AUBURN — Cody Childs talks quickly and deftly about skin fades, tapers and undercuts and it could be boxing, maybe, except it’s barbering.

The 23-year-old opened his one-man shop two months ago in a former Center Street yoga studio, decorating it with a black leather lounge area and stylish red-and-black seats and stations. On the wall: Pictures of him racing No. 94 in the Runnin’ Rebel division at Oxford Plains Speedway.

He wants to be a modern barber and a race car driver.

Childs has had a steady flow of young fans in his chair, some dressed in the T-shirts his parents sell at OPS in Oxford.

“They’ll come in, ‘We watch you every week!'” Childs said. “They’re getting their hair cut from their favorite driver, which I think is awesome. Their parents tell me, ‘Aw, yeah, we bring them; they root for you.’ You’ve never met them and they come in with your shirt — it’s a hoot.”

Childs, who lives in Auburn, wasn’t sure what he wanted to do after graduating from Edward Little High School in 2012. He worked with two young men as direct support staff for two years, then tried roofing.

At a family party, his uncle, who owns Blais Barber Shop in Lewiston, asked if he had ever considered barbering.

“He said you aren’t going to go to work out in the cold, you won’t be working in heat all summer long, you won’t go home with a busted-up back,” Childs said. “He said you’ll be able to build your status around the community, which I really liked that idea of.”

Childs enrolled at the Capilo Institute in Augusta in October 2015 and graduated from its 800-hour barbering program in June 2016.

“Right around the 300- to 400-hour mark in the program, I really realized how much I loved it,” he said. “Going to school, talking to a client, giving them a good haircut and making them feel their best when they left that day.”

He began cutting hair in a chair in his basement this summer, building clientele through word of mouth. They’ve followed to the new space, which he named Gifted Hands Barber Shop.

He’s open six days a week, all walk-ins. In addition to cuts, he also does beard trims and straight-razor shaves. Saturdays are the busiest.

“I’m getting a lot of people coming in and hearing I specialize in fades,” Childs said. “I’ve probably tripled or quadrupled my clientele in the two months I’ve been here. It’s been really, really good.”

A fade is a style that’s bald on the back and sides, Childs said, and fades into short hair on the top of the head. A skin taper starts close on the sides and slowly gives way to more hair toward the top of the head, a “less dramatic” look.

An undercut is a razored design, most often on the back of the head.

It was all foreign to him when he started, Childs said.

“The actual hair-cutting, I describe it like art,” he said.

He’d like to turn Gifted Hands into a four-chair shop and plans to bring in three people soon.

“I have two buddies from school as well as a barber who is working over at Bates College as a football coach,” Childs said. “The big thing I want in here is different personalities. (My friend) Rick fits the punk-rock generation that likes the long hair and the undercuts. I’m kind of like a sporty person; I can relate to those customers. Then (my friend) Lucas is, he says it himself, he’s kind of like the nerdy type. He likes ‘Star Wars’ and he’s into Western sharpshooting. It almost works perfect, the three of us working together, no one’s stepping on anyone’s toes.”

In addition to his racing pictures, Childs has framed his first dollar bill and a cookie fortune on the wall. He found the latter the second day in business when he was outside and happened to see a scrap of paper next to the building.

“I picked it up and I read it: ‘Blessed is that man who has found his work,'” Childs said. “The weird thing is it poured the next day, so that fortune would have been ruined the next day if I didn’t pick it up that day.”

kskelton@sunjournal.com

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