So finally I did it. The opportunity came across. COVID. I could not and did not want to go for a haircut to a salon outside due the risks. The only other option was me to have a haircut at home itself. And for my kids as well.
I had a Philips beard trimmer which was unsuitable to cut hair on the head. In fact it is even a wrong tool to use to do that. I had seen a lot of these hair trimmers in the salons that I was interested to see what they were using. And then it came through. I made an Amazon purchase for the WAHL corded clipper.
So was it a good purchase? Read on to find out as I will share interesting snippets about this product.
Features of the product
In short its a corded hair clipper. Period. But with a difference.
- Very powerful and consistent motor
- Adjustable blade with a mechanical handle
- Chrome plated rust proof blades
- Comes with four attachments for different hair lengths
Talking points
The clipper is heavy. If you do not hold it properly it can give you wrist pain. It is seriously heavy in a good way. It feels solid in the hand. The motor is powerful. Really powerful. You can feel it when you switch it on. Perfect build for the price.
The hair lengths attachments help you adjust how much of hair length you want to clip. It take a bit of getting used to.
Here is a video review of the product unboxing
Utilitarian aspect
This is the real thing about this product. Can you actually use it at home. I used it at home and this is what I found out, read on.
- You need the person to sit on a bar stool preferably for you to stand upright while trimming hair. If you are bending forward and downward to where the subject is, its not a great position
- There are tactical ways of running the trimmer on the hair, if you don’t keep the angle right, you are going to snip right upto the scalp. It takes a lot of getting used to get this right
- You take the longest measurable attachment, move from bottom to top, then the next one move from bottom upto 3/4th of the top, then the next one from bottom upto 1/2 the top and the last one bottom upto 1/4 the top. This is the pattern to leave longer hair at top while having the shortest hair at bottom
- For the top of the head its best to use comb, your hand and scissors. Weave your hand along the top hair, raise it up and snip a quantum that pops way out of your fingers, keep repeating this until there is no more hair that pops up beyond your hand depth when placed on the top of the head. This is by far the easiest thing to do as its a natural step
- For all the attachments provided you still need the comb and scissors method too, and its not totally avoidable.
- There is no magic formula to use this machine. Everything comes by experience. We need to use different mechanisms to get the haircut done.
- There are other aspects such as lots of hair sticking onto body or falling on the floor at home which needs to be taken care of. We need a good apron preferably satin onto which hair does not stick. Again experience plays the part to find out what suits best
- For the hair that needs to be completely removed such as edges, we can use beard trimmer without any attachments, but carefully
- If you are using any of this on children, utmost care is to be taken to accommodate the fact children however old they are will move their head beyond a point as they begin to get frustrated. For an inexperienced user who gives the haircut this process can go on until 45 minutes to an hour and still result in imperfection.
- There is no way to learn this without humans as that method is expensive requires dealing with wigs to practice, etc
Conclusion
The product is solid for its price. It has none of the efficiency issues that we may have with cordless trimmers. It’s a simple product with not much tech complications, but still can get difficult to use as the process is more about skill than anything about the product usage itself.
The other things it will teach you are patience, care, being slow, and getting to know how difficult a barber’s job really is. This is why everyone cannot be a barber. This is not a lawnmower job, it is a hair trimming job. And if the end result is a disaster you not only lose that customer, you will lose other customers also by word of mouth.
With every lost customer, the skill is hard to master. If you liked this review, leave me your comments below!