Nikodem Szulc (@nikodemszulcbarber), ambassador for Matakki Scissors (@matakkiscissors), competed for a Guinness World Record – and succeeded!
He and his team cut the most consecutive haircuts in eight hours – that’s 467 heads! We spoke to the winning barber about what it took to achieve such a huge achievement…
Q: Tell us about the lead-up to the Guinnes Record – what motivated you to try and break the record?
A: My motivation was like ‘Hey, it’s a world record; it’s something special. How many people do you know who did this? Nobody – so you must do it!’ It was a week after we come back from Barber Connect and first, I wanted a break, but then I thought, ‘NO, let’s do it while we’re on the ball!’
Q: How did it feel when you achieved this record?
A: We were waiting about 10 months for the official confirmation from Guinness, because of some little problems about the video and few others so it was especially anticipated, and it was like ‘Wow, we did this; I’m the one of 20 who broke the world record it’s amazing.’
Q: Will you try and break any other records?!
A: Who knows! Maybe some day, there will be the attempt to beat our own record, or any other in barbering and cutting hair.
Q: How did you approach the eight hours? Tell us the layout – who helped you, how did you organise the shop, how many people came to get their hair cut? We want ALL the insight!
A: Firstly, I got the phone call from Mario Mayer who organized everything, and he said ‘Hey Nikodem, we’re going to beat the Guinness record, do you want to join us?” And I said, ‘Sure – tell me when and where and what to do!’
My father helped me a lot in this too – his name is Adam Szulc and he’s a worldwide barber and author of Barbering: A Complete Guide to Men’s Haircuts. He was posting on Facebook and Instagram about it.
We cut about 500 heads and there could be more but there was a minimum length of them. It was 2cm on the sides and back, and 6cm on the top. We had to cut 2cm or more on the whole head, and we had to measure them with the ruler on the side, on the back, and on the top.
We had to do pictures before and after to prove that we cut those two or more centimeters, so a lot of people sat on the chair and after measuring I was like, ‘Sorry man, your hair is too short to qualify.’
After about six hours, we heard, ‘We did it! We’ve got more cut heads then ours predecessors, but we still cutting to do as more as possible!” Around 100 cuts were disqualified and we don’t know why, but we still cut more than one hundred more than the Australians who won it in 2012!