Queer-friendly haircut in the Twin Cities?

November 5, 2013 9:58 AM

Looking for a place or a particular stylist who will cut my queer hair and who may even offer suggestions about style. Snowflakes inside.

I have the damnedest time getting a haircut. I'm genderqueer and/or kinda butch and what I really need is, like, a young queer art student friend with clippers, but I'd settle for a professional. I need either to have the remains of my asymmetrical haircut fixed up again or have it cut into a buzzed sides/floppy top cut.

Things I do not want:

- To go to Hair Police, Aveda or any of the other arty chains
- Someone who will unconsciously try to femme me up
- To go to a place full of straight rich white dudes who like artisanal barbershops, unless the actual barber is a woman (there used to be such a woman around here but she closed up shop as far as I know.)

Price is irrelevant for this first cut. I would also be cool with going to Great Clips/cheap chain if you can recommend a particular person to ask for.

This place or person needs to be relatively on-trend and GLBTQ in sensibility - there is a real difference between places that cater to fashionable straight girl art students and places with a queer sensibility.

I have thick, coarse straight hair.

I tip well. Also, I am totally open to the "friend of a friend who cuts hair at their house and takes payment in beer" type of arrangement.

posted by Frowner to Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion (15 answers total)

There are a couple places in Chicago that cater to exactly what you're looking for, so I would imagine there are a few in the Twin Cities as well. My advice (if you don't get any specific local answers here) is to do a search on yelp and look for places that have reviews written by people who have piercings/tattoos, etc.

A very cursory look found me this place which seems to have the right kind of vibe.
posted by phunniemee at 10:25 AM on November 5, 2013

A very cursory look found me this place which seems to have the right kind of vibe.

"Things I do not want: To go to Hair Police"

This sounds like a situation where you're just gonna have to ask every queer person you know if they can recommend anyone.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:38 AM on November 5, 2013

Response by poster: This sounds like a situation where you're just gonna have to ask every queer person you know if they can recommend anyone.

Sadly, everyone I know scorns professional haircuts or else is really femme. But my hair is thick and wayward enough that I need the occasional real haircut or it just gets out of hand - a friend cuts it between times and my last professional haircutter just moved about a thousand miles away.
posted by Frowner at 10:47 AM on November 5, 2013

"Things I do not want: To go to Hair Police"

Shit, I read your question twice and didn't connect my own dots. Sorry! If you come to Chicago I can tell you exactly where to go and who to go to because my hair type sounds just like yours. But that's probably even less helpful than telling you to go to the one place you said you didn't want to go to.
posted by phunniemee at 10:49 AM on November 5, 2013

I don't know if Juut fits into your "arty chains" designation but Sam Farrand at the downtown/Gaviidae location is brilliant with short hair and fits all your other criteria.

Winstons in uptown has female barbers.
posted by padraigin at 11:10 AM on November 5, 2013

Note that I've never been here, and this may lean more "fashionable straight girl art student" than queer but the owner seems like a nice person based on her vegan cooking blog: The Hive
posted by MetalFingerz at 12:50 PM on November 5, 2013

I see Elayna at Winston's uptown once a month or so; my boyfriend sees Eric there. We've both been happy with our haircuts, but we are both dudes, so it's hard to say if they'll meet your standards.

I also did get my hair cut there by another woman once and was not happy with the experience, so I can only vouch for Elayna and Eric.
posted by kavasa at 12:51 PM on November 5, 2013

Also, I get my hair cut at the Lyn-Lake Barbershop by a young queer fellow named Gabriel, and I more or less ask for what you're asking for in this thread. For $15, it may be worth checking out.
posted by MetalFingerz at 1:04 PM on November 5, 2013

Kim and Jackie at Mirror Mirror in Woodbury meet your criteria. Kim's got a great short asymmetrical haircut herself right now and they're definitely queer-friendly (they're a lesbian couple).
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 1:33 PM on November 5, 2013

My best success was to stop a stranger on the street and ask her who her stylist is. Very out of character for me, but I'm so happy with the results. Both she and the stylist were highly complimented! For best results you'll need to find someone with hair that's similar to yours.
posted by Neeuq Nus at 3:24 PM on November 5, 2013 [4 favorites]

I asked a similar question about London and much later ended up finding a place called Barberette through Autostraddle's London city guide. The lady who runs it is perfect, but based in Hackney Downs so no use to you at all. But for Minneapolis the city guide recommends a place called Moxie, although it is in the same breath as the Hair Police. I don't know enough about either to know if they are the same kind of place, so apologies if they are.
posted by Acheman at 6:47 AM on November 6, 2013

I have it on good authority that Laura at the Chair (36th/Bryant-ish iirc) can do what you want.
posted by clavicle at 9:19 AM on November 6, 2013

I've heard Lyn-Lake Barbershop mentioned as well in queer circles. (I know someone who I thought would have the answer to this question, but I think they're still on a quest for a brilliant genderqueer-friendly haircut.)

(The other barbershops that are in a three block radius of Lyndale and Lake, namely Barbers on Bryant and Circle H, are definitely not what you're looking for. Barbers on Bryant seems to skew towards rich gay white dudes and Circle H is ridiculously straight and dude-bro (I got a good haircut from Hassan there, but the other barber (who owns the shop) was having this ridiculous 'let's talk about how we objectify women because we are manly men' conversation with a customer and that's put me off going back.))
posted by hoyland at 10:16 AM on November 7, 2013

Response by poster: Okay, appointment made with Gabe. We shall see!

Thanks for all the suggestions!

I had a technically very proficient cut a couple of years ago from a nice woman at Moxie who specializes in thick straight hair, but I felt like she wanted my hair to look girlier than I'd like. It seemed like a great place from a quality/pleasantness standpoint, though.

Nothing against Hair Police, but I've had a number of haircuts there over the years and we just don't communicate well. I think I'm too square to really convey what I want, but also too fashion-y to just let them make me over as they will - I mean, I've seen them give nice cuts to older ladies who really had no idea what they wanted. Again, technical proficiency seemed great.

I looked at the website for The Chair, and it looks great - but I thought about it and decided that I probably need more of a barbershop-style cut, since the biggest deal for me is getting the sides and the nape right. If Gabe doesn't live up to billing, I'll try them.

The women barbers at Winston's - well, that's not the vibe I'm going for, although maybe it's different in person. I used to go to this woman barber, see, and she was a real old school butch woman, sort of big and bluff and meticulous with her razors, but she seems to have gone wherever the good barbers go.

Anyway, thanks again, all. I'll report in if there are significant results.
posted by Frowner at 1:06 PM on November 7, 2013

Response by poster: Okay, I got a really classic barbershop haircut at Lyn-Lake. Gabe seems really nice and did a good job. It's a tiny, really old-school place with what seems to be a large clientele of regulars of various ages. Mostly men came in when I was there but also one queer woman.

If I were doing it again, I think I would have brought a picture or written out what I wanted in advance because it's a little shorter and the top is more layered than I would have liked - but overall I like the cut, it was a pleasant and low-key experience and I plan on going back. I feel like the cut is well-shaped to work with my particular head. Would recommend!

Thanks, metafilter!
posted by Frowner at 2:36 PM on November 11, 2013