Amsterdam Barber Shop

The haircut itself, is fine. No better than the American Barber Institute cut by students in Midtown for $ 7. I paid however, $ 18 plus tip for a haircut from here and was supremely disappointed. After the cut I wasn’t given a clean-​up at all, my head was literally covered with loose hair and that was fun while I went back home on the subway. It’s as if the business is forcing you to pay for a shampoo. Fuck this business and go to ABI Midtown. Students actually care about what they’re doing and will give you a better cut for less than half the price.

I’ve been a customer of Vlad’s for over 2 years, and I wouldn’t think of going anywhere else. He’s friendly and has great attention to detail.
Plus, Its a fair price for a haircut and the wait is never too long.

Amsterdam Barber Shop is always doing a great at cutting my hair. I have been going to them for many years and I am satisfied customer every time.

I have been going to Amsterdam Barber Shop for over a year now. Not once have I had a bad experience. Everyone is extremely nice, and you get the sense of a true community amongst the Upper West Side in their shop.
Maria, has consistently cut and colored my hair and every time it’s superb! Not only does she do men’s haircuts but her knowledge for women’s cut and color is fabulous. This shop stands strong in their craft. I moved to the UES and I still commute west to get my hair done by Amsterdam Barber Shop. Very affordable, super friendly, done and done. Hooked for life :)

Whenever life deals me an unpredictable blow to the solar plexus, if I’m sad and it’s taking me awhile to overcome my melancholy, I do some sort of grand gesture (s), I change something (s) in my life.
My near and dear friend is moving to Paris. I really only ever get close to one person at a time, so to me this comes as a complete upheaval and devastation.
Today I upgraded my mobile phone plan to unlimited text messages, that way I can get back in touch with friends I haven’t spoken to in awhile, this is an effort to help me feel less lonely and alone, an attempt to feel connected to the outside world or at least become more accessible.
And I got a haircut. That way I can like what I see in the mirror a little bit more, giving me a little more self-​esteem and thus a little more incentive to go out and mingle. Or at least that was the plan.
I said «I want it short on the sides and long on the top, don’t use anything smaller than a 3 size clipper, but I’d prefer you just do everything with scissors, using the clippers only when absolutely necessary, I want it as natural looking as possible, please don’t make the back Square or Block or Round or Circle, just make it clean and natural, please just keep it how it is but make it look nicer.»
The top looks fine I guess and so do the sides I suppose, but then he went to the back of my head/​neck. He sort of disappeared back there for awhile, coming out only periodically to look in mirrors to see how the light was reflecting off my hair to see what needed to be done, or at least that’s what I thought. Apparently he’d made some sort of mistake, by which I mean he didn’t understand me, he didn’t listen to me, he didn’t do what I wanted, and he did the complete opposite of everything I asked — which amounts to my neck hair-​line having been taken up more than an inch, now I have a big dirty messy looking «line» (the thing I was very clear in saying I didn’t want, I even repeated myself for the sake of clarity).
If this haircut did anything at all, it made me mad. Which isn’t really what I had planned. I wanted a quick recovery, but now I’m going to have to live with this for at least a few weeks. I feel defeated and humiliated. I left angry, I refused to pay. I actually insisted that he pay for someone else who actually knows what they’re doing to fix the disaster he wrought upon me, but instead he put his arm on my shoulder and said «Get the fuck out of here.» I responded with «If you don’t understand something or somebody you shouldn’t just do what you think they meant, you’re dealing with people’s lives here, image means a lot not only professionally but also emotionally and socially.» He came back with «I said get the fuck out of here.» And then I concluded with «Fuck you.»
I wish I could call the Better Business Bureau or something, but they’re almost completely ineffective when it comes to situations involving injured vanity and violations of verbal agreements… But even if they could, that really wouldn’t actually make anything any better.