As a kid, my mom cut my hair with her trusty clippers. In college, I picked up a pair of clippers and learned to cut my own hair. Soon I found myself cutting friends’ hair in the dorms. Clippers made buzz cuts easy, but I always struggled when trying to cut longer hair evenly.

A few years before I retired, I grew my hair out. While it prompted questions about whether I’d become a hippie, the longer locks suited me. The problem was, even with my wife’s help, I struggled to get an even cut at home. Last November, I had an idea for a tool that changed all of that. It’s so useful for cutting hair that we were compelled to bring it to market.

Picture of HairFin.

A Haircut Guide for Longer Hair

Hair clipper combs only go to about 1″ but I wanted to cut my hair 2″, 3″, even 4″ long. Cutting hair freehand is a skill hairdressers possess that I don’t. What I needed was a way to cheat, some kind of measuring tool that would let me know how long to cut. That’s when I had the idea for the HairFin haircut guide.

Picture of HairFin.

At its basics, the HairFin is a measuring tool that mounts between any two fingers on either hand. I rounded the bottom like a fin so I can comb my fingers through my hair to grasp it at the base, then pull it straight while sliding the guide into place. The fin keeps my hand a set distance away from my head while I hold hair in place for cutting.

Now, We Can Cut Longer Hair Evenly At Home

And voila, suddenly I was able to cut hair just like the pros! Now instead of spending hours trying to match up hair on one side of my head with the other side, we have an accurate tool to do the job. No more guesswork – we can cut my hair in about 10 minutes without mistakes.

My preference is to have my hair an even 4″ all the way around. It’s the perfect length to keep my neck and ears protected from the sun while still keeping hair out of my eyes while shredding. Here’s a short video how we do a longer surfer haircut using a HairFin haircut tool:

It Worked, So I Made a Haircut Tool Kit

I started with a 4″ HairFin, but then started designing other sizes like a 2″, and 3″ that I could use for different haircuts. Of course I wanted it to look cool, so this became my winter art project as well. Some of the design is inspired from surfing in Costa Rica over the winters.

While I normally wouldn’t have attempted to do a haircut like my mom’s freehand, she let me give it a try with my new hair cutting guides. It worked out better than I could have imagined. Here’s a video how I cut a women’s pixie haircut with the 2″ and 3″ haircut guides:

How To Do a DIY Self Haircut

While it’s still much easier to have my wife use the guides to cut my hair, I’ve found I can do it myself using a trimmer. Finally, years after leaving my buzz cut behind, I can cut my own hair again. Here’s a video of me doing a DIY medium length layered fade self haircut:

As minimalists, we don’t keep superfluous crap around, but a set of HairFins is now a necessity. It makes life easier and is satisfying to use. The fact that it’s so useful to me, made me think other home hair cutters could use it as well. And so…

We Brought the HairFin Haircut Guide to Market

This is the first time I had an idea for a product that I thought was worth putting into production. Starting a side business has always been on my bucket list, and I wanted my hands on the process as much as possible. So this spring, we teamed up with a local manufacturer here in our home town of Derby, Connecticut.

Picture of factory.Manufactured here in Derby, CT!

Making our product in the USA, especially so close to home, paid off in so many ways. I got to be involved in the whole process, and the quality is top notch. Now I have awesome new friends to learn from and have social distance beers with. If there’s interest, I’ll share our adventures in bringing an invention to market in a new post.

It’s been a journey getting here, but we just started our launch sale on Amazon. And we have a new website, www.HairFin.com for these hair cutting tools.

I know most of this blog is about saving money, but we also believe in spending money to get the most happiness per dollar. So far this little gadget has been tons of fun for us. If you have longer hair, or want to try a longer cut, give it a try!

Readers can use the code CrazyKicks10 at Amazon for 10% off on a HairFin hair cutting kit. Even though we’ve been quarantined at home for most of this project, we’ve had so much support from friends on this journey. Thank you to everyone that’s cheered us along the way and are now helping us spread the word!