The hairdressing trade's history — from barber-surgeon to modern salon

When you stand in the salon with scissors in hand you're part of one of the oldest crafts that exists. People have cut dressed and shaved each other for millennia but the trade itself — with training tools and rules — emerged in the Middle Ages and has since gone through several major transformations. Knowing the history helps you understand why the trade looks as it does today.

§The barber was also a surgeon

In the Middle Ages of Europe, the barber was not only the one who cut hair and shaved the beard. The barber-surgeon also performed bloodletting, pulled teeth, set bones and lanced boils. The trade had early roots in the monasteries where monks needed to be shaved, and when the Church in 1215 banned the clergy from performing bloody procedures, barbers took over much of the practical 'surgery'. This is why the classical red and white barber pole still alludes to blood and bandages.

§Guild time – the trade becomes organized

Like most crafts barber and hairdressing were organised in guilds. As early as the Middle Ages barber guilds were formed in France and England among others that set requirements for training quality and ethics. You did not become a barber overnight: you apprenticed with a master for several years learning by watching and helping and worked your way up gradually. Over time the guilds separated barbers from actual surgeons and the barber trade moved towards what we today understand as hairdressing cutting and beard care.

§How the legal framework protects employees and employers

Before electricity all tools were manually operated. Hair was cut with hand-forged scissors, shaved with a straight razor (barber knife) that had to be stropped sharp on a leather strop, and styled with combs of horn, bone, or tortoiseshell. Hair was curled with irons heated in fire – with great risk of singed hair. Hair coloring was done with natural products like henna, plant dyes, and wool from iron-bearing solutions. Hygiene was far from today's; water was not always clean, and tools were rarely disinfected as today.

• 01Hand axes and barber knives that were ground and stropped by hand.
• 02Curling irons heated directly in fire or over a gas flame.
• 03Natural dyes: henna, plant colors and metal-containing solutions.
• 04Combs made from horn, bone and tortoiseshell instead of plastic and metal.

§The major technological leaps

Around the end of the 1800s, French hairdresser Marcel Grateau developed a method of laying soft waves with heated tongs – Marcel waves – but the heat was hard on the hair. The real breakthrough came when Karl Nessler (Charles Nestle) demonstrated in 1906 in London a machine for permanent waves that combined chemistry and heat to give lasting curls. Early permanent machines were heavy, warm devices that kept customers tied to them. It wasn't until the 1940s that the 'cold' permanent with thioglycolic acid came along, which required neither machine nor strong heat – and it resembles in principle the permanent we do today.

§Electrification changes the salon.

Electricity changed the working day forever. The first electric hair dryers appeared around the turn of the century and gradually became handheld in the 1920s, though heavy and noisy. In 1919, Leo J. Wahl invented the electric clipping machine, and by the 1950s it was a permanent fixture in every barber shop. At the same time, industrial chemistry developed modern oxidative hair colors, which gave the hairdresser the opportunity to lighten, tone and cover gray hair in a completely new way – and thus also a completely new responsibility for safety, allergy testing and correct use.

§The hairdressing trade today

Today hairdressing is an independent recognized profession with formal education that combines classical techniques with chemistry colour theory hygiene and customer service. The profession is no longer tied to surgery but to aesthetics care and advice. On the other hand strong demands have come on working environment: hand eczema and allergy from water colours and bleaching agents is a known occupational hazard and use of gloves ventilation and safety datasheets is now as natural a part of the profession as scissors. The historical line from the barber guild's training to today's education is still clear: you learn the profession from someone who already knows it.

“The red stripe on the barber pole reminds us that hairdressing once went hand-in-hand with surgery — today it has become a craft about hair, aesthetics and care.”