My dad is cheap. Like, not just “never-use-the-AC” cheap, but also “always looking for ways to save money, especially on us kids” cheap. My older sister’s backpack became my backpack, which became my little sister’s backpack (which would’ve worked better if only we shared the same initials).
Growing up, we got most of our haircuts at home. Were they great haircuts? No. I distinctly remember my dad putting an actual bowl on my head, and that’s not to mention what he did to my little sister’s fourth-grade bangs. Was it scary? You bet. I was terrified of losing an ear to the large scissors that normally belonged in our kitchen.
But the worst part of the haircuts was the cleanup. No matter what combination of garbage bags we wore and newspapers we laid down, or how much we swept up, we’d still be finding stray hairs on the floor for days. We even tried doing haircuts outside, but that didn’t work well in New Jersey winters. So we were doomed to bad haircuts and daily reminders of them as leftover trimmings clung to our socks. I swore that as an adult I would never do at-home haircuts.
And then the pandemic happened. As I stood on the fire escape of my Brooklyn apartment with scissors in hand, wearing the familiar garbage-bag smock, and about to give myself my first at-home haircut in over a decade, I thought, “There’s got to be a better way.”
Enter the Remington HKVAC2000A Vacuum Haircut Kit.
Staff pick
This former pick still shines at cleaning up at-home haircuts, thanks to a built-in suction system that collects hair trimmings, so they don’t end up in your sink.
At first glance, the Remington HKVAC2000A looks like a regular barber buzzer. However, it offers something novel, something that no other hair clipper seems to have: a built-in fan that suctions the hair trimmings into a tidy onboard bin for easy disposal.
Sure, it may seem like a late-night infomercial product reminiscent of that gag from Wayne’s World, yet the Remington clipper was once a pick in our guide to the best hair clippers. It might appear gimmicky, but if vacuum trimming is good enough for two-time Sexiest Man Alive winner George Clooney, it’s good enough for me.
The Remington doesn’t promise a better haircut, but neither do our current picks. The tennis racquet doesn’t make the player. The instrument doesn’t make the artist. And no hair clipper automatically makes you a barber.
The Remington clipper’s promise is much simpler: less mess. When I trim my beard, this thing gets the job done in half the time it takes my Norelco. That’s because I’m not spending an extra 10 minutes wiping whiskers from my bathroom sink. If I use the Remington to trim body hair, my wife isn’t asking me to clean out the bathtub drain. And when I give myself a haircut with it, the trimmings end up neatly and easily deposited in the trash.
I bought my Remington clipper back in 2020 for $28, and when measured against the cost of a professional haircut, this clipper has paid for itself 40 times over. At present, I’m hard-pressed to find a decent haircut in New York city under $30, and I just can’t bring myself to pay upwards of $80 for a coif that will never again look as good as the day I got it (I am my father’s son, after all).
My compromise is this: I get a nice cut from the barber down the street for special occasions (my cousin’s wedding, the company holiday party, new driver’s license day at the DMV, and so forth). But in between those professional cuts, I do the maintenance trims myself. This usually works out to about three to four trips to the barber a year, down from the more-typical monthly trip most folks make (depending on hair type and length, of course).
My quick math says this clipper has saved me over $1,000 since I got it. (Cost of a haircut, $35, times eight fewer haircuts a year, times four years, minus the cost of the clipper itself equals $1,092).
The Remington excels at sucking up hair, and it’s not bad at what every other clipper does. It comes with all of the same attachments as our other picks for different lengths and cuts, in addition to scissors, clips, combs, and a handy storage case. It works with all kinds of hair—long hair, buzz cuts, beard hair, body hair, even dog hair. The included guides make it easy enough for me to retrace the same cut I ask the barber for—close on the sides, tight in the back, leave the length on top. After a quick trim, I feel a little more polished, like wearing a well-ironed shirt or nearly new sneakers. Compared with the other vacuum trimmers out there—which are surprisingly expensive or marketed specifically toward babies or pets—the Remington is simple, affordable, and durable (enough) to last me four years, and that includes over a year of puppy haircuts as well. It also comes with a two-year warranty.
For as much as I love it, the Remington is not for everyone. I don’t disagree with our writers or testers who “consistently found it to be the most flimsy model overall, the hardest to hold, and very loud.” It is, indeed, loud. Holding it up to the side of your head is like listening to the business end of a dustbuster. The onboard bin makes it much bulkier than the aptly named Peanut beard trimmer. And while I wish I could tell you that it catches every single hair that’s trimmed, the tiny suction fan system still leaves a few errant cuttings in your sink. When it comes to how to cut your own hair, there are few other mistakes you can outgrow in a couple of weeks.
When I want a hot towel and a clean shave, I go to the barber. But when I just need a trim, I go get the Remington. I’ve been giving myself maintenance trims since 2020. I’ve gotten a little better over the years, and while I’m no great stylist, one thing I don’t have to worry about is cleaning up. And someday, when I have kids, neither will they.
And as for my never-goes-to-the-barber dad, last Father’s Day I bought him the same Remington. He absolutely loves it.
This article was edited by Alexander Aciman and Hannah Rimm.
