His style is cutting it close

SOME have sneered that the shaved head on a white guy is this decade’s version of the comb-over. Not true. The shaved head is all about embracing one’s hair-deficient genes with dignity.

Still, shaving a head right is harder than it looks. That’s why those on the lookout for a tight, clean, even and short shave have turned Ian Harrower of Rudy’s Barbershop in Silver Lake into a cult figure.

Harrower is a 27-year-old greaser and rock musician originally from Orange County. He went to barber school in downtown Long Beach and after graduating he cut his chops cutting hair near Camp Pendleton south of San Clemente, which meant two years of nothing but skin fades and “high and tights” for Marines.

When he got a chair at Rudy’s in ’04 as their short-hair specialist, he had already amassed an arsenal of tools and blades that made the only option to go shorter shaving cream and a straight razor. (He does that too, if you want to journey past the Velcro look).

Harrower advises any customer who shows signs of male-pattern baldness to go short. “It doesn’t make the receding hairline so prevalent,” he said. “And luckily, white guys with shaved heads don’t have skinhead connotations anymore.”

-- Deborah Netburn