Barbers and the dipping culture

Need that sharp cut? What if I told you this little tray was spreading disease, what would you say? And yes, ladies, this post concerns you, even if you don’t cut your hair, you have a partner, a child or family member who has a hair cut every once in a while. 

Well, barbers everywhere are getting addicted to using powder for fades or carving but they need a certain level of hygiene or re-education to save people from diseases spread by micro blading cuts. 

If you walk in to get your hair cut, most often you’re gonna get fades. Carving or fades is the crowning beauty of a haircut, those nice edges that give your look that razor sharp appearance. Powders are the highlights for most fades, often helping barbers see the accuracy of the cut, whilst leaving an appealing hairline that will most usually disappear after a hot towel wipe, a disinfectant face spray or a shower back home after seeing the barber. It’s an after cut illusion except for those who actually let it stay on on purpose. 

So this article is not actually about the carving, but the carving process. Different barbers use different methods to apply powder to help do the fades, some use a powder brush, or dip a brush into powder, or rub some powder on their palms, or dip the clipper into a tray of powder. I won’t stress on all of them, but I will be particular about those dipping anything into old powder. 

Some times when a barber dips a brush, a puffer or a clippers into a tray of powder, it’s usually powder that was poured out earlier in the day or from previous customers. You see, you might not notice people bleed from hair cuts, but trust me, there is bleeding, some bleed from beard cuts, bumps cuts or just cuts from areas with softer skin like the back of the neck, under the jaw area and forehead. These micro-bleeding stain the clippers with blood that is dipped into the powder of one person and passed on to other people if the tray of powder isn’t changed every time. This is also same for brushes and puffers dipped into a tray of powder that’s not changed after every customer. 

Some barbers do put some powder in their palm as a better alternative, which could be more hygienic when compared to the powder dipped version, but hey, what’s the barbers status? I don’t know if he/she has Hepatitis or HIV or some rare blood disease? If you can have sex with random partners every weekend, sometimes even unprotected, and go for a shave every Friday from random barbers without your own clippers, you have no business with hygiene or protecting yourself, so this may be something to brush off for you, but I’m here to tell you, you need to take better care. 

This dipping culture can only be safe if we ask the barbers to change the powder in the tray every time to sit down for a cut. I’ve taught all the barbers I use about this, and re-enforced it with others who come for their own cuts as well. If you’re reading this male or female, it’s important to ask for fresh powder, that old one may be infected. 

In conclusion, I’d say use your own clippers if you must, but the population of people with their own clippers is declining sharply, the cost of clippercide, a popular clipper disinfectant has skyrocketed so barbers aren’t using much of it anymore, barbers hate burning their clippers with alcohol, so overall the health challenges to having a simple haircut is increasing. So try to stay safe out there, ordinary getting a haircut now could be a life sentence. 

Written by Mundez. 

edmundez@me.com