Every appointment is seventy-five minutes.

Three days’ growth, if you can.

Two hot towels, oil, lather, two passes, the cold finish.

Say yours is the ten o’clock. He reads your grain and starts your card at 10:04, makes the first pass at 10:30 and hands you the mirror at 11:12.

Come in with two or three days of growth. Less is fine, but the razor has less to follow.

Wear it the way you always do.

Shampoo, scissors and clippers, a razor-finished neckline, one hot towel.

The first ten minutes are questions: how it grows, how you wear it, how long you go between cuts. Then a shampoo at the bowl. Most of it is scissor work; clippers come out for short sides. About an hour in, after a hot towel, he finishes the neckline and sideburns with the razor.

Come in with it styled the way you wear it on a normal day, so he can see how it sits before the shampoo.

Most set the neckline too high.

Hot towel, scissors for the shape, razor for the lines, balm.

A hot towel first, to soften it. Scissors set the length and the shape, and the razor sets the lines on the cheeks and the neck. He’ll ask where you want the neckline before he touches it.

Come in with at least four weeks of growth for a first shaping.

No sunburn, please.

Two hot towels, two passes, the cold finish.

Clippers take it down first if there’s length. Then two hot towels, oil and lather, a pass with the grain and one across it, and a cold towel. The chair goes flat for the crown and back up for the nape.

Give it three days since you last shaved it yourself, and come in without sunburn.

Once I have your card.

Two appointments back to back, for returning clients.

The Cut at 10:00 and the Shave at 11:30, with fifteen minutes between them to sit by the window. Once he has your card, it books as one request.

A first visit is one appointment, so he can learn your face.