Turkish Haircut

It's been a while since I had a chance to write on here. I'll be doing a recap soon of the past few weeks. But today I'm in Kusadasi, Turkey and went to a local barber that my friend recommended. It was the most interesting haircut experience of my life. It began pretty normal, trimming the sides, cutting the top etc. They brought me a Turkish tea that I could drink in small breaks. The hair cut itself was pretty much how they do it in the states. Once he was done with that he used the trimmer to shape my beard a little, then went forward to do a straight razor shave on my neck. Again, something that's pretty common in the states. After that he asked if I wanted my eyebrows trimmed. In these situations while visiting other countries I've learned the answer is always yes. The eyebrow trim was pretty regular as well, until he asked if I wanted between them waxed. I said yes and he applied a thicker wax than I've ever seen in the sates between my eyebrows and down my nose all the way to pretty much touching my nostrils. He didn't put any paper or anything on the wax, but was just waiting for it to dry. While he was waiting he walked to the corner and got something out of a cupboard. He lit it up and I could see it was basically a big match. He let it burn for about 10 seconds then came over to me and started hitting my ear with it. I could feel a very quick burst of heat on my ear then it would go away quickly until he hit it again. He was hitting it pretty quick too so there wasn't much time between the burns. When he finished with my right ear he went over to my left and said "this is for the small yellow hairs." I hadn't actually gotten burnt...or burst into flames so I wasn't really concerned about him doing my left side. When he finished with that the wax was pretty dry, so he pried that off from the bottom of my nose and ripped it off slowly. Then he asked if I wanted my upper cheeks done (above the beard). Again the answer is always yes. He got some thread from his shelf and took a good bit of that, tightened it between his two hands and started forcefully scraping it against my upper cheeks. This was the more painful part of the whole haircut, and probably the most pain from a haircut I'll ever have. When he finished my right side I wanted to not have the left done, but I knew I could live through it. Then it was time to wash my hair. There was a sink right in front of my seat, he had me lean forward and put my head face down in it. It wasn't so much a hair wash as it was a full head wash. He put the shampoo everywhere, my hair, my beard, my ears, everywhere on my head, then used the sink to basically pore water over my head. When that was over he put on some after shave to basically my whole face and then proceeded with the roughest massage I've ever experienced, ending with him cracking my neck. I did feel relaxed after though, and got a great haircut/beard trim/eyebrow trim/head wash. 

I'm sure there will be more crazy Turkish experiences to come. For now I'm headed out to see the rest of Kusadasi, which has a ton of shops for very inexpensive, high quality things. More to come soon!