Who IsJames Goodman?
Barber Goodman is a men’s grooming publication created and led by James Goodman, a licensed barber who draws on more than two decades behind the chair to produce thoughtful, practical guidance on haircuts, styling, and hair products.
Long before he wrote a word about grooming, he was running his own barbershop in Southern California. It was the kind of neighborhood spot where regulars kept the same slot on the books for years and half the appointments doubled as catch-up sessions.
Running a shop also made him a reluctant boss and, eventually, a decent mentor. He hired young barbers straight out of school, watched them make the mistakes he’d made, and learned that teaching the craft sharpens it. Some of those barbers still call him. It’s also why writing suits him: he has spent as many years explaining why a cut works as he has performing one.
These days, James works on the editorial side of the industry. He owns and edits Men’s Hairstyles Today, one of the most widely read men’s hair publications online, contributes to American Salon, covering trends and techniques for a professional audience, and writes for and reviews content at Barber’s Take.
Barber Goodman is his most personal project – the place where he answers questions the way he would across the chair: plainly, honestly, and with your actual hair in mind, not a random model’s.
What It Means To Be A Barber:The Client I'll Never Forget
Ask a barber about the best haircut he ever gave, and he won’t describe the appointment. He’ll describe the person.
Mine first sat in my chair in his early twenties, a few days before a job interview he was convinced he’d bomb. He didn’t know what to ask for, so he said what most guys say: “Just clean it up, I guess.” We talked it through, I cut his hair, and he got the job, which had nothing to do with me, but try telling him that.
He kept the same appointment for the next twelve years. I cut his hair the week before his wedding. The morning his first kid was born, he showed up unshaven and wild-eyed on two hours of sleep, because apparently a fresh cut was the one thing in his life he could still control. The haircut itself barely changed in all that time. A quarter inch here, a little more texture up top as his hairline started negotiating with him. What changed was everything around it.
That’s the part of barbering nobody tells you about when you’re starting out. The cutting is craft, and I obsessed over the craft. But the job is trust. When a man sits in your chair every three weeks for a decade, you’re not maintaining a fade. You’re the one person who’ll tell him the truth – that the style he screenshotted won’t survive his cowlick, that the expensive pomade is making things worse, that he’d look sharper leaning into the gray than fighting it.
When I eventually stepped away from the shop, I didn’t miss the twelve-hour Saturdays or the broken clipper blades. I missed those conversations.
The Advice You'd GetIf You Sat in My Chair
Here’s what twenty-plus years taught me: most men don’t have a hair problem. They have a translation problem.
You know roughly what you want. You just don’t know how to ask for it, whether it’ll work on your head, or which products at the store actually do what their labels promise. And most of what you’ll find online was written by someone who has never had to look a client in the mirror and stand behind the result.
I have. Every guide on this site is written by me and held to one standard: if I wouldn’t say it to a paying client sitting in front of me, it doesn’t get published.
When I recommend a product, it’s because I’ve used it on real heads of hair. I still test clippers, trimmers, and styling products the way I did when my name was on the shop door, because a review means nothing if the reviewer has nothing to lose by being wrong.
Barbering gave me a trade, a living, and an education in the questions men actually have about their hair; the ones they’ll ask a barber but never a search bar.
This website is where I put that education to work for you.
My LifeOff The Clock
I may have retired from the shop, but nobody retires from being a barber. My clippers live in a case in the garage, and most Sundays somebody – a neighbor, a nephew, an old client who “happened to be in the area” – ends up in a chair on my patio getting trimmed up before the week starts. Old habits.
If you’ve got a question about your hair, a cut you’re considering, or a product you’re eyeing at the store, I’d genuinely like to hear it. The reader questions I get are where half my guides come from.
You can reach me at james@barbergoodman.com or through my contact page.
