Tomás Ferreira opened Charcoal Unit in October 2014 in a narrow ground-floor space on Rua de Cedofeita, Porto. He had spent the previous four years working at a barbershop in Braga called Navalha Velha, where he learned wet shaving from a barber named Augusto who had been doing it since the 1970s. Tomás came back to Porto with a specific idea: a shop that felt like a workshop rather than a salon. Dark walls, good light over the chair, no television, no music loud enough to stop a conversation.
The first year was slow. Tomás was the only barber, working Tuesday through Saturday, and most of his early clients came through word of mouth from a handful of regulars who had followed him from Braga. In 2016 he brought in Rui Magalhaes, a barber he had trained alongside at a short course in Lisbon run by the Escola de Barbeiros de Lisboa. Rui handles the second chair and has a particular skill with textured and curly hair that Tomás is the first to admit he doesn't match. Together they settled into a rhythm that still holds today.
A taper fade on straight hair and a taper fade on curly hair are two different operations. The result looks similar in a photo, but the process, the tools, and the decisions the barber makes along the way are not the same. Rui Magalhaes, who handles the second chair at Charcoal Unit and has been working with textured hair since 2016, explains what actually happens.
Read more →Most people who book a hot towel shave for the first time don't know what to expect. Some are nervous about the straight razor. Some have had a bad experience with a rushed shave somewhere else. This is a plain account of what we do and why, so you can decide whether it's for you.
Read more →The grooming shelf at any barbershop can be confusing. Pomade, fiber, clay, paste, wax. The labels don't always explain what the product does or who it's for. This is a plain guide to the four main types we stock and recommend at Charcoal Unit, based on what we see working on real hair every day.
Read more →"Tomás Ferreira grew up in Matosinhos and trained as a barber at the Centro de Formação Profissional do Porto in 2009. He spent four years at Navalha Velha in Braga under barber Augusto Pires, where he learned traditional wet shaving and straight-razor technique. In 2014 he returned to Porto and opened Charcoal Unit on Rua de Cedofeita. His two most-requested services are the hot towel shave and the cut-and-beard combination he developed after a week-long course in London in 2017. Outside the shop, he restores old safety razors he finds at flea markets in Matosinhos and Vila do Conde."