Razor Blade Cutters, Beauty Salons Have Taken Over

LOTS OF things have happened to our barbers; none of them good.

Stabroek News spoke to a few barbers to find out why the famous “round the corner barbers” have been steadily disappearing.

ALL THE barbers we spoke with complained that the tools used in their trade are very difficult to acquire. If by chance they see a tool, to purchase it is usually beyond the reach of their pockets. In any case, the tools available in this country are not durable, they claim.

One barber declared: “If you can show me a good razor, I’ll buy it for $300.”

Another said sadly: “When these tools you see here are finished, I have to close down my business.”

They claim the rent they have to pay for their shops are too high. One said that in many cases barbers are evicted to allow the shops to be rented to more profitable tenants.

When barbers grow too old for the trade, the younger generation seems reluctant to take over. “They look at the job as kind of low grade, but that is not so at all.

“Most young men look for prestige and not finance,” a barber explained.

He wondered if prestige could upkeep a family and added that when a barber dies there is usually no one willing or able to take his place.

The barbers said that youths and men these days seem to appreciate the ‘lady look’ kind of hair styles not done by most traditional barbers.

One said: “I have been cutting hair for more than 30 years and a get irritated when men come for a ‘punk’ cut.” He added: “I don’t even understand what they mean by that sometimes.”

Some of the fashionable hairstyles for men offered by the women’s hair dressing salons which provide strong competition for the barbers are the Jerry curl, the sport waves, the S curls, the shag cut, the flat top, punk and cold waving.

A popular hair dressing salon said that over the years the amount of men patronising them has A ‘RAZOR blade’ barber at work.

increased over 75 percent.

They say they have men ranging from the age of 15 to around 55 who come to their salons.

“Men these days are very fashionable and they come to hair dressing salons for ‘classy’ hair styles,” one salon owner boasted.

Barbers also suffer competition from what is termed, “the road side or razor blade barbers.” These are people who set up a chair at the road corner and cut hair for a fee. Legal barbers say the authorities should do something about these people.

They also pointed out that these “razor blade” barbers are illegal. They all said that licensed barbers have to submit to annual medical examinations and be certified fit to practise their trade. Their premises too have to pass rigid inspection by the health authorities, and none of these requirements apply to the “road-side” barbers.