Choosing a hair salon in Shoreditch

Almost every hair salon in Shoreditch can cut straight hair well. Far fewer can take a head of tight curls, a skin fade and a full head of colour in the same afternoon without one of the three being treated as the awkward booking. That is the working difference at Chop Chop, 60 Charlotte Road, EC2A 3QT. Curly and afro work is booked here in almost exactly the same volume as straight hair, and it is timed and priced as ordinary work, because in this salon it is ordinary work.

Texture-inclusive, in plain terms

The phrase gets used loosely, so here is what it means in practice. Over the last twelve months the Charlotte Road diary recorded 787 curly and afro appointments against 800 straight ones. Those two columns are level. In a salon where curls are an occasional favour they are nothing like level, and the booking gets handed to whoever happens to be free that day. That is not the shape of this business. If you have spent years explaining your own hair to someone before they touch it, the relevant question is not whether a salon says it welcomes all hair types. It is whether the person picking up the scissors does that work every day. Here they do.

Pricing by service, not by gender

The list is built around what is being done and how long it takes. A clipper cut costs what a clipper cut costs. A restyle with a wash and finish costs what that takes to do properly. Nobody pays a different rate for the same service because of the box they tick when booking, and nobody gets quietly pointed at the shorter, cheaper version of an appointment for the same reason.

The knock-on effect is more useful than the principle. Because there is no men's list and no women's list, there is nothing splitting the salon into two halves. You book the service you actually want by name, the time set aside matches the job, and the person in the next chair might be having a beard trim or a two-hour colour correction. That mix is the normal state of the room rather than an unusual afternoon.

Who tends to book here

It suits a few different people. Anyone who has been given the wrong cut by someone guessing at their curl pattern. Anyone who would rather not pick a side of a price list. People working nearby who want a proper cut rather than a quick tidy. Parents booking a teenager who wants a fade and does not want a lecture. Someone growing out a big change and needing a stylist who will hold the shape rather than take the easy two inches off.

What it costs

There are 65 services on the list and they run from £10 to £270. Every single one of those figures is a starting price, and that is not a hedge. Texture, length and condition genuinely change how long a job takes, and a salon that quotes one flat number for a cut is either overcharging the quick heads or rushing the slow ones. If your hair is long, dense, colour treated or all three, say so when you book and you will be given a realistic idea of both the time and the cost before anyone starts.

Practical details

• Address: 60 Charlotte Road, London EC2A 3QT, a short walk from Old Street and Shoreditch High Street.
• Phone: 020 3488 1492.
• Open seven days, including evenings during the week and Sunday afternoons.
• Booking runs through Fresha online, or you can ring during opening hours.

Before you book

Two honest notes. First, if you want something that is not on the list, ring rather than guessing at the nearest match. It is a five minute conversation and it avoids arriving for a service that was never the right one. Second, the busiest slots are weekday evenings and Saturdays, so if you have a fixed date in mind, look a week or two out rather than the same afternoon. Everything else, including what you want doing and whether it is realistic for your hair, is best settled in the chair with someone looking at it.