HAIR SALONS

The Chop Chop salons

Two Chop Chop salons are trading, one in Shoreditch just off Old Street and one in Wembley Park. Same phone number, same hours, same price list. They are not the same room though, and they do not do the same work, so it is worth choosing on purpose rather than on postcode.

Shoreditch, Old Street

60 Charlotte Road, London EC2A 3QT.

Over the last twelve months the diary here split 787 textured appointments to 800 straight ones, with clipper work steady underneath. Neither side is the sideline. Where a booking names a hair type at all, half of them are curly or afro, which is not something most salons can say and is the reason people cross London for it. If your hair has a pattern to it, and you have had the experience of being cut by somebody who plainly wished it did not, this is the one to try first.

Wembley Park

3 Weaver Walk, Wembley Park HA9 0GX.

This salon is barber led. Dry clipper cuts are the biggest single service by a wide margin, well over a thousand a year, with clipper cuts including a wash and style behind them and skin fades after that. There is a colour team and plenty of longer hair work too, but the rhythm of the room is short hair done quickly and often. If you want a fade done properly, or a regular short cut you never have to explain twice, go here.

How the pricing works

By service and by time, not by gender. There is one price list and it applies to everyone. What you pay depends on what is being done and how long your hair takes, not on which box anybody ticks. Sixty five services run from £10 to £270, and every one of those is a starting price, because texture, length and condition all change how long the work takes.

Hours and booking

Both salons open Monday to Friday 10:00 to 20:00, Saturday 09:00 to 19:00 and Sunday 11:00 to 18:00. One number covers both, 020 3488 1492. Availability is on Fresha.

The Camden salon has closed. If that was your local, either of the two above will pick you up, and it is worth ringing so whoever you speak to knows what you used to have done.

Which one

The short version: curls, texture and restyles lean Old Street. Clippers, fades and short cuts lean Wembley Park. Colour is done properly at both. If you are roughly equidistant, phone and describe your hair, because the honest answer occasionally sends you to the further one, and that is a better outcome than a wasted hour at the nearer one.