Updated September 23, 2024 at 10:49 AM ET
Teenage boys have a new hair style obsession.
You’ve probably seen a variation of the “alpaca” cut, as some are calling it, on the likes of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, internet personality Jake Paul and pop megastar Bad Bunny.
The look can vary, of course, but it has three signature traits: a close shave on sides and back of the head, a lot of curly fluff on top – and it looks like the tuft of hair between an alpaca's ears.
Herson Bautista, owner of Heritage Barber and Company in Kensington, Md., told Morning Edition that he gives this haircut six to seven times a week and that it’s usually young men requesting it.
Bautista said the haircut is technically called a “textured fringe.”
“It's a lot of volume on top. That means, like the texture of the hair rises,” Bautista said, adding that he would describe it like “an old mop” that sits on top of the client’s head.
Even kids with straight hair come to Bautista’s shop to get the haircut. Since they can’t naturally achieve the curls, Bautista said customers will make their way to a different salon to get a perm to achieve the haircut’s signature “poof-type of look.”
Bautista said he doesn’t know who made the cut popular, but he’s been getting requests for it in his barber shop for the past couple of years.
And there may be a more practical explanation for the haircut’s popularity that has more to do with the insecurity teenagers often feel.
Julian Guardado, owner of MagicCuts Barbershop in Silver Spring, Md., said he remembers that while growing up, some of his peers began letting their hair grow out to change the appearance of their heads.
“Some kids didn't like the size of their forehead or they didn't like the way that their hair would fall and lay naturally. So I feel like it has a lot to do with that, too,” Guardado said, adding that today’s youth may be adopting the trendy cut “because it’ll make their head shape look better.”
Copyright 2024 NPR
