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This is a generalization, but teenage boys have suddenly gotten very particular about their hair. The cut that’s all the rage is close-cropped on the neck and sides but with a big unruly pouf up top. Some call it the “alpaca” or the “broccoli” cut for its likeness to the mammal and vegetable. But Tino Flores calls it the blowout taper, and Flores, 17, is an expert.
The Franklin High School senior cuts the hair of about 100 local teenage boys in a makeshift hair salon in his family’s Brentwood-Darlington garage. Flores promotes his services on Instagram under the handle T-Blendz, but his talents have mostly spread via word of mouth. At times this had led to an overwhelming number of teens clamoring for the perfect blowout taper from the student-athlete-barber.
“If I get somebody from Cleveland, I get five other kids from Cleveland,” he says.
Flores got into his hobby because he was tired of getting shoddy haircuts at chain salons. During his freshman year he found “an actual young barber who understood what the times were and what the popular haircuts were,” he says. His new stylist was only a year older than he was. (So many teenage boys are cutting each other’s hair in backyards and bathrooms right now—ask any parent for stories.) Flores saved up his birthday money and bought himself a nice pair of clippers. His training? YouTube and a good-natured friend named Rahul, who let Flores practice on him.
Balancing T-Blendz with his two summer baseball teams is a challenge (Flores is Franklin’s catcher), so he now asks his clients to sign up for cuts on Calendly. He saw the school counselors use the website to book advising appointments and thought it would be perfect for T-Blendz.
T-Blendz has shown no signs of slowing down, even though Flores thinks the blowout taper is on its way out. New cuts coming soon to a teen’s head near you: the “warrior,” inspired by Brad Pitt in the 1999 film Fight Club, and the “modern mullet,” which is just like the early ’90s Billy Ray Cyrus version but shorter.
“But I don’t know,” he says. “I’m just the barber.”
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