How To! | Get a Great Haircut

Slate Culture

Slate Podcasts

Arts, Tv & Film, Music

4.4 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Are you stuck in a hair rut? On this episode of How To!, Courtney Martin brings on Alana Lucia Balestrino, hairstylist, barber, and founder of the Brooklyn-based studio Baddies. Alana explains how to work with a stylist or barber to get a haircut you love. If you liked this episode check out: How To Dress with Confidence. Also: Decoder Ring’s Mystery of the Mullet. Do you have a problem that needs solving? Send us a note at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show. Subscribe for free on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The show is produced by Rosemary Belson, with Kevin Bendis. Our technical director is Merritt Jacob and our supervising producer is Joel Meyer. Want more How To!? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the How To! show page. Or, visit slate.com/howtoplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Whoa! Look! Is that Dragonite? Dragon-type Pokemon have arrived!
0:07.0	Discover in Happy Meal now!
0:10.0	Some fun, some food, it's all inside this Happy Meal.
0:13.0	Until 17th of June, Prim 11 AM includes one pre-selected book or toy.
0:18.0	Pokemon range comprises toys only, whilst thoughts last.
0:20.0	I was sitting at the hair salon, dreading it, and thinking, this is a weird thing to have a
0:26.6	problem with, but at the same time, it's something that's so ever present, literally on my head.
0:33.0	Why not figure out whatever hangups I have about it?
0:37.3	Welcome to how to. I'm Courtney Martin.
0:40.3	Hair. It's the feature that perhaps says the most about us, right?
0:44.3	It's connected to culture, heritage, gender, personality.
0:47.3	Before you even speak, your hair communicates something crucial about who you are.
0:53.3	When you take all of that at a sprinkler beauty standards
0:56.1	and a dash of social anxiety, suddenly there's a lot of pressure to get your hair right. Which is why
1:03.4	today's listener wants some help. Hi, I'm Nick. I'm a Philadelphia theater maker. I'm 28. And I think men my age are at the point where often
1:15.7	they've sort of figured out a hairstyle and they go to their barber and say, give me whichever
1:20.6	buzzer and cut it this way. And I've just personally never settled on anything. Right now,
1:27.1	I wear my hair long. It's about
1:29.3	shoulder length, a little bit of wave or curl to it. I've also spent a lot of time with short,
1:36.3	high and tight, like standard man haircut type deal. So that's sort of been my rhythm the past 10 years or so. Let it grow out and then cut it all off.
1:47.6	I love how you said the standard man haircut. Has that been externally motivated at times? Like you have
1:52.6	particular jobs where you felt like you needed to show up in a certain way? Or has it always been
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 13 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.