Hotsy Totsy on Síp Street is an exclusive underground man cave housing a cocktail bar and a barber shop. Four young experts in hair, drinks, and facial hair founded it with an aim to create an exclusive underground hotspot for guys. Hotsy Totsy can be accessed through a “secret” door from a cocktail bar; stepping inside, we see checkered tiles and barber chairs evoking the first half of the 20th century, and two perfectly groomed guys welcome guests, while the air is filled with pleasant blues tunes. The dress code for the staff here seems to be a white shirt, a bow tie, and tattoos. While the guys tamed guests’ locks during our visit, we learned more about the world of Hotsy Totsy barbers, and the method of classical grooming.
Hotsy Totsy was only recently opened, so there are only two fellows working here at the moment, but according to plans for the near future, four more guys will soon join the efforts to bring beards to perfection. Hotsy Totsy aims to become a membership-based barber shop in the near future, where only regular guests will be welcome. One of the barbers is already fully booked, so at the moment only the other one takes on customers who just pop in, but he will also soon cease to do so. When they have enough members, they will stop doing one-time cuts, and later on, new guests can only become members if a place becomes free. Hotsy Totsy’s marketing is based on recommendations, business cards, number swapping, and whisper campaigns. These premium gentlemen’s barber shops are pretty popular in English-speaking cultures already, because for customers, reliability and planning ahead are highly important. The boys here promise creative, precise, and stencil-free grooming at all times, and even though they have the knowledge to cut women’s hair as well, they choose not to. A haircut at Hotsy Totsy costs 3,800 forints, and if a beard also needs grooming the price is 5,600 forints. A “ten-day return cut” costs 2,800 forints.
The boys pay special attention to hygiene, which is an indispensable part of the profession. All of their tools need to be spotless at all times, and we cannot even leave the shop without hearing more about the hot-towel shave. Here, all services start with examining the skin to avoid accidentally hurting any birthmarks or imperfections. Afterwards, they start by cutting facial hair with a machine if it is too long, before applying softening cream, and pampering the skin with hot towels twice. This is followed by mixing the foam, and applying it on the skin. Generally, all guests are groomed twice, and then can relax a bit under a mask of cold towels. If a spot forms on the skin, they treat it with alum. The razor blades of today’s shavettes are changeable; to avoid infections, prior to all shaving sessions the boys put a brand-new blade in the shavette in front of their guests. Being a barber is an important profession even today, because as the saying goes, at the moment when customers sit in the comfortable chair, they trust their barber more than God; this is true at Hotsy Totsy, too.
