It’s constantly being said that anyone can apply to become a British Master Barber by simply paying a few pounds! Whether this is said by people that don’t meet the criteria to justify themselves or are jealous of the profiles other barbers are building for themselves we don’t know.
But what we do know is:
IN THE UK BARBERING INDUSTRY ANYBODY CAN CALL THEMSELVES ANYTHING THEY WANT WITHOUT HOLDING ANY QUALIFICATIONS. It goes so much further than that, when you think about these same people opening training facility’s offering education and more without ever officially learning themselves? Some of these maybe very competent and skilled in what they do, but why not get the papers and prove it. Many barbers are calling out for regulations of our industry but with current issues including Brexit and Covid-19 this isn’t something we can see happening soon. The government see our industry as low risk and believe that customers will ultimately decide using their feet. If a barber isn’t very good the clientele will not stay around for long. The British Master Barbers have been constantly at the forefront of barbering health and safety and believe this is the most important factor to protect ourselves and our clients. We created the first FREE to all barbering health and safety online course with a free downloadable certificate to help make our industry standards a little higher and show customers we take their wellbeing seriously. Along side this we have created three accreditation levels that can prove to customers that certain levels of official qualifications and time held within the industry have previously been achieved.Customers never ask to see a barbers qualifications or proof of skill and this is why we have created the British Master Barbers Accreditation.
PROFESSIONAL ACCREDITATIONWe have 3 levels of accreditation available. Professional Barber – Open to all members that either hold a full barbering qualification, or can prove a minimum of two years working experience in a Barbershop.
British Master Barber – Open to all members that are fully qualified, Insured & have a minimum of five years barbering experience.Proof of NVQ / SVQ or other recognised barbering certificate will be required. We will be incorporating Direct Observation Assessments ( distance assessments ) asking you to upload a video or send a Youtube link of yourself working directly on a client to our highly qualified and well regarded assessors who can judge your physical expertise & skills to achieve all your specific status tasks.
Grand Master Barber –Applicable only to barbering Academy owners, Teachers, Lecturers & Assessors of Barbering. These members must be fully qualified and provide suitable evidence of teaching barbering & have a minimum of ten years barbering experience.Proof of Barbering / Teaching / Lecturing & Academy Qualifications will be required. We will be incorporating Direct Observation Assessments ( distance assessments ) asking you to upload a video or send a Youtube link of yourself working / teaching directly on a client to our highly qualified assessors who can judge your physical expertise & skills to achieve all your specific status tasks. Each level requires a set criteria of tasks to be completed before successful application.
We will be regularly uploading to the website some of our favourite BarberEVO interviews of the past several years… and who better to start us off?
Back in October 2018, we exclusively interviewed Wahl Education and Artistic Team member Miguel Rosas.
He opened his first barbershop in his teens, has won over 25 barber battle trophies, came first on Cedric’s Barber Battle TV show and now leads the way with his academy in Moline, Illinois.
You can read the full interview below and view the spread as it appeared in the printed magazine too!
CREATIVITY, RESOURCEFULNESS AND AN EYE FOR DETAIL ARE ONLY A FEW OF THE QUALITIES WHICH MADE MIGUEL ROSAS STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD AND BE NOTICED, NOW IN HIS THIRD YEAR AS A MEMBER OF THE WAHL EDUCATION AND ARTISTIC TEAM.
At just 19 years old, launching his own barbershop proved to be a steep learning curve for Miguel Rosas. However, the challenges and pitfalls of starting up a business so early on have only fuelled Miguel’s desire to learn, improve, and pursue his passion for the craft. Fast forward several years later, he is now part of the Wahl Education and Artistic Team, CEO of The New Style Barbershop and, as of February, a proud proprietor of his own barbering school, the New Style Hair Academy in Moline, Illinois. Miguel is without doubt a barber who perseveres through adversity and keeps on going.
Getting into business with an older and perhaps more streetwise business partner proved to be costly and set Miguel back considerably at such a young age. Things didn’t work out smoothly for his first barbershop attempt, but this didn’t deter him. Miguel quickly realized that there were gaps in his knowledge that needed to be filled in order for him to run a business successfully, in addition to having those crucial barbering skills. He enrolled in classes to cover essential business skills such as accounting, taxes and balancing the books. Miguel explains: “My next step was to open up a barbershop somewhere else in the area… this time round I wanted to make sure if I did it, I was just a lot more professional about it, so that was the reason why I took the classes.”
Miguel has been an avid participant in Barber Battles, having won over 25 trophies to date. Outgrowing the barbering challenges presented in his local area, he wanted to compete further afield in places such as Chicago, Texas and New York. He recalls, “I saw the Barber Battle and I thought, you know what? I want to do that. I want to go see how good I am compared to these guys in the bigger city.”
Having placed third in his first competition, Miguel was both scared and hooked by the experience in equal measures, and he was ready to compete again. Backed by a supportive group which included his hair models, they would drive on the road for up to 16 hours to attend competitions. These barber battles judged the ability of barbers on a myriad of different categories such as fastest fade, best portrait, best design, and best old-school style. It was at these earlier competitions that Miguel first met prominent figures from Wahl Professional, such as the late Isadore Adams.
Miguel notes the importance of strategy to his rising success in competitions. “I would choose people with really good hair, thick hair, hair with bleach to see the fade really nice – it’d stick out really well. It’s all about choosing the right canvas. You need to have a really good canvas, it’s really important when you’re doing a Barber Battle.”
Opportunities for television-wide publicity really took off for Miguel after his barbering skills were noticed by Lee Resnick from Barbershop Connect following a first-place competition win. Lee’s contacts in both the barbering and the television industry would boost Miguel into the limelight, having secured him a competing place on Cedric’s Barber Battle.
Miguel reflects: “Man, when I got that phone call I was super excited, getting a phone call from Beverly Hills from the producer, and he’s telling me all the details… I’m thinking, ‘I’ve made it’. It was definitely one of the most exciting journeys of my barbering career, knowing I was gonna be on T.V., the world was gonna see me, and I was gonna be able to put my barbering skills to the ultimate test.”
Following on from his television success, Miguel aspired to share the many skills and barbering techniques he had learnt along the way, and it seemed naturally fitting that he wanted to work for a five-star brand such as Wahl Professional as a hair design educator. Miguel really went the extra mile to get his name noticed within the company. He took the initiative by reaching out via social media to express his interest in the role, but it was one striking haircut that really made him stand out from the crowd – a portrait of then Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Jake Arrieta.
“I went to the game in Chicago, I was in the very last seat, all the way up in the very top. I had my friend’s son with me that I did the design on. I said, ‘let’s try and get down on the field somehow.’ So we did, we just started pushing through everybody. Finally, they let him go onto the field and he ran up to Jake Arrieta. Some people think that was set up, like we were invited onto the field – it wasn’t like that.” Demonstrating his skill set was something that Miguel had always gone above and beyond to do, and it had finally paid off.
The haircut went viral across social media, and was re-shared by both Major League Baseball and The Cubs on Instagram, garnering thousands of likes and comments, in addition to interviews by Fox 32, ABC, and Univision. As a self-taught artist who favors the Wahl Professional Detailer as his trimmer of choice, this just goes to show how far skill, creativity, perseverance and the right tools can get someone.
Miguel recalls that he was contacted by a representative from Wahl Professional, who told him that he posted a lot of good work and had a positive attitude – they were ready to talk to him about joining the Wahl Professional team. “And that’s kinda how that happened. It kinda just went from there,” he says.
Included in his portfolio of hair art are figures ranging from LeBron James, Aaron Rodgers, Anthony Rizzo and Floyd Mayweather to Bernie Sanders; even Colonel Sanders from KFC, which impressed one district manager enough to gift Miguel a prestigious card to receive free KFC food for life.
Miguel’s hair portraits are influenced by the work of barbers such as Radames Perez and Rob the Original, who were big inspirations in terms of portrait detailing. “Once I’d seen that this was possible, I just said, ‘well, shoot’, you know? If they can do it, I can do it. So I just started practising and I started off doing basic stencilized pictures of people’s faces; once I got good at doing the stencilized version of their face I would then start blending and fading, and creating detail with my clippers so that it would make it more lifelike, rather than a stencil or a cartoon look.”
This affinity for hair design has held Miguel in good stead throughout his career to date, however, he emphasizes that he’s not a one-trick pony. Whilst Miguel is confident with every aspect of men’s hair, hair detailing is his creative outlet. He states: “Some of the stuff you see, I didn’t do it because I was getting paid. I did it for my own satisfaction and being able to use a different type of medium when it comes to art… it’s not your bread and butter as a barber.”
Miguel has leapt towards every barbering opportunity and when there wasn’t one, he created it for himself through education and social networking savvy. His drive and attention to detail make him an excellent member of the Wahl Education and Artistic Team, for which he is now busy educating the next generation of skilled barbers in the use of premium Wahl Professional tools.
Being furloughed means employees are kept on the payroll, even though they aren’t working for your salon or barbershop. The minimum time employees can be furloughed for is 3 weeks.
Why does furloughing help my business?
If you furlough your employees the government will pay you 80% of their usual monthly wages before tax as of 28 February, up to a maximum of £2,500 per person per month. The government will also pay for employer’s National Insurance Contributions and the minimum employer’s pension contributions.
How do I apply?
Through HMRC, although their online portal may not be open until the end of April 2020.
Who can be furloughed?
Employees, whether they work full-time or part-time or if their hours vary. They must have been on your payroll on or before 28 February 2020.
How do I furlough my employees?
If you’re an NHBF Member, you have access to ready-to-use legal letters for your employees. These explain what furlough means and what happens next. If you’re not an NHBF Member, you need to take legal advice about furloughing.
What can employees do while on furlough?
While they are on furlough, employees can’t earn money for your business and they can’t provide services to your business. If they do either of these, you will have to pay them for the time they are working for you.
What about holidays?
Employees can’t be on holiday while they are furloughed.
You must cancel any holidays employees have booked during furlough. They can take those days back another time once your salon/barbershop has re-opened.
What about Easter bank holidays?
There are two bank holidays coming up over Easter. If your employees normally take bank holidays out of their holiday allowance, you must cancel these two days and put the days back into their annual leave pot. If your employees would normally have been working on a bank holiday, these two days will remain in their holiday allowance.
Do holidays build up while employees are furloughed?
Yes. When they return to work, they will be entitled to the holiday they built up while they were furloughed.
What if everyone wants to take holidays at the same time?
The government has said that up to 4 weeks of holidays from this year can be spread over the next two years.
This is only a short summary. For more details about the information given above and the coronavirus job retention scheme see the NHBF coronavirus hub: www.nhbf.co.uk/coronavirus
Follow the National Hair & Beauty Federation on social @nhbfsocial.
While this remains a difficult time for us all, we truly hope that Issue 13 of BarberEVO North American brings you some inspiration and a little bit of light in the dark.
In these uncertain times, when barbershops across North America have been forced to close, it is important that we continue to inspire each other, knowing that this will come to an end.
To provide some hope, we spoke to Anna Elliott, owner of Doc’s Barbershop in Shanghai, China, who has finally been able to reopen her shop doors and is getting back to business. We also asked our columnist and social media guru Tyrik Jackson to share his top tips on how to make the best of a bad situation and use your down time to grow and develop.
Inside this issue, we’re taking a closer look at barbershop interiors, exploring the unique style and décor of some of North America’s most awe-inspiring aesthetics, from the vintage style of Ludlow Blunt to the modern minimalism of Juice Toronto.
Now, we know most barbershops these days offer a nip of whiskey or a cold beer with their service, but what about a full-blown café or even a Caribbean street food restaurant? Yes, they exist and we’re finding out what makes the worlds of food and fading collide.
Elsewhere, we’re talking to our columnists about the world of cosmetology and how the line between it and barbering is becoming more and more blurred – a development that most would agree can only be a positive thing.
If that wasn’t enough, we have a whole host of exclusive interviews with the likes of WAHL Barber Battle winner Andy Rosario, the original barber doll herself Brandi Lashay, Andis Global Educator Lici Lady Barber, the team behind Rum Barber in Scotland, and of course, our cover star, SCurl Brand Ambassador and all-around star, Sipp the Surgeon.
We hope, above all, that you stay safe, stay healthy, and we will see you all soon.
When Schedulicity first launched their small business grant program, #SchedulicityCares, it was in recognition of how important every dollar is when you are working for yourself.
Byrd Mena and Lisa Finucane have successfully executed the first dates of DISRUPTOUR, powered by Wahl Professional, in San Diego California and Las Vegas, Nevada, kicking off a year-long US tour of high end barbering, hairdressing, social media and photography techniques.
The tour encompasses the best in barber and hairdressing education and is hosted by internationally recognized Byrd Mena. The troupe of highly regarded barbers are embarking on a 17 city tour in 2020 to bring an intimate ‘rock show’ of hair to those hungry for the latest in all things barbering.
“The goal is to bring solid education, relevant techniques, and an unprecedented elevation of the barbering educational experience,” says Lisa Finucane, National Director of Education with Wahl Professional. The DISRUPTOUR will be a global merry go round of the best talent in the industry – no two events are the same!
General admission tickets are $150, while the VIP DISTRUPTOUR Experience ticket is $250, which includes a souvenir lanyard, preferred seating and a LIMITED EDITION DISRUPTOUR MAGIC CLIP.
To find out about upcoming dates, get tickets and see artist line ups, visit www.disruptour.com.
Following the release of the emergency decrees to limit the spread of Novel Coronavirus in Italy, as well as the latest restrictions confirmed by other countries in Europe, Asia and the American continent to limit international travels, BolognaFiere Cosmoprof SpA, the organizer of the event, has announced a further postponement of Cosmoprof Worldwide Bologna 2020 to the 3-7th September 2020.
“Since the beginning of the emergency linked to the outbreak of Coronavirus in Italy on 23 February, we have been constantly monitoring the situation, with the aim of identifying the best solutions to support the cosmetic industry – says Gianpiero Calzolari, President of BolognaFiere.
“The restrictions affecting our country and the limitations on international travels announced by other nations do not currently create the necessary preconditions for the business and networking activities at the basis of a global event such as Cosmoprof. The decision to further postpone the show in September, also based on evident prudential reasons related to the health emergency, is the result of a responsible dialogue with associations and institutions, with the common goal of creating the best scenario for the relaunch of the sector. “
“Cosmoprof in an international event, which every year attracts over 265,000 operators from 150 countries to Bologna. The actual restrictions are limiting the presence in Italy of buyers, distributors and retailers from the main markets in Europe, Asia and America for the next few months, thus draining the lifeblood of our event as well -, says Enrico Zannini, General Manager of BolognaFiere Cosmoprof SpA.
“Today more than ever we are therefore called to act with responsibility, to protect the investments and production activities of our 3,000 exhibitors and to support the sector. In September, we will work together with beauty companies and operators in the relaunch and development of the industry on a global level.”
In the next months, BolognaFiere Cosmoprof will devote its attention to the reorganization of the scheduled business activities and initiatives, to guarantee companies and operators a high-quality edition of Cosmoprof, in the name of the prestige that the brand has been able to conquer worldwide in more than 50 years.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced recently a £500 million boost for self-employed workers hit by coronavirus, but stopped short of meeting demands to extend statutory sick pay to all. So, how will this affect barbers and shop owners?
According to reports, the budget would make sick pay available for all those advised to self isolate during the outbreak, even if they do not have symptoms. Unfortunately though, this will not extend to zero hours workers or those who are self employed.
Instead, self employed workers will be given help through a £500m boost to the benefits system, including a temporary halt to the minimum floor in universal credit and quicker payments for employment and support allowance (ESA) claimants.
Local authorities will also be given a £500m hardship fund, also scrapping the need for claimants to attend job centre appointments in person and small businesses will be given government help to meet the cost of statutory sick pay.
We asked some of our columnists for their thoughts on the coronavirus and some advice on how to keep your staff safe and protect your business.
Dan Davies: “The main thing is that both staff and barbers are safe. If you are feeling under the weather, spot a colleague is not right or indeed if a customer is showing systems it’s best to act on the side of caution. Hygiene is always of paramount importance, even more now wash your hands after every client and ensure they are dry. Fresh alcohol wipes and Salonside for all equipment.”
“Salonside is my favourite disinfectant. It comes in refillable sprays and is water based so it acts 10x quicker than oil based brands. I always wipe the chair, combs and brushes after every client with this. It gives people a sense of protection and needs to be taken into consideration in these uncertain times. The main thing everyone needs to do is take the advice of professionals seriously. There are a lot of really crazy things on social media about the virus. Keep calm and follow the professional advice given by the government.”
Luke Dolan: “COVID-19 has now been updated to a pandemic virus and it’s a very real threat to everything, but it’s not the illness that is the threat, it’s the hysteria and breakdown in the system because of it that will bring the real chaos. Yes, be vigilant, stay clean and sanitised, clean your hands before and after cuts, maintain the highest level of bacterial cleanliness you can.
“That said, what we have no control over is hospitals being over run, people won’t come out of their homes, business’ will plummet and appointments will fall off the radar. We may have areas of the country that will be told to stay home and be on lock down, so be prepared. Plan for the worst case scenario.
“Events are being cancelled in October. That’s no joke and means that a six months stretch of bad business could be coming our way. Speak to your landlords, clarify with your utility companies of allowances and if any can be given. Making calls and emails now will keep anxiety levels at a minimum when the virus actually goes widespread and if you get the virus you’ll be quarantined for two weeks minimum, and the last thing you want to think about are bills.”
“Make plans now. The virus is a real threat, but the chaos that it might bring is the unknown entity. As a boss, your responsibility lies with keeping your workforce safe and your client base, and making sure you’re ready for anything.”
Vikki Harrison-Smith: “We are encouraging those who feel unwell to stay at home and cancel appointments. We have put more hand sanitisers dotted around the academy for clients, students and staff. Gloves are readily available for those wanting to use them for work.
“Friendly reminders are up in the toilets to wash hands and there is a hand washing guide up too. Disposable paper towels to dry hands or the air dryer. As always, reinforcing sanitisation on all stations and equipment.”
We’ll continue to provide updates as and when we have them, but make sure you pay attention to local guidelines and safety procedures.
