I have been cutting my own hair for several years for the simple reason that no local barbers could cut my hair appropriately. I am an Asian descent with straight coarse hair. If you cut it like you would the Caucasian hair, the result would disasterous. Since I currently live in a small town in Midwest, Asian race is rare breed, and nobody is trained for my type of hair. Thus I had decided to take the fate in my own hand.

One annoyance about hair cutting is cleaning up the aftermath. It is amazing how wide spread the hair can travel, and how difficult it is to pick all pieces of it. I use Flowbee for the longer part of my hair, and that solved a major part of the problem. But I have to use a regular clipper for the shorter part of my hair, and that still left a considerable mess.

I went on a quest for a solution, and I found this Wahl product. It is hard to believe that Wahl seems to be the ONLY manufacturer who offers this solution. I have found many vacuum hair cutting products for pets, but not for human. While it made my shopping easy, it also worried me for the lack of options.

I bought this product directly from Wahl via their website. I paid about $40 including shipping, and it arrived within a week of placing the order. Compared to $70 that I paid for the Flowbee, it is considerably cheaper. Opening a box, I found the following:

electric clipper
"How To" video
8 guide combs
stainless steel scissors
tapered barber comb, flattop comb, pocket comb
blade oil
cleaning brush
blade guard
English/Spanish instructions
vacuum hose
universal adopter for vacuum cleaner
clipper attachment

Looking at the contents of the box, I slowly started to realize how this product works. The clipper is your ordinary Wahl hair clipper. I have been using an Oyster-brand clipper, but they seem almost identical. The clipper attachment gets secured to the clipper with a rubber band, and the hose is attached to the attachment. The attachment creates a air channel over the contour of the clipper, which routes the cut hair into the hose. Pretty simple concept. If something goes wrong with the clipper, I could just replace the clipper and still use the attachment.

Attaching the hose to the vacuum cleaner was easy. Just attach the universal adopter at the end of the hose, then connect the vacuum cleaner hose to it. It fit snuggly. Turning on the vacuum cleaner and the clipper, I start cutting my hair... Hey, no mess! The cut pieces of my hair were effectively sucked into the vacuum. Because I didn't have to worry about containing the mess in the smallest area possible, the duration it took to to cut my hair was shorten from 1 hour to 30 minutes. I hadn't realized how much inefficiency had been involved with mess containment and cleaning up. Needless to say, I was happy with the result.

Flowbee sucks then cuts. This product cuts then sucks. Flowbee sucks the hair into the vacuum 100% of the time. This is by design. This Wahl product is more of an afterthought, therefore, the hair containment is not 100% effective. I did notice some hair pieces that made their way to the counter top and the floor. The amount is so small that I could just take a Swiffer sheet and pick everything up. The instruction states that if you use a larger guide combs the containment effectiveness increases. I used #2 guide exclusively, and obviously I had to deal with the reduced effectiveness.

After finishing the hair cutting process, you will have to "disassemble" the attachments and clean. The hair pieces need to be brushed off of the clipper surfaces and the inner side of the clipper attachment. It only took several seconds to do so.

Overall, this product works. The less-than-100% containment may deter some people from buying this product, but it definately improved my situation. You cannot buy the attachment separately, but the whole kit is rather inexpensive that it causes little grief. I like it, and I highly recommend it to those who cut hair at home.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 40
Battery Life: N/A
Noise Level: Almost noiseless