Exclusive: Little boy lost half of his hair in gruesome infection from Fulwell Turkish Barber Shop in “one of the worst cases” a Doctor had seen

Disclaimer: This article contains graphic and sensitive imagery that one might find disturbing. If you do not wish to see it, do not read on.

Over the past few years “Turkish barber shops” have exploded in number throughout Britain. One estimate puts the total at 19,000 nationwide. Everywhere you look, you’ll see a Turkish barber. As a rough count, a look on Google maps reveals at least 30 of these in Sunderland alone, with 10 of them being in the city centre.

The name “Turkish Barber” is not so much a description, than a brand, playing off the romanticism, stylishness and fashionable ways of Turkey, where a barbering tradition emerged in the Ottoman Empire in the 1600s. However, most of their operators are not in fact Turkish at all, but come usually from countries of that region or cultural connotation. A Financial Times article writes that some are from Pakistan, and may even be working in the UK illegally.

Despite this, such shops have exploded in popularity, primarily because they have combined an effective brand label with obviously cheaper prices, taking advantage of economic deterioration in the UK that has seen costs of living surge, inflation skyrocket and GDP stagnate. However, the affordability of these “pop up” barber shops comes with a cost, and that cost is not the “quality” of the haircuts so to speak (they can do the job) but at a well documented neglect of hygiene and professional standards.

The prolific spread of Turkish Barber shops throughout the UK has been linked with a surge in related fungal infections, such as ringworm, producing sores across the head and back of the neck. This is well documented by multiple sources, with professional barbers telling the BBC that the infections are coming from a failure to do the simple procedure of disinfecting equipment. Essentially, the bacteria gets onto the equipment and is allowed to jump from one head to the other with impunity, putting every single person who gets a haircut with the contaminated gear at risk.

It should be no surprise, with 30 and counting “Turkish Barbers” throughout Sunderland that there are also reports of infections. We’ve had them in the past, but recently as more publicity has been shined on the surge of these shops throughout Britain, as well as a negative light being shined on them, it’s ultimately not a “one off.” Instead, as the BBC article linked to above notes, the UK is suffering a pandemic of ringworm and other nasty infections which are being linked to Turkish Barber shops.

Thus, while we have already had many individual stories which all go along the lines of getting an infection after a haircut, we’re going to focus on a particularly awful case which highlights the extremity which it can go to. Sea Barber Shop is a Turkish Barbers situated on Sea Road in Fulwell,

It would be in July last year that one Sunderland dad, who asked to be anonymous, took his son here for a haircut. Taking children for haircuts of course is a frequent part of parenting and not everyone has the time or skill to do it themselves, so it’s natural you would choose somewhere that is local, convenient and cheap. My memories growing up was that we got took to the Inn Shops in the Galleries, and then as an adult I discovered a Scottish Gent who runs a place on Derwent Street and he’s really nice to talk to.

Haircuts are annoying, for me at least, you just want to get it over and done with and then the perpetual itchiness that follows with hair shrapnel going into your neck is annoying thereafter, best to shower. But it would be far worse than itchiness that this little boy would experience when going here. Not long after the haircut, his parents first noticed a small empty patch near the front of his hair which was “about the size of a five pence piece.”

But the patch would start to grow, and grow, as an infection spread across his head. It then became this:

And then, this…

They took him to a specialist dermatologist, who told them that this is one of the worst cases of infection of this kind he had ever seen, telling them that like we wrote above, there is a nationwide epidemic of infections coming from “Turkish barber shops.”

Hairdressing is a profession. It’s something that requires a lot of training, skill, precision and personal care and consideration. When we get our hair cut, we want it to meet our personal tastes, preferences and compliment our esteem and looks. Safety is the least of our worries, usually, that’s because we take it for a given when it is a professional institution.

However, the surge of shops alleged in unsanitary practices and spreading infections are giving it a bad name for everyone. Everyone has a right to start a business, clearly there is a demand for Turkish barber shops or there wouldn’t be so many of them, but if they are going to operate they need to do it right and it is not acceptable that some establishments are cutting corners and spreading infections in the process, giving many honest traders a bad name in the process.

If you own a barber shop, please clean up your act. That is all that is asked.