Narrator: This pair of professional hair scissors
costs almost $2,200.
When it's customized further, it can reach nearly $3,000.
Compare that to a standard pair
of hair shears that costs under $10.
The main reason for this stark difference
is a specialized design that ensures
the blades don't wear down and can last decades.
Artisans spend hours shaping, hammering,
and adjusting two blades by hand
to create shears that rarely need to be sharpened.
So how do they create a pair of scissors that stay so sharp
for so long, and what makes them so expensive?
Hiromi Iida has been a professional hairdresser
for 10 years.
During this time, she's invested thousands of dollars
in high-end hair scissors. But those made
by Naruto Scissors in Japan's Hyogo prefecture stand out.
Narrator: When selecting scissors,
professional stylists look for three qualities:
sharpness, longevity, and ergonomic fit.
The scissors need precision to enable various techniques,
like feathering or blunt cuts, while making the experience
comfortable for the stylist.
And they shouldn't require frequent maintenance.
High-end hair scissor producers like Naruto have
solved all three problems by ensuring the blades
have only one point of contact:
the exact location where the user wants to make a cut.
When using a standard pair of scissors,
the hinge connecting the two flat blades
can wear down over time,
throwing off the alignment.
That means the user sometimes has to grind the blades
against each other to achieve a clean cut.
The consistent metal-to-metal contact
wears the blade edge down over time.
A damaged edge has to be sharpened more often,
thinning the blade further
and eventually making the scissors unusable.
To avoid this kind of damage,
high-end hair scissor producers ensure that
the blades only have a touch where they need to make a cut.
One way they accomplish this precision is
by warping the blades.
Constructing blades with the correct warp
and twist requires careful shaping.
Artisans shape the outer blade at a fixed angle
of 45 degrees from the base to the tip.
The angle is the same throughout the blade,
allowing for consistent cuts
without deviation or snagging.
Narrator: As with the entire process of making these scissors,
artisans judge when it's ready by eye.
After the first round of shaping,
the blades are buffed and polished.
Then they're ready to be warped.
Adjusting the warp requires mathematical precision
and undivided attention.
The warp is achieved
by delicate hammer strikes to the inside of the blade.
The high-quality metal Naruto uses,
a martensitic special alloy, is strong but elastic,
allowing artisans to warp the blades as needed.
The curve of each blade is about 0.03 millimeters,
small enough to cut a single hair.
But artisans don't use any measuring instruments.
Instead, they rely solely on experience.
Next, the blade is sharpened in increments.
In the first round, artisans sharpen the edge to 70%
and repeat it two or three times
until the blade reaches its optimal sharpness.
But this may alter the warp of the blade,
so they must continuously address any defects
with careful hammer strokes
between rounds of sharpening.
Narrator: Shintaro has been working at Naruto for 19 years,
18 of which he has spent in the adjusting department,
working on the warping of the blades.
Even with all this experience,
Shintaro doesn't view himself as an expert.
But his skill in warping the blades directly contributes
to the high price of the scissors he produces.
In fact, the cost of labor accounts
for up to 40% of Naruto's expenses.
This is where the mechanism connecting the blades is made.
It's a crucial part of the scissors design
that also ensures a single contact point while cutting.
In Naruto's case,
the mechanism is called the three-dimensional circular ride.
Narrator: When the ride is installed,
artisans prepare to test the scissors.
Narrator: All this meticulous attention
pays off not only in the cutting performance
of the scissors,
but also in their longevity.
Because Naruto's design places less force on the blades,
the scissors don't need to be sharpened as often
and last longer compared to ordinary scissors.
Narrator: Naruto says well-designed scissors last so long
that some clients still bring in scissors for maintenance
that are decades old.
Narrator: But for Hiromi,
sharpness and longevity aren't the only reasons
professional hair shears are worth the price.
Narrator: Stylists request scissor types and shapes
tailored to their specific needs,
and ergonomics are paramount.
Some producers even adjust the handles
to the exact measurements
of their clients' hands and their style of cutting.
While Naruto's most expensive base model
costs around $2,000,
Hiromi requested an arabesque pattern,
which takes longer to design.
That brought the price
of her scissors to almost $3,000.
But there's no shortage of clients willing to pay the price.
Naruto sells about 6,000 of its scissors a year,
and sales are increasing.
In fact, the global market
for hair scissors is set to increase
at a compound annual growth rate
of 5.5% between now and 2030.
But the biggest threat
to the professional hair shears industry is knockoffs.
Narrator: But these fakes don't perform nearly as well
as the originals.
And producers of professional hair scissors
know their buyers appreciate the difference.