ShortCut helps you crop your own hair

ADAM TSCHORN

- Los Angeles Times

With warmer weather upon us, more of us men are trending it like Beckham -- trimming down our shaggy manes to close-cropped action-figure haircuts -- only to realize our maintenance involves biweekly sprints to Supercuts, or the risk of nicking our own noggins with barber-grade clippers.

Glenn Koenig/L.A. Times photo

Remington ShortCut, $29.99.

But what if we could buzz the tower cheaply, easily and error-free in the privacy of our own homes -- all by ourselves? Ah, such is the promise of Remington's new ShortCut, a cordless clipper designed for the shorn legions for $29.99. It deploys the "world's only curved cutting system" (to conform to the shape of the head), self-sharpening blades and a 40-minute charge (enough juice for the whole rugby team) to make the pate Justin Timber-like.

Anything advertised with the tag line "You can't mess this up!" is begging for a challenge. And because my own dome is a near desert up top and more densely wooded on the sides, I had the right testing ground.

After reading the directions and making sure I had the right plastic attachment (Warning: The clipper arrives with the balding comb attached, so you have to switch it out for the adjustable blade, which cuts from one-eighth to one-half inch), I turned on the ShortCut and began to move it along the scalp, back to front, from the nape to forehead. In six slow and steady strokes across the cranium, I was shorn.

Quick? Certainly. Error-free? On the first try, not so much. The resulting pattern of uneven spots in the back looked like mange. A second attempt -- after the tonsorial test lab had grown back -- proved a much better buzz: a clean, even, divot-free do, three-sixteenths of an inch all the way around in less than five minutes. I even managed to deploy the secondary pop-out trimmer on the sideburns.

What made the big difference was gripping the clipper in the palm like a hairbrush instead of with the fingertips like a salt shaker, and moving slowly and steadily, especially at the sides of the head.

The verdict: If you're a guy who can stand still and follow directions, the ShortCut can keep your coif close-cropped all year long for roughly the cost of a single haircut.

How you break the news to your barber is up to you.

Information at www.remingtonshortcut.com.