Experience the art and culture of a Turkish haircut
Turks are very hospitable and friendly people. If you are a foreigner in Turkey, to really enjoy the hospitality, you will want to make friends and connections with people.
A good way to experience the culture is to get a men's Turkish haircut. It is a form of art and a national treasure!
Discover all about getting a men's haircut in Turkey. Watch out for the fire!
A good way to experience the culture is to get a men's Turkish haircut. It is a form of art and a national treasure!
Discover all about getting a men's haircut in Turkey. Watch out for the fire!
Turkey: Must do list
Drink çay
Eat pide
Visit Ephesus
Shop in the bazaar
Get a men's haircut!
Read about...
What you will find here
- A national treasure
- Enjoy the hospitality
- The artist at work
- Compliments
- Video of one of my Turkish haircuts
- Read Turkish Style and Travel books
- Before: An old Turkish haircut! ... and after: a new Turkish haircut!
- Turkish haircuts
- Other Turkish Barber Experiences
- Turkish Barbers at work
- Travel to Turkey
- Share your Turkish haircut experience
- Know a local Turkish barber?
- More haircut websites
- Experience more of Turkey
A national treasure
A skilled profession
Turks take hair very seriously. So seriously that it is considered a national art form and foreigners are not allowed to be employed as barbers in Turkey.
The apprentices spend many hours just watching, cleaning and preparing equipment before they are even allowed to touch the hair.
The apprentices spend many hours just watching, cleaning and preparing equipment before they are even allowed to touch the hair.
Enjoy the hospitality
Time to relax before your haircut
In Turkey, a typical men's haircut requires about two hours. The first hour is spent waiting while other customers have their hair done. During this time you are offered çay (Turkish tea). You can chat, read the local newspapers or watch the Turkish television. Sometimes you get a shoulder or arm massage from one of the assistants.
Hospitality Turkish Style
Lots of Tea (Çay) and Coffee (Kahve)
Photos by
captain.orange,
one2c900d,
drinkingsnapple
Some rights reserved
Tea between continents
Tea with lemon
Turkish Coffee
curated content from Flickr
The artist at work
Earth - Water - Wind - Fire
When you are seated, the barber will wash your hair if necessary then dry it. A cape is fastened around your neck and you are asked how you would like your hair done. The first step is carefully trimming the area just around the ears and at the back. Several different combs on the electric trimmers will be used to get it just right.
This is followed by a wet cut.
If you have a beard or mustache, this is trimmed and shaped if required. Plenty of shaving cream with the long handled razors.
Any extra hair on the face is either waxed with a pine resin, pulled out with tweezers or string. A cotton thread is twisted and the resulting loop is opened and closed over the hair to be removed. Nose hair is trimmed with small scissors.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the haircut is when the barber dips a ball of cotton wool in methylated spirits. Perhaps you think this is for cleaning something? Not exactly. It depends on how you define cleaning. They then set fire to this and flick the flames into your ears to burn the hairs. Also any stray hairs on your face.
Finally the hair is washed. Then blow dried. Then gel is applied. Followed by hair spray and deodorants.
This is followed by a wet cut.
If you have a beard or mustache, this is trimmed and shaped if required. Plenty of shaving cream with the long handled razors.
Any extra hair on the face is either waxed with a pine resin, pulled out with tweezers or string. A cotton thread is twisted and the resulting loop is opened and closed over the hair to be removed. Nose hair is trimmed with small scissors.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the haircut is when the barber dips a ball of cotton wool in methylated spirits. Perhaps you think this is for cleaning something? Not exactly. It depends on how you define cleaning. They then set fire to this and flick the flames into your ears to burn the hairs. Also any stray hairs on your face.
Finally the hair is washed. Then blow dried. Then gel is applied. Followed by hair spray and deodorants.
"the barber dips a ball of cotton wool in methylated spirits... they then set fire to this and ..."
Compliments
Customary sayings
When everything is complete, you pay and the barber will say "Sıhhatler olsun" meaning "May it be healthy".
An appropriate response might be "Elinize sağlık" - "Health to your hands".
You will probably get a lot of compliments from people about your hair - mostly "Sıhhatler olsun". This should not be confused with similar sounding phrases: "Saatler olsun" which means may you have lots of clocks; or "Saçlar olsun" meaning may you have many hairs.
An appropriate response might be "Elinize sağlık" - "Health to your hands".
You will probably get a lot of compliments from people about your hair - mostly "Sıhhatler olsun". This should not be confused with similar sounding phrases: "Saatler olsun" which means may you have lots of clocks; or "Saçlar olsun" meaning may you have many hairs.
Video of one of my Turkish haircuts
Read Turkish Style and Travel books
Before: An old Turkish haircut! ... and after: a new Turkish haircut!
Turkish haircuts
Action shots
Photos by skinnydiver
Some rights reserved
Before
About to go under
Clean shaven
curated content from Flickr
Other Turkish Barber Experiences
- Salon Wanderlust | The mystic-barber of Selçuk
- The mystic-barber of Selçuk: How a tonsorial teen in Turkey helped me understand the revelations of Rumi. By Gary Mex Glazner
- Badgers Forward: A Turkish Haircut
- ...I decided that I needed the "experience" of the Turkish Barber Shop...
- Mark's Turkish Haircut
- Steps for a Turkish Haircut 1. Wash hair bending forward over the sink 2. Cut the sides and back with a No 3 hair clippers (20mins) 3. Then feather in the No 3 area from zero to No3...
- The Turkish Invasion: Getting a haircut
- A Turk in Russia missing the experience of home, compares Russian and Turkish barbers.
- Getting Burned in Turkey
- "What happened to your eyebrows?" my girlfriend, Ana, asked me the other day...
- Turkish Haircut » griffhome.com
- Turkish Haircut
So Dave and I felt the need to loose a little extra fluff around the ears. Walking into the barber we saw close to the Aya Sophia Dave says, "Give us a haircut and make us look like a Muslim Turk!" - The barbershop connection
- Turkish barbers are not just great for haircuts. They are also an excellent source of advice.
"A new arrival to Istanbul recently came to me for advice on how to find reliable repairmen in her neighborhood. As I recounted to her the trials and tribulations of numerous expats before her in their own searches conducted for worthwhile ustas, her eyes widened in horror at the thought of what lay..." - Efe - The Art of Turkish Barbering
- Efe - The Art of Turkish barbering. Barbering is an art of Turkish culture. The art of barbering, preserved from the Ottoman period to the present day, had been carried out in a master-apprentice relation within mutual respect and love and in obedience to Turkish ways and customs.
- C-17 Daddy: Turkish Haircut
- Went for a haircut today. I was badly in need of one. I walked into the barber shop on base here at Incirlik AB, Turkey and ...
- Please Do Not Burn The Hair Out Of My Ears With A Flaming Cotton Ball | Turkish Phrases Blog
- A humorous article about a barber shop experience in Turkey.
- A Turkish Haircut « A Foreign Perspective
- A Turkish haircut lover sharing about life in Adana
- Henry North London: The Turkish Barbers
- A Turkish haircut experience in London.
- Tosif Trekking International Inc.: My Turkish Haircut
- I have always been blessed with a more than liberal amount of hair. Occasionally this has been the focus of humorous comments and rarely it has caused logistical problems...
- My Flaming Turkish Haircut
- Haven't paid for a haircut since Guatemala-back in 2006. It was a bit of a strange and wild experience here in Turkey. I sometimes miss learning about the haircut cultures of countries.
- A Sense of Something Coming: My Turkish Haircut
- I was in dire need of a haircut for the last couple of weeks....
Travel to Turkey
Come and experience it for yourself
Share your Turkish haircut experience
submit
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Reply
- Chadrew Chadrew Feb 18, 2009 @ 8:22 pm
- Sounds fascinating. Two hours is surely a long time though. Hehe.
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- nickclaw nickclaw Oct 17, 2008 @ 5:45 am
- I really like this lens! Very informative. And the barbershop is a great place to practice Turkish phrases!
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- ZBT ZBT Oct 10, 2008 @ 10:12 am
- For a girl, I wear my hair ultra, ultra short - so, I can really appreciate your lens on Turkish haircuts. Really cool. I learned something new. Thanks!
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- ZBT ZBT Oct 10, 2008 @ 10:12 am
- For a girl, I wear my hair ultra, ultra short - so, I can really appreciate your lens on Turkish haircuts. Really cool. I learned something new. Thanks!
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- chubred00 chubred00 Aug 5, 2008 @ 3:08 pm
- I love this lens! What a wonderful tribute to this remarkable experience. I love getting my haircut here. One thing you fail to mention is the great relationship that one forms with his barber after repeated visits. You're treated as a family member visiting from out of town every time you return. It's a great experience.
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- Amanda_Blue Amanda_Blue Jun 22, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
- This is an amusing but also very interesting lens, which I find particularly fascinating as my father was a Greek born in the early 1900's in Istanbul (then called Constantinople.) Thank you for an eye-opening look at the Turkish people. 5*
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- thoughtful thoughtful Feb 21, 2008 @ 6:26 am
- This is a very unique and interesting lens. Now that I am living in the UK Turkey holiday destination that I hear good things about. Thanks for the info.
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- thomasz thomasz Feb 13, 2008 @ 10:38 pm
- Interesting lens. Nice info.
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- Feb 11, 2008 @ 1:17 am
- you really did a great job by sharing about culture ,it will be very helpful for those who are planning to visit that place, great work!great lens i feel happy if you would see my lens:
RomanticCheapDateIdeas
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Know a local Turkish barber?
Let everyone know where you can get a Turkish haircut
If you have a local Turkish barber, please provide their location. When there are a few entries, I will add a map. I am particularly interested in finding barbers outside of Turkey. My own barber however, will remain secret - I don't want everyone crowding into his little shop and making the queue for haircuts longer than it is.
submit
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- RYAN "AYHANNAH MONTANA" GUVENAL RYAN "AYHANNAH MONTANA" GUVENAL Sep 21, 2009 @ 11:31 am
- I CAN CUT MY HAIR! MY SPECIALITY IS THE TURKISH ROOSTER DELIGHT
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- Edwin Edwin Jul 28, 2009 @ 9:03 pm
- What a trip..that I ran into this site. I can't imagin a more useful site for me. Thurkish haircuts are cool.
Thanks,
http://www.taylorgunsmithing.net
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Reply
- sha2 sha2 Jun 21, 2009 @ 11:26 am
- I think the man will love it but not for the ladies
More haircut websites
Stories about haircuts from around the world
- The Haircut Story Site
- User submitted stories about haircuts
- The Haircut Site
- Everything on guy's haircuts! Updated every Saturday
- 1hss.com
- Haircutting and head shaving stories
- HaircuttingStories.com
- Older version of the 1hss.com website with earlier haircutting and head shaving stories
- Street Use: Outdoor Barbers in India
- Streetside barbers are quite common in India, at least in the smaller towns.
- MopShots | Find the Perfect Hair Style and Best Hair Salons in Your City
- A photo guide to local hair stylists. Mainly women's styles at the moment.
Experience more of Turkey
Some more of my lenses about living and business in Turkey
Between haircuts I am busy living and doing business in Turkey. Check out my other lenses on life and work in Turkey.-
Now You're Talking Turkey
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A Lens of Business Development Experiences in Turkey. Step 1. Get yourself to Turkey. Step 2. Get a haircut and a real job. Step 3. Enjoy! The Turkish people are generally friendly and helpful and Turks love to shop. Turkey's location - bridging Euro...
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Turkey is a land of huge contrasts. Rich and poor, young and old, ancient and modern, East and West. Living here is a privilege and an awesome cultural experience! Century old Greek style villas, brand new multi-million dollar apartment complexes, p...
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