Supercuts

Supercuts
As hip as you want to be.^tm

A chain of walk-in haircut stores throughout the United States.
They offer a range of services, from dry cut for $10 to a $30 wash, cut and style; coloring etc.

When founded in 1975, Supercuts offered a new service for the public, differing from traditional barber shops and beauty salons.

Their idea was to create a store where customers could get a quality haircut at a reasonable price, without the inconvenience of having to make an appointment. They also offered a 'menu' of services customers could choose from, pick and choose. Their stylists are required to produce a quality cut in 20 minutes, be licensed cosmetologists, and must be recertified every seven months.

Also new to the industry was their compensation policy. They were the first to provide stylists with regular salaries, as opposed to the commission basis. With every stylist following the same procedure, there was no longer any need for stylists to build their own personal clientele.

The first Supercuts store was opened in the fall of 1975 in Albany, California, and was an instant success. Today there are 1,192 Supercuts locations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

SuperCuts is fast and cheap. However, they tend to have an overreliance on the device referred to as 'clippers' -- essentially a hair shaving device with the ability to have various sizes of attachable plastic offsets used to cut hair to a given length.

One time, I went into a SuperCuts and asked for a "conservative haircut". I have naturally curly hair, and so the number of ways it can be cut, particularly when it was short (as it was then) is finite. To my horror, I left looking like I had just joined the army, having been shorn by the first SuperCuts employee I had encountered that couldn't tell this difference between the hairstyle worn by a military man and the one worn by a businessman. To add insult to injury, this was at the turn of the seasons from the last breath of fall until winter.

Since then, I grew my hair out again in back. This tends to elicit the question, "Do you want to cut this off?" from the employees. If you're male and have long hair, I suggest you find a good barber before going to SuperCuts.

Around September of 2000, I decided I needed a haircut. I had long, beautiful black hair which looked really good in a ponytail. Unfortunately it was VERY hard to manage properly and usually ended up bushing up shortly after I washed it. So, like most people with long hair, I developed ways of keeping it intact and managable. So I had a plan. I was set.

But, I still wanted a few inches cut off the back, and the bulk of it removed so it would be smoother, not necessarily fuller. So I decided what the hell and padded in one day, took my number, and waited 45 minutes when there were only 2 other people waiting in front of me.

By the time I finally got up there, she asked me what haircut I wanted, though she didn't speak very good English, so it took me a few seconds to register what she had said and decode it. I told her I wanted a few inches cut off the back and the bulk cut off.

Maybe there's no equivalent for "bulk" or "inches" in Chinese. She ended up cutting about a foot of hair off my head.

I remember being pissed... I remember being upset... I remember looking like a cross between Vemla from Scooby-Doo and Carol Burnett on a bad hair day. (As described by winged. Thanks hun, love you!)

See my hair kind of curls up when its cut short because there's not enough weight to straighten it out. Blame it on my dad.

Anyway, when I told her that's most definitely not what I wanted, I told her what I wanted her to do to clean it up a little and she said, "You want new haircut?"

Little did I know that when she said "new haircut", she was planning to charge me an extra $8. Well after 3 "new haircuts", trying to get my hair to look halfway decent, I hopped out of the chair and told her she was done. She tried to charge me $24. I told her I'll give her $8, no tip, and if she doesn't like it, she could sue me. She obviously didn't understand me, so I tossed her a five and three one's and walked out, the Chinese woman squaking after me until I walked out of the store.

Later, I heard two more accounts of hair butchery from two different Supercuts locations.

So, if you really care for your hair, I would seriously suggest avoiding Supercuts if they regularly hire people who can't speak English... Its kind of required.