It's not all about the haircut

Jay Brown has owned Icon Barbers at 113 State Street North in Waseca for about 16 years. Brown, 61, tells of having worked in construction much of his life. “I bought a house in Waseca to fix up and sell, then ended up liking it here and staying,” he remembers. At that time, he decided to follow the persistent advice of his long-time barber, located in Mankato, who had told him over and over that he should attend training to become a barber.

“I gave it a try,” he says, “and I liked it well enough to keep doing it.”

Mid-conversation, young Wyatt Schultz, 12, arrives with his grandmother and sister. The group was staying at a Waterville campground. A few hours of rainy weather prompted them to use their time to get Wyatt’s hair cut. A sixth-grader and a wrestler, Wyatt had joined his teammates in coloring his hair blonde for a state-level wrestling invitational, and it had been growing ever since.

When they searched online for barbers, they were pleased with some of the reviews they found regarding Icon, and had decided to come down. Wyatt had told his grandmother regarding going to a salon. “I want to go to a barber.”

Brown says one difference between the two types of training is that barbers spend more time learning ways to use hair clippers. “We specialize a bit more,” he observes, “while the stylists  spend more time and training on long hair styles, and coloring.”

Barbers are expected to know how to color hair, for example, but fewer men than women seem to be interested in the service.

Although the training requirements have changed since then, Brown says his schooling included about 10 months of classes, a required test, a year of apprenticeship and then another test, qualifying him as a “master barber,” a title no longer conferred by the Minnesota board of barber examiners, the agency which licenses and oversees businesses like his. “Now we’re ‘registered’ barbers,” Brown clarifies.

He jokes that, in his experience, there are two types of barbers–”artists” and “technicians.” He claims the difference between them is that an artist will take about an hour to create a hairstyle while a technician “will cut your hair in 20 minutes.” And, he finishes,”you’ll end up with the same haircut.”

The training for working with hair is “more complicated than most people realize,” he says, mentioning that part of it is what would be expected–using the tools and techniques needed to shape people’s hairstyles. The other part focuses on health and safety–recognizing common skin disorders and even certain skin cancers. Chemistry, biology and the human nervous system are all included.

“There are a lot of elements to being a barber many people don’t know about,” he continues, pointing out that all hair stylists in any shop as well as the shop itself must be licensed to be legal in the state of Minnesota.

Hair tends to grow about half an inch in a month, he mentions, but this means different things to different individuals.

“Some people want it to seem as if they never get their hair cut,” he says. “They usually come in about once a month. Others come, he jokes, “once a year, or when their wife tells them to.”

His shop is open Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m to 5 p.m., and on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon, and stays quite busy. Appointments are not expected, but waits are seldom long.

The single largest tip he can offer for running a barber shop is to be consistent. “If your sign says you’re open, then you’ve got to be there ready to do business. I don’t think you could operate any business if you’re not disciplined.

“It’s important to treat people right,” he continues. “It’s not all about the haircut.”

As for job satisfaction, he says he satisfied a life goal when he acquired his shop. “I’m my own boss,” he says. “I’m making a living on my own skills and labor.”

By owning a locally operated shop, he adds that he is helping support the community he lives in. “You go to a local barber, the money stays in town instead of going to some corporation,” he points out.”