A younger man's perspective

As my take on David Beckham's hair was so deeply dissed by all our Facebook fans, I am throwing a hissy fit and letting a younger, better looking model take over for one blog only while I lick my wounds and try and regain some self confidence.

Ben Deacon is a 19 year-old student, more into fast cars and sport than hair, but he manfully stepped up to the task of writing about hairdressing during his two days of work experience at HJ - so I thought I'd give him free reign to give his take on a couple of men's looks recently sported on the red carpet.

BEN DEACON REPORTS

My girlfriend has reliably informed me on numerous occasions that Channing Tatum is hot. Therefore, combining my new found interest in hair and my girlfriend's celebrity 'knowledge', I thought I'd take a look at the new style he sported at the 2010 Teen Choice awards.

Firstly, I must confess my ignorance: I wasn't aware of what Mr Tatum's (of Step Up and Coach Carter fame) previous look was. So, after a quick Google, I found I was quite impressed with the variety of simple spikes and close crop styles - they seemed stylish enough to my untrained eye.

So having been impressed with his previous looks, and beginning to begrudgingly understand why girls like my Lucy may feel their pulses quicken in his presence, I took a look at the most recent photos of the Hollywood heartthrob.

Oh dear. Gone are the rebellious spikes and carefree buzz cuts, replaced with what strikes me as an attempt to copy Di Caprio's latest debonair, 1950s style. Granted, I'm not an expert and no, I'm not a girl in her late teens, but even from my clumsy view of the fashionable world I can tell it has aged him. The slicked back and sideways style may look like it took a great deal of skill and time to construct (and no doubt it did), but to me it just makes him look a little sinister.

Now I'm not pretending for one moment that I could pull it off, so fair play to him on the trial and error front, but personally I don't think it suits him. Can someone convince me otherwise?

To prove I'm not just bitter, or taking out hair-related frustrations on blokes profoundly more successful than myself, I thought I'd share with you a style I do like. However, in doing so I have to make a second confession: I know who Mark Salling is, I have watched Glee. Moving on...

I can see why people may call my taste un-ambitious, because Salling hardly has much hair to rate or review. But I like it. I like the way his short and even cut matches the length of his goatee and how his sideburns fade into 9o'clock shadow. The cut, as simple as it is, complements his features in a far more sophisticated way than Tatum's does and despite the lack of detail on top, the way his beard fades then reappears gives him a respectable and dare I say 'sexy' look. But that's just me.

So there you have it: the simple opinions of bloke with no hair styling experience. Care to educate me?