First.
Trimmer at the edge of the hair says the theme. Love the intensity of his expression. Wish you had a bit more DOF.
Second evokes The Thinker, pulls towards his pose despite being soft there. Ear is pretty red and intensified by the backlighting. If you want this about hair, consider a crop upper third of the hand. The pose and lengthy strong diagonal of the arm no longer pulls the eye to the face and instead the eye goes more to the brighter textures of the hair on the right.
Good luck.
Scott
The prop makes it unmistakable as to what the subject is. The second can be simply a contemplative portrait.
"What's the point?" and "What are you trying to convey to your viewer?" It can be very easy for you to know what the point/subject is, but often times we have to help our viewer see our message more than we might otherwise think (since we already know what it is).
The lighting seems to divide my attention (chin/upper lip/nose/lower cheek) a bit, but I'm with Scott @ #1.
I like the first shot better, but find it a bit static due the the straight up/down orientation. Also the lighting isn't "spotlighting" the action. I offer this quick edit for comparison on this points:
I rotated the image 20° to the right, brightened the area around the clippers and darkened the top to put the action area in the spot light as best I could. I sharpened the focal point and blurred the edges for the same reason — to pull and hold the viewer where the action is.
