posture too, not just the hand movement.

ward.diana4d ago

That "tilting your head down" thing is so sneaky, I bet a lot of people do it without realizing. It's like your brain tricks you into thinking everything is even because you're seeing it from a skewed angle the whole time. Once you force yourself to stand square and look straight on, that's when you really start seeing the mistakes.