06 January 2026 · 5 minute read · by Ravi Thiagarajan, co-founder
Every January we run the same exercise. We pull six months of chair notes from every PeakLyft location, group them by request keyword, and pin the top five on the staff-room wall. It is genuinely useful: it tells our newer barbers what they should be very, very good at this quarter, and it tells our customers what their friends are quietly walking out with.
Here is the list for January through March 2026, in order of how often our floor heard it.
1. The mid-fade Korean disconnect
By a comfortable margin the most-requested haircut on our floor right now. Mid-fade on the sides, hard disconnect at the temple, longer fringe on top, no taper across the top — the look you have seen on every K-drama lead for the last eighteen months. About 22 percent of all precision chairs in January asked for this exact thing.
The thing nobody tells you about it: it is far more demanding to maintain than it looks. The disconnect line drifts within two and a half weeks. If you want the look, expect a chair every three weeks, not every five.
2. The textured French crop
The second wave of the crop is here, and it is messier. Lower fringe, more visible texture on top, hand-cut not clipper-cut. Asked for almost exclusively by clients aged twenty-eight to thirty-six. Our barbers love this chair because every cut is bespoke — the texture has to follow your individual hair pattern, not a guide.
Easiest of the five to maintain. A six-week chair is fine, sometimes seven.
3. The corporate side part, modernised
A surprise on the list. The clean, deep side part is back, but with a softer hand — less mid-2010s undercut, more 1960s editorial. Always paired with a low taper, never a full fade. Heaviest demand from clients who started new jobs in January (we asked).
Best chair time to maintain: every three to four weeks, mid-week if possible.
4. The full, defined beard with a clean cheek line
Beard requests have been ticking up steadily for six quarters now. The shape that has won this quarter is the longer, fuller beard with an unapologetically sharp cheek line — the line itself is the statement, not the length. Often paired with the side part above.
The chair on which this lives is our beard shaping chair, and the question we get asked most is about how to keep the cheek line clean between visits. Honest answer: you can't, not properly. A clean cheek line is a barber's line. Brush it daily, balm it, leave it.
5. The all-one-length short cut
Quietly, in fifth place, the most contrarian look of the quarter: all-one-length, scissor-cut, around two centimetres throughout, no fading, no disconnect, no texture. Worn by clients who are bored of the more architectural looks and want their hair to look like hair. Disproportionately requested at our Cyberjaya and Bandar Utama chairs — the engineering crowd.
By far the easiest to maintain. Six to eight weeks between chairs.
What's leaving the floor
For completeness: the looks our floor heard noticeably less often this quarter were the high skin fade with a long top, the slick-back pompadour, and any kind of clipper-cut beard.
None of this is prescriptive. The point of the wall in our staff room is not to tell anyone what to wear — it is just so the floor knows what is in the air. If you walk in tomorrow asking for something none of the above, our barbers will be visibly relieved.