A new hair salon just for kids
I visited the new children's salon Tantrum off the King's Road in London recently to see if airplane barber's chairs and nonstop movie distractions improve the junior haircut experience. It's not cheap (under 7s - £18, 7-14s - £25) but if you get a go on the Wii, it could be worth it.
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FYI Harrods charges £30 for a kid's haircut.
Posted by: MummyFox | 1 Sep 2008 19:26:38
There are a couple of children's hairdressers similar to Tantrum here in Seattle (well, The Times did describe this city as filled with Latte Liberals recently, so what would you expect?). They always seem to be full (one's next door to the bookstore we go to a lot) but I wouldn't waste the money.
We go to a perfectly respectable & v. reasonably priced all-ages hairdresser for my daughter, unless we can time the haircut for a visit with my mother, who was a hairdresser in a former life & still does a wonderful little girl's haircut.
Posted by: Lazy Mummy | 7 Apr 2008 00:01:20
I'm coming rather late to this debate. (I saw the number of responses and thought - what can be so interesting about children's haircuts?!) The funny thing is that my daughter, when small, was very demanding and hard work in lots of situations, but has always been an absolute angel about having her hair cut or going to the dentist. I started taking her for haircuts when she was about one (she always had a lot of hair) and she would sit on one of those special child chairs with a steering wheel and just sit quietly and patiently while her hair was cut. If you knew what she was like the rest of the time you wouldn't have believed it.
I admit I baulk sometimes at the cost (usually about £10) but have never had the courage to attempt cutting her hair myself, so have always found it worth it.
Posted by: Kim | 6 Apr 2008 19:42:09
gipsy, lol. Child C was pinned from behind by pulling back his clothing, rather like a supermodel. I wasnt joking about hypnotism, I find you have to get them into sort of suspended animation for just a few seconds...
I think it is scissors they hate. What we need is silent clippers cos they also hate the buzzing noise.
Maybe we should immac them? :)
Posted by: j | 6 Apr 2008 15:58:45
J - Son took an instant dislike to the photographer when we went to get his passport photo done, and threw a total tizzy. We tried the bribing with chocolate thing, but it didn't work. He'd rather give up the chocolate than have his photo snapped... in the end the photo was done by hubs pinning him down and trying to stay out of shot as much as possible. Even so, you can still see the corner of his shoulder in the photo. At the passport office in Victoria, I told the woman that it was my husband's jacket on the back of a chair, and that we'd had to chase the lad around the room with the camera until we'd cornered him up against the chair and got the photo. That was partially true. She still had to check it out with her supervisor but they OK'd it in the end. However, they'd have rejected it out of hand if I'd told them it was my husband's shoulder!
Henry - see there's the market for Tantrum. We've never had an experience as bad as yours though. We've gone to a hairdressers in Balham, which does kids hair for 4.50 and no restrictions on time. They put a plank on the chair for little ones, which is a bit odd, but they have a large jar of lollipops, which mollified son a little. Even so he still has to be held in hubs lap and doesn't quite trust the hairdresser, and goes 'ow' really loudly with every snip!
Posted by: Gipsy | 4 Apr 2008 09:15:48
henry, you are living proof that I was right when I said, this place looks like a great way to get the daddies to do the haircut run :)
Posted by: J | 4 Apr 2008 08:52:27
Interesting story but that Jennifer Howze is a real looker! I wonder if she has a sister?
Posted by: Alison Howze | 4 Apr 2008 01:57:20
That place looks ace!
I've always cut my own children's hair. It's free and I'm good at it so it's win-win. Only problem is the twins have started to request really bizzare styles that I can't really refuse because, well, it's their hair. I can just see Ceinwen in a few years wanting to dye it turquoise or shave it off or something. And I can't really complain; I had multicoloured dreadlocks at 15.
Posted by: Eluned | 3 Apr 2008 18:50:43
Having actually been a customer at tantrum I couldn’t agree less with some of the comments posted so far. I am not sure if any of the people below live in central London but I used to take my son to a local hairdresser to us in Fulham, very average and not flashy at all, and they used to charge £15 and wouldn’t accept him on a Friday or Saturday – they also really didn’t like cutting his hair and nevr made an effort to ensure he was ok. My older son who is now 13 actually really likes going to tantrum because he gets to play on a playstation and more than anything he gets treated really well by the staff rather than most adult salons/barbers not wanting to deal with kids of this age. My youngest who is 3 had a bad experience with a barber when he was 2 and has been petrified ever since – I have been into tantrum about 6 times in the past 2 months, each time they take a bit more off or just play with him to make sure he is relaxed the next time he comes in. They have only ever charged me once. As for the name I actually really like it – tongue in cheek and not taking itself too seriously…
Posted by: Henry Willis | 3 Apr 2008 08:48:16
This is one of those classic Alphamummy posts where we all get to be shocked at the apparent financial profligacy/wealth of Times journalists and their friends, isn't it?
Haircuts - I'm following J's advice in future. At the moment I do my son's myself, but there has already been the trauma of a snipped ear....
Posted by: Kieransmum | 2 Apr 2008 19:26:49
I get Child A to crouch in front of him, holding it out. His legs are younger and stronger than mine.
Same way as we got his passport photo- child A holding him from behind, just out of shot, whispering in his ear "Stay very still and you get chocolate"...
The passport office rejected it as it was a bit too small, so I wrote to them and said the alternative was sedation, but if he was unconscious enough for me to photograph him, his eyes would have rolled back in his head, but I could stick them open with a matchstick, was that OK?
They said, bless them, that if his photo wasnt perfect he would have to be accompanied through Customs. To which I was replied that it was great to hear that there was a procedure to prevent him leaving the country while I wasnt looking, given he cant cross the road yet. :)
Posted by: j | 2 Apr 2008 16:12:17
Well, that flippin' haircut is going to have to last the year. Mr Loll nearly had an apoplexy when I told him. He is from the North. I don't think his parents ever spent more than 60p on a haircut when he was a child.
J, am very intrigued by the jelly baby. How do you position it?
Posted by: Loll | 2 Apr 2008 14:02:06
J - good tip. His best friend goes to the hairdressers every week to have his hair braided.
With the jelly bean thing - give! How on earth do you hang a jelly bean in such a particular fashion!
LOLL - OMG! *makes mental note to always ask about hair cut prices before sitting down*.
Posted by: Gipsy | 2 Apr 2008 13:44:50
Loll that is way too much and they have now lost a customer I expect.
Hairdressers that come to the house are v understanding about nits, btw.
never mind breathing at antenatal clinics, I think they should teach basic hypnosis for commanding obedience in these tricky moments. You think you have troubles, Child C rocks permanently at the best of times; the only way to stop him impaling himself on the scissors is to hang a jelly baby where he can only just lick it if he sits very very still...
Posted by: j | 2 Apr 2008 13:37:44
Maybe they were taking the opportunity to charge you for all the fringe-cutting (probably kept a tab).
Posted by: Annamac | 2 Apr 2008 13:29:55
Naive mother story here...took my 2 year old to my hairdressers the other day for her first proper haircut. They had up until that point been cutting her fringe for free. They gave her an exceedingly cute bob, no tantrums, but then charged me - deep breath - TWENTY ONE QUID. And I had already given the hairdresser a few quid as a tip so it cost me 25 pigging pounds.
Has the world gone insane?! They are not a particularly expensive hairdresser to use normally, btw.
Posted by: Loll | 2 Apr 2008 13:09:57
gipsy have you thought about getting together with your son's best mate and taking them both at once, with a treat afterwards? sort of playing down the haircut element while still exploiting peer pressure to behave?
Posted by: j | 2 Apr 2008 13:04:10
Well I see now that the tone of my first post was extra-miserable, so I'm not surprised you took it the way you did, Gipsy! I did indeed buy the book I mentioned in the UK. "Freddie has a haircut" by Nicola Smee. It's still available from Amazon etc. And we had no hairdresser issues with no. 2 child as he really likes that book too! Good luck!
Posted by: Annamac | 2 Apr 2008 12:20:57
Sorry if I sounded a bit sanctimonious! I didn't mean to. Did you buy that book in the UK? It sounds quite handy for my situation. I have been doing the same thing - acclimatising son to hairdressers. I guess I took your post the wrong way. I thought it was being critical of parents who didn't make their kids just do something - suck it and see kind of approach.
It is all rather on my mind as he needs to have a haircut in the next week.
Posted by: Gipsy | 2 Apr 2008 12:08:12
No, sorry, Gipsy, I still think this kind of salon is unnecessary. That is not to say that I wilfully take my children (aged 9 and 3) to places that are actively child-unfriendly (I once changed GP because the doctor had a very unfortunate manner with children). When my older one was about 2 she was also very fearful of the hairdressers, amongst rather alot of other things, and I felt that this was something we needed to sort out. I took the tack that I needed to help her investigate the things that she was frightened of and discover that there was no need to be frightened. We visited some salons just so that she could sit in the chair and talk to the hairdresser (they are usually quite happy to help - they don't much like having children screaming the place down in their salons) and she went to see other children having their hair cut. We also had a story book "Freddie has a haircut", which helped a lot. Then we finally went back to have her hair cut and she was fine with it. So it took more time than just going to a ludicrously over-priced "kiddie salon", but she overcame her fear and thereby increased her self-confidence. I just don't believe in sugar-coating everything and I think that the salon mentioned in the blog post is ridiculous sugar-coating. And as for the name - bleargh. Told ya I was a miserable old bag. :-)
Posted by: Annamac | 2 Apr 2008 11:48:13
What is so bad about taking kids to places like this as a one-off treat? I've no problem with that, or with finding a dentist or hairdressers that makes the experience a lot less traumatic for the child that has an absolute horror of them. My son (three next week) has no problems with the doctor (other than this is so boring do we have to be here can't we go to the park type of thing), but he does have an absolute horror of having his hair cut. If I've the choice of two hairdressers, one of whom makes the experience a lot less painful for him than the other does, then that is the hairdresser that I'll go to. That's not pandering IMO. Of course, I thought that 11 quid was well outrageous for a hair cut, so I don't think I'll be going to this hairdressers anytime soon. It is just that I can understand why some people would spend more. And then of course there are the people for whom 17 quid is like 1 quid to the rest of us. And lets face it, this place is in the Kings Road. Lots of folks around there have a very different perspective on money than most of us do.
Posted by: Gipsy | 2 Apr 2008 09:30:22
Miserable old bag that I am, I think that children should realise right from the start that not everything in life is fun, fun, fun. (Not that I see having a haircut as particularly tiresome, but still...) After all, if you have trouble getting your infant to submit to a haircut, how do you get them to behave well for the dentist or the doctor? I find it rather depressing that anyone would think that a hair salon dedicated to children is a good idea at all. It just seems like pandering to a spoilt brat culture to me.
Posted by: Annamac | 2 Apr 2008 09:08:39
I cut our daughters hair once - ONCE. I just wanted to give it a little trim from the 'wispy' bits - it didn't go very well. That said, I wouldn't pay the grand prices being charged at Tantrum - I'd be the one throwing the 'tantrum' when the bill came. We have a local place that does it for £7 - good enough with money left over for an ice cream or lollie pop.
Posted by: Yank | 1 Apr 2008 15:55:43
Oh MumofTwo that is SO true, I have thought much the same without finding the words to express it as well as you do. Something about not losing the adventure in the mundane.
Posted by: Kieransmum | 31 Mar 2008 20:51:32
This place looks fun for a one off treat for a younger child. I have also been known to cut my children's hair, especially when they were babies and just needed a trim, my mum still cuts my fringe from time to time! Otherwise mine go to a much cheaper hairdressers for a quick cut costing about £5. My two seem to quite like the whole experience (we do make out it is a special thing for grown-up girls...). I sometimes wonder if we strive a little too hard to make everything in life 'entertaining' for children when actually ordinary life is reasonably interesting all by itself.
Posted by: mumoftwo | 31 Mar 2008 10:41:38