Beardsgaard Barbers

The Beardsgaarden is stocked!

Remember that huge pothos we have had growing along the top of this massive cabinet? This spring it was starting to hit the floor on the other side, and 25+ feet of pothos vines had filled the pot with so much root it had little room for dirt anymore.

Which it does every few years, the plant you see in this video started as 12 rooted leaves, each of these little pots has 5 or more. Blademaiden, who has been accused of being a green witch quite a few times, has been rooting these guys up for months and they’re all putting out new leaves and about to start vining.

Take home a piece of Beardsgaard magic next time you’re in.

Beardsgaard is 12 today. ⚔️💈🌈

On September 9, 2014, we opened the doors knowing how to cut hair and figuring we’d work the rest out as we went.

Apparently “the rest” included beard competitions, meeting (and working for) our heroes, fantasy photo shoots, lightsaber haircuts, conventions, potions, dragons, D&D, an apothecary, an alarming amount of costuming, and occasionally even operating a perfectly normal barbershop.

We always said opening a business was like throwing yourself off a cliff and figuring out how to build a plane on the way down.

Twelve years later, the plane is extremely weird, actually is up to code by some miracle, and has a dragon strapped to it, but damn if we didn’t build one.

And by “we,” we mean a whole lot more people than the two idiots who jumped off the cliff. Every barber who has made this place their own, every client who trusted us with their head, every friend who lent a hand, every artist, photographer, maker, model, gamer, collaborator, fellow barber and assorted weird kid who has wandered into our orbit has left something of themselves in this place. Beardsgaard became Beardsgaard because all of you kept building it with us.

Thank you for making this weird little barbershop the home it is.

Happy 12th birthday, Beardsgaard. 🥳

And then there’s the place itself.

Can you believe we used to be concerned about how we would fill all this space? These days we sort of have the opposite problem.

Take a walk back through the building of Beardsgaard, from getting the keys and figuring out how to turn this big empty space into a barbershop home, all the way to the rainbow-hued nerd cave you know today - with a few glimpses of what lived within these walls before us, too.

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In the beginning... Our little family making this house of beards a shoppey home.

Now with photos from how this place looked well before us when the previous tenant moved in and rediscovered the tin ceiling!

9/9 is Beardsgaard's anniversary, and this year marks 12 years!

This barbershop has been a home for the bearded weird kids of the Middle West since we first opened our doors in Batavia. This was the very first day, and while we were exhausted, excited, and had absolutely no idea what we were doing aside from the cutting hair part, we were determined to figure it out. We always did say opening a business is like throwing yourself off a cliff and figuring out how to build a plane on the way down, but it seems to have worked.

Twelve years and a pandemic later, there are a whole lot more of us weird kids around here. Happy birthday, Beardsgaard. 🥳⚔️💈

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Because we weren't 100% sure we were going to finish on time, we didn't set up this ribbon cutting until Friday afternoon, but Holly at the Chamber was able pull off a miracle and get together a fantastic group for a last-minute, 10:00 on a Tuesday morning kind of thing. Some of our best non 9-5 friends and family were also able to make it out, including our first client who has the coolest name ever and was completely unaware that he was to be the first client ever at Beardsgaard. It was a grand, grand, grand, grand opening. But this wasn't the grand opening PARTY! That will be more toward Halloween, so stay tuned, weirdoes. Thanks to Tyler's mom for taking pictures, and for the insane amount of work and antiquing she put into the shop. Seriously, this magically crazy lady is responsible for this shop not being half empty and crappy looking. Julie goes hard, yo.

It's stupid hot out. Labor Day weekend is coming. Come get sharp, Realm. https://www.beardsgaardbarbers.com/pages/appointments

We have so many different flavors of barbers at Beardsgaard. If you like your topics in the chair spooky and horror-movie themed, Drey is going to be a fabulous fit for you. https://www.beardsgaardbarbers.com/pages/appointments

What's the difference between a salon and a barbershop? This right here. Straight razors. Many assume that barbers are men and stylists are women, or that the distinction is about the gender we cut, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Barbers and cosmetologists go to different schools, get different training, and hold two entirely different state licenses (though some have both licenses, including a couple of barbers here). A cosmetology license lets you shave the back of a neck with a razor in Illinois, but the only legal difference between the two is that barbers can shave your whole head with a razor.

Functionally there can be a lot of differences in the skill sets and services provided, but those are far more down to the individual whose chair you're sitting in than what their license allows. Are there tons of stylists that can fade and trim beards as well as barbers? Of course! Are there barbers who do perms and color and stuff? Sure are!

At Beardsgaard, every single barber on staff can shave like a beast though, even if they have no memories of what a razor on their own faces once felt like.

You can get a haircut anywhere. Shaves and razor fades though? For that you need a barber like those you find at Beardsgaard.

Style trends are cyclical. Over 12 years at Beardsgaard and 18 behind the chair, Blademaiden has seen the turning of the ages many times.

Aggressive fades will always have their place, but the tides are turning back towards hair that moves and flows, that is allowed to show off all the cool things it can do when it’s allowed to stay on your head, and we at Beardsgaard are all for it.

This shop is full of the sorts of barbers who, yes, know how to handle the most epic beards and perfect razor faded pompadours, but this is our bread and butter too (and this is before we even had any product in it).

So give us your juicy curls, your giant manes, your mess of a 6 month grown out buzz cut, yearning to transform into the most effortlessly classy version of yourself. We’ll show you what that stuff on your head is capable of.

Hair, beards, shaves, whatever's on your head, Beardsgaard is the place to turn it up to epic.