Tag Archives: barber

Westie barbers No.5: Coffee with your cut?

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AXE Barbers and Baristas, Shop 1/1 Foundry Road, Sunshine: Phone: 0414 427 769

Being a cheapskate, I normally avoid hairdressers or barbershops with a chic look – polished cement floors, like that – as they’re usually ridiculously over-priced for my minimal, buzz-cut needs.

But at new Sunshine outfit AXE Barbers and Baristas I do good.

And I get a fine cafe latte, to boot!

Mind you, “Axe” seems like a rather threatening name for a barbershop …

 

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… but that changes when I meet barista Engin (left) and barber Xavia, and learn that the name is made up of their initials and that of a third partner, Allan, who I don’t meet.

Xavia provides me with an expert buzz-cut for a price not far removed from those charged by the St Albans and Footscray Vietnamese hairdressers I usually use.

 

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These blokes will do well, I reckon.

There’s not a lot by way of service businesses at the Gold Leaf end of Hampshire Road, but there is new apartment activity representing potential customers.

There’s parking close by at both Hampshire Crescent and Sunshine Plaza.

Check out the AXE website here for hours and prices.

 

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Westie barbers No.4: Sandra

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Sandra’s Barber Shop, 312 Blackshaws Road, Altona North. Phone: 9391 8676

When Sandra was pondering a career, training in hair care was not the way it is today with apprentices learning how to “do” both and female follicles.

She had to choose.

“I thought, ‘You know what? I think I’d like to be a barber’,” she says with a big smile. “I like talking to men!”

Sandra is prepping me for an all-in buzz cut and face shave.

The price she’s quoted me is a bit rich for my blood and more cash than I have on me – but we happily settle on a payment made up of my wallet’s contents.

I’m happy with that.

As she works, Sandra gives me a rundown of her barbering career.

In the city – McKillop Street, the Southern Cross Hotel, the driveway of the Regent Hotel, a side street near the Windsor.

It’s entirely possible she cut my hair at the Southern Cross while I was working at Flinders Street.

Being an Altona girl, she eventually made her way to Altona Gate shopping centre and then to Blackshaws Road about 16 years ago.

Until now, this shopping strip on Blackshaws Road has been of little interest to CTS.

But that is unlikely to remain the case now I know there’s such a friendly barber in residence and that the old-school continental butcher a few doors along is the meat source for our fave pizza joint.

 

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Westie barbers No.3: Mai Hair Salon

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Mai Hair Salon, 3/119 Hopkins St, Footscray

Barbers of European or Mediterranean extraction are not the only places to obtain a cheap, great and enjoyable haircut in the west.

Far from it.

In the Vietnamese precincts of Footscray and further west, the options are many.

When I enter one of these emporiums in, say, Sunshine or St Albans, my arrival is often greeted with an effusive bubbling of Vietnamese chatter.

This usually translates, I have learnt, as something along the lines of, “OMG check out this dude with the crazy moustache”.

This doesn’t happen at Mai in Footscray, however, on account of me going there so often for so long.

Mai is not a barbershop, of course.

They do all sorts of do’s here, male and female.

But for my purposes, it’s perfect.

A smile, a welcome, “how you want your hair?” is the usual routine.

“Zero, all gone, very shiny.”

No problem – $8 including eyebrows!

Brilliant.

 

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Westie barbers No.2: Aurelio

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Buzz Barbers, 547b Barkly Street, West Footscray.

The CTS story on Chris the barber at the Circle in Altona was well received, giving me the confidence and desire to occasionally profile these fascinating characters scattered across the west.

Next up – Aurelio at Buzz Barbers in West Footscray.

Aurelio gives me a superb buzz cut, a real professional job including eyebrows, for $10.

He’s been in the house for about seven years but tells me his corner shop has been home to one barbering operation or another for about 40 years.

He inherited the chairs.

He’s my kind of barber, preferring to keep his prices as low as possible with a view to encouraging return and regular customers.

 

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His place is done out in classic old-school barber style.

As he works, we have a great old chat about the western suburbs, his Italian background, Italian food and the ebbs and flows of the barbering business.

Aurelio was born in Sicily but came with his family to Australia aged two, and was raised in the Moonee Ponds/Ascot Vale area.

He comes from a family of boilermakers.

We both chuckle ruefully when I suggest there has been a long-declining demand for boilermakers in the western suburbs.

He tells me I have a nice, round head that is well suited to the clean-shaven, shiny, bald look.

“If I did that, I’d look like a crim!” he says.

“You already do!” quip I.

“I know,” comes the quick retort. “But imagine how much worse it’d look without hair!”

 

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Chris The Barber

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Chris The Barber, The Circle, Altona

It’s a beautifully sunny early spring day.

I breeze in to say hello to Chris The Barber.

I’ve been here for a haircut before, though he doesn’t remember me.

He’s one of the old-school barbers I revere and – sort of – collect.

They’re a dying breed.

I have it in the back of my mind to start a blog one day that will “collect” them. That’s something I may or may not get around to.

I have used the services of such man all over of Melbourne in all my time in the city.

They’re often of Greek or Italian extraction, although this year I’ve had a couple of “zero all over” cuts from an African gent in Flemington.

They recall for me barbers of my New Zealand childhood, it being very memorable that those establishments usually had lying arorund scruffy back copies of racy, slightly risqué mags such as Man.

Chris is the very epitome of his kind – kind, full of good humour and whatever the Greek word is for blarney.

He’s been in the game for 50 years.

He has posters of Bulldog teams of yore plastered on his walls.

 

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I’ve never got the hang of shaving/cutting my own hair, most commonly these days scoring a $9 haircut in Vietnamese Footscray about once a month.

But somehow my grey locks have become what is for me quite shaggy, and as Chris has bugger all customers and I have plenty of time, I opt for something rare in my life these days – a head shave for $20.

What a treat!

I shaved my mush the previous day, but if I so desired I could have that done, too, for a superb extra $2.

After quickly clipping my fuzzy dome, Chris shaves it just once after lathering me up and unsheathing a fresh open blade.

But he’s slow, methodical and very, very good.

The result is as close to a baby’s bottom as any part of me is ever likely to be ever again.

And if it lasts an extra couple of weeks over and above my usual “zero all over” job, it’ll be worth every cent of my $20.

Anyway, that’s what I tell myself as I depart with a smile.

 

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