exclusive shears

Run out of Watsonia North, on the northern edge of Melbourne, Exclusive Shears is a small Australian operation that sells straight to stylists through its own store. Prices are quoted in Australian dollars, which is worth keeping in mind if you’re ordering from abroad — duties can creep in.

Steel and build

There’s more variety under the hood here than you’d expect from a brand this size. Models run on Japanese VG-1, 440C, ATS-314, a Damascus option, and a Japanese molybdenum powder steel on certain pieces. That’s a sensible spread: 440C for the everyday workhorses, ATS-314 and the powder steel for the sharper, longer-holding edges. The swivel models are the talking point — those are made to order in Melbourne by a fabricator who trained as a sharpener in Japan, which is a genuinely uncommon thing to find on a regional brand’s bench.

The range

The catalogue keeps to three buckets: cutting, thinning, and a proper left-handed line rather than reversed right-handers. The technique list reads like a working stylist wrote it — blunt, slide and point cutting, volume and texture control, plus a cut-and-thin model pulling roughly 25 to 30 percent. It sits in the mid band, somewhere in the 200-to-400 range depending on model and steel.

Who it suits

If you cut in Australia and want a maker you can actually reach, this is a reasonable shortlist entry, and the minimum three-year warranty (the brand’s own figure) takes some of the gamble out of trying a smaller name. The trade-off is reach: distribution is thin outside the home market, so service and returns are simplest for local buyers. For everyone else, factor in shipping and the exchange rate before you decide.