Saturday, July 17, 2010

The Art of the Flattop (Flat Top) Haircut#

The Art of the Flattop (Flat Top) Haircut#

The Art of the Flattop (Flat Top) Haircut

By Paul Edmondson

The Art of the Flattop (Flat Top) Haircut76
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Best Flattop of All-Time
Who had the better flattop
Jack Nicholas in a Few Good Men
Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump
Kid from Kid N Play
Chris Mullin from the Golden State Warriors
Grace Jones from View to a Kill


Flattop (Flat-top) Crewcuts

If you aren't familiar with flattops or flat-top haircuts, they are cut very short on the sides with an oh, so slight taper until you get to the top of the head. Then the perfect flattop is about 3/4 of an inch long in the front, but may be a 1/8 of an inch long at the pinnacle of your scalp depending on the shape of your head. The skilled barber will make it perfectly flat with a landing strip that comes down the middle and fades into the front hairline. The landing strip is the hair on the top that is cut shortest and runs from the front to the back. The whiteness of the scalp has less of a shaddow from the longer hair on the sides and looks like a perfect place to land a toy plane.

Don't confuse flattops with a punk style cut (http://hubpages.com/hub/All-About-Punk-Hair-Styles). These are pure clean cuts. Although, nothing screams March Maddness like a freshly cut flattop. A flatop is a very special haircut that few barbars have mastered. In fact, I've only found one. For $7 in San Luis Obispo you can get the world's greatest flattop at Ray's Barbershop. I've been going to Ray and his daughter Page since I was a little kid. He's worth the trip to San Luis Obispo alone.

The flattop became popular in the 1950s and remains popular with the Marines and midwestern basketball players. We all saw hoosiers and I think a perfect flattop is a prerequisite to a smooth as butter jumper.

1 comment:

  1. Great comments flat. He sounds like a great barber. A good barber like him is hard to find these days. ThHe horse shoe flat top with shaved sides and back and a shaved landing strip is the best.

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