Now, when it comes to this kind of service offered at a barbershop, most men would consider this to be of utmost importance.
Imagine you have been trying to impress your secret crush for a while now, and she finally gives in to your request to go on a date with her, so now you know you have to put your best foot forward, a visit to the barber is priority number one, but to your surprise, after going there, the barber messes up your outline; I guess that will surely dampen your confidence. So let’s take a deeper look at this service call outline, line up, or edge up.
As the name suggests, it literally traces or makes a natural shape, or some people would call it edging up your hairline. When doing this edging up, one must take into consideration that most people will have different facial shapes, genetics, aging, and other factors that will play a role in how their hairline will appear. The goal is to have the client looking sharper than when he first enters the shop, but It is very important to keep the client’s natural hairline and not push it back.
Most old-school barbers will normally use the Clubman Pinaud Powder to help them with their outline or edge up; this is a great technique to use because it acts as a guideline. Hence, you won’t push back the hairline.
I have been a barber for quite some time now and I can tell you that I have watched a lot of boys grow into young men, sometimes I see them and remind them of when they were much younger and I used to put them on a booster seat on top of the barber chair to give them a haircut, then they would just laugh, but with all that being said when outlining kids especially their first few haircuts you really wanna keep their hairline as natural as possible, in most cases I wouldn’t even recommend it but if you have to just slightly edge it up. Bear in mind that most kids’ hairlines will not fully grow out yet, and they will lose all that small hair; as some people will say, they have lots of baby hair. Don’t push their hairline back just because you want them to have a sharp outline, because once you start that trend, you probably won’t be able to stop, and they will pay for it later in life.
Although an outline can make you look sharper and improve one’s confidence; there are still a lot of men who suffer from hair loss or receding hairlines so I would recommend not getting an outline/ edge up at the front, you could also do a little touch-up on the sides. The back of the head doesn’t really recede too much so it would be ok to give an edge up in that particular area. Take a look below to see a few examples of such cases;
Nowadays, it’s very trendy just to pick up some hair dye and plaster it all over and fool yourself into thinking you have a great hairline, but as one great person once said, prevention is better than cure.
So, in conclusion, outline, Line up or edge up, when done in the right way, is a great service offered by barbershops as it can help to boost your confidence and make you feel much better about yourself.
