Bigfork duo ready to market ergonomic shears

As any barber or hair stylist knows, cutting hair for hour after hour with arms raised can take its toll on a person’s shoulders, elbows and wrists.

What if there were a way to reconfigure cutting shears so a hair-cutter’s arm could be lowered and still get the job done?

That’s the question longtime Bigfork barber Dennis Soucie and his stepson Gary White, a hair stylist, asked themselves several years ago. Together they developed ergonomic cutting shears equipped with a thumb ring that readily slides back and forth to allow the cutter to position the shears to their preferred position.

“It makes a big difference when you can drop the shears from above your head to a position where your hand has the potential for the most comfortable position,” White said recently as he cut a regular customer’s hair — using the ergonomically designed shears — at Denny’s Barber and Beauty Shop in Bigfork recently.

He credits Soucie for being the “mastermind” behind their new product.

Under the business name Shear Innovators, they applied with the U.S. Patent Office for a patent on the specialized shears in June 2012, and just recently were awarded the patent.

Soucie, a barber for 48 years, had talked to people in the barbering and hair styling business at various trade shows and gleaned from those conversations that cutting shears — though improved through the years — still weren’t quite ergonomically right.

There are a number of cutting shears that incorporate longitudinally and/or rotationally adjustable thumb and finger rings that have been patented, but none of those inventions include the slider that Soucie and White developed. Their prototype features a thumb ring that slides back and forth in the longitudinal direction and is readily pivotable for a comfortable thumb angle during use of the scissors.

In addition, the thumb ring is automatically restrained in its last position when the thumb is temporarily removed from the ring, according to their patent application.

Soucie and White are working with Shark Fin Professional Shears of Centerville, Iowa, to begin marketing the ergonomic shears throughout the industry. They anticipate the shears being ready for sale by the end of October.

“Most salons in Kalispell are already using it,” Soucie said, adding that he is getting calls from salons in other states about the ergonomic shears. As a test market, he supplied local salons with custom-made prototypes of the ergonomic shears.

“In a couple-year period we’ve gotten a lot of shears into a lot of people’s hands,” Soucie said.

Added White: “We’re ready to start pushing outside the area.”

The suggested retail price of the innovative shears is $400. If shears are professionally sharpened, they can last as long as 25 to 30 years, Soucie said.

Standard cutting shears can range from about $280 to $800.

Soucie is a familiar name in the hair business in the Flathead Valley. His son Trevor and Trevor’s former wife, Kim, started the Soucie & Soucie Salon that still operates in Kalispell.

In fact, all three of Dennis’ sons learned how to cut hair. White works full time at Denny’s, and son Corey Soucie cut hair in Missoula for a while before getting out of the business. Wives, daughters-in-law and even ex-daughters-in-law have been involved in the business of cutting hair. White’s wife, Shannon, is a nail technician at Denny’s.

Dennis’ savvy for inventing things goes back to childhood, when he would tinker around and take things apart to see how they worked. If there was a need he saw, he thought to himself: “I can make that.”

Now 72, Soucie worked for a sawmill for a while after he got out of the Marine Corps in 1965, but soon headed to barber school. He worked at the now defunct City Center Barber Shop in Missoula before moving to Bigfork in 1979. He started barbering at a shop on Streeter’s Corner outside of Bigfork and moved to his current location three months later.

In addition to cutting hair — he works only on Saturdays these days — Soucie has spent about 25 years selling shears and picking them up at salons for sharpening at Custom Sharpening by Hand, a longtime Yellow Bay business operated by Scott Roskam.

White was working for Custom Sharpening when his dad “coaxed me into” becoming a hair stylist. In fact, White’s experience in working with high-end stainless steel provided some insight as they developed their prototype shears.

Denny’s Barber and Beauty Shop has grown over the years to a popular salon that now employs nine people, a blend of barbers, stylists and nail technicians.

For more information about the ergonomic shears, call Soucie at 406-253-4085 or email dennythebarber@hotmail.com.

Flathead Journal editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com