Shoutout to the shop owner in Dallas who told me to stop chasing fades and learn clipper over comb first
When I got out of barber school in 2022 I had two paths in front of me. One was keep doing what the school pushed, which was skin fades on every walk-in so I could post them online. The other was what this old guy named Ray told me at his shop on Elm Street: put the clippers down, grab a comb, and spend your first hundred cuts just blending with shears and comb. I picked Ray's way. For 3 weeks my cuts looked softer than the other guys' and I was worried I had wasted my money, but by cut 40 I could fix a bad line without ever going back to a 0.5 guard. Now I still do fades, but the comb work is why regulars keep coming back instead of trying the guy next door. Any other barbers out there ever get pushed into a slower method that paid off later?