How we research prices and products

Everything on TheBarberBoard is desk research. We read price lists, booking pages, manufacturer specifications and retailer listings, and we write down the date we read them. We do not run a test lab and we have not used the products in our roundups. This page sets out where each kind of figure comes from, so you can judge how much weight to put on it.

Haircut and skin fade prices

The price guides come from barbers' own published price lists. On 28 September 2026 we read about 150 of them: around 15 London shops, around 110 shops in eight big cities (Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle) and 17 shops in towns such as Milton Keynes, Ipswich, Lincoln and Falkirk. The figures are published together, with a CSV download, as the UK Haircut Price Index.

• Where we read them. Shop websites, and the shops' pages on Booksy, Treatwell and Fresha.
• Full price, not offers. Where a booking site showed a discount, we used the shop's full price.
• Ranges and "typical". Each range runs from the lowest to the highest price we found in that group. "Typical" is the median: half the shops charge less and half charge more.
• Groups. Town, big city, independent London shop, and premium central London shop. Premium shops are listed separately because a handful of £50 West End prices would otherwise drag the London figure up.

The weak point is dating. Very few shops put a date on their price list, so a list we read in September may have been set months earlier. Treat any single figure as a guide, and check the shop's booking page before you go. No trade body publishes a national haircut or skin fade average, which is why we read price lists ourselves.

The charts on the price pages are drawn straight from the tables on the same page by a small script, so a chart and its table can't disagree.

Barber listings

A shop goes on a city page only if we find dated evidence that it is trading now: reviews from the last few weeks on its Booksy or Treatwell page, or current prices on its own website. Each listing shows the date we checked it. Shops we can't confirm are left out.

For Liverpool, our first city, we started from a March 2026 Google Maps export and found only two of its Liverpool shops were barbers. So we rebuilt the list by hand on 28 September 2026, which gave 27 shops. Ratings come from Booksy or Treatwell, not Google, and we say which. City pages do not rank shops against each other, and nobody can pay to be listed, moved up or taken off.

Product roundups

Our six product roundups (beard trimmers, beard oils, hair clippers, head shavers, nose hair trimmers and grooming gifts) are research, not reviews. We have not handled or tested these products. The picks come from:

• the manufacturer's UK product pages and instruction booklets, for lengths, runtimes, waterproofing and what comes in the box;
• prices on the brand's own UK shop and at UK retailers, checked on the date shown on each page;
• the price and lifespan of replacement blades, heads and foils, because they decide what a trimmer or shaver costs to own;
• the pattern across buyer reviews at several retailers, read for recurring faults (stalling, battery fade, broken combs) rather than star averages;
• for beard oils, the published ingredient list, the bottle size and the price per ml;
• the kit barbers publish that they use, where a roundup covers trade tools.

Each roundup has a "How we chose" box listing the criteria for that product type. We say when a figure isn't published (some makers don't state a runtime) instead of guessing it.

Links and money

Some product links go to Amazon UK and earn us a commission if you buy. Where we could match the exact model, the link goes to that product's page; otherwise it goes to an Amazon search for the model name. Links to brand shops are not affiliate links. The full statement is on our affiliate disclosure page. Commission doesn't decide what goes on a list: several picks are cheapest at the brand's own shop, and we say so.

Dates and updates

Every guide shows the date it was published and, if it has changed since, the date it was updated. When we re-check prices, the page date moves and the "checked" date in each table caption moves with it. Product prices across the roundups were last checked on 28 September 2026, and the haircut price lists were read the same day.

Barbering advice

Guidance on cuts, guard numbers, beard growth and aftercare summarises what barbers and manufacturers commonly publish. Where a figure comes from one source, such as a clipper maker's guard chart, we name it. None of it is medical advice.

Corrections

If a price has changed, a shop has closed or we've got something wrong, email hello@thebarberboard.com. We'll check it, fix the page and change its date.