Our story
One chair
and a borrowed mirror.
Duthie's opened on Millburn Wynd in March 2011 with a secondhand chair, a mirror out of a skip behind the Ship Inn, and no customers at all.
How it started
Six customers,
all somebody's mother.
Sandy served his time in Aberdeen doing new-build estates — the kind of work where you cut the same head forty times and never learn a name.
He came back down the coast in 2011 because his own mother said there was a unit going on Millburn Wynd and she had already told six people he was opening. Three of them turned up in the first week.
There has never been an advert. The second chair came in 2019 because the wait on a Saturday had got embarrassing, and the third in 2023 for the same reason. If a fourth ever goes in it will be for the same reason again.
“If you have to explain it twice, I have not listened properly the first time.” Sandy Duthie
Three chairs
Who you get.
Sandy Duthie
Since 2011 · the owner
Served his time in Aberdeen and opened here with one chair. Scissor work and hot towel shaves are his. Ask him for something that will not suit you and he will say so.
Rhona Beattie
Since 2019 · fades & kids
Took the second chair in 2019. Does most of the fades and nearly all the first haircuts, because she has more patience than the other two put together.
Ewan Craib
Since 2023 · came through the apprenticeship
Started sweeping up at seventeen and qualified last year. Quickest clipper cut in the shop and the only one who will talk to you about the football.
The boring bit
Papers, and what they mean.
Training
SVQ Level 3 Barbering
All three of us. It is the qualification that covers cutting, shaving with an open razor, and the bits about skin and scalp that nobody thinks about until something is wrong.
Trade body
British Barbers' Association
Membership means audited standards and somewhere to go if you have a complaint that we have not sorted ourselves. We would rather you came to us first.
Hygiene
Environmental Health registered
Aberdeenshire Council registered premises. Blades are single use, everything else goes through the steriliser between heads, and the certificate is on the wall by the door.
Insurance
Public liability cover
£2m, because a straight razor and a shop full of folk is exactly the situation insurance exists for. Certificate available if anyone ever asks, which nobody ever has.
Allergies
Patch tests, if you need one
Ask before you book if you react to anything. We will tell you what is in the balms and oils, and there is an unscented option for all of them.
Access
One shallow step
The shop is on a single level once you are through the door. Ring ahead if the step is a problem and somebody will come out to the pavement.
Behind the site
The shop changes this,
not a developer.
Prices, offers, opening hours over Christmas, the cuts on the wall — all of it is editable from a dashboard. Somebody in the shop signs in, types the new price, hits publish, and it is live. No invoice, no waiting a week.
The panel on the right is a picture of that editor, not a working one. On a live build it is the real thing.
Offer title
Was / now
Runs
Body
Edited by the shop · 3 days ago · no developer involved