Pain & Pleasure at Shear Image Salon

Her eyes roved across my face. “Upper lip wax,” she declared – a statement, not a question. “Uh, actually, I just want a haircut,” I replied. She silently looked at me, raised her eyebrows, and I caved.

And that’s how I walked out of Shear Image on Geary carefree and hairfree, a tingling red mustache on my face instead of the apparently usual thick black one.

The salon is a small one, run by a Vietnamese husband and wife duo. It’s the type of place that advertises twelve buck haircuts on a sandwich board on the sidewalk. Which is not to say the cuts are bad – to the contrary, they’re slamming, and at this point, Pauline knows just how I like it: short and oddly triangular, the haircut of a young squire or a ambiguously gendered Victorian child.

I’ve been back to Shear Image a few times and it seems that I’m either a Frida Kahlo or Pauline has a real knack for instantaneously spotting the hopefully tiny hairs growing up there. She remarks on them during each visit. At this point, shame is not involved. She’s doing me a service I didn’t know I needed, and I’m thankful. Hair removal, by scissors, wax, thread, or I’m sure any number of weirder options, does not run cheap in this city. And there’s something about lying rigidly under a bright light while someone repeatedly rips hair out of your facial follicles and knowing that it’s only going to set you back five bucks that just feels…well, good.

Shear Image Salon
3520 Geary
415-752-0397
[Inner Richmond/Laurel Heights]

Photo Credit: Shear Image Salon