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When I was having an interaction with a lady on this forum about black hairsylists, someone piped up that this lady should visit expatwoman.com for all of her wishes of finding a black hairsylist to come true.
I thought I'd have a look at this website to see what all the fuss was about.
It made some interesting reading. I didn't join in because for the most part I didn't have a clue what they were on about. I guess you have to be an expat woman to get it.
One thing that did interest me was a lady looking for a hairdresser. As a trained hairdresser I gave the thread (as they call them) a read. This lady was looking for a hairdresser to shave her newborn baby's head. I can say that I've never been asked to shave a baby's head and if I was, I would refuse, I think. I read on, some were aghast! Leave the poor baby alone! (i nearly joined it at that point but realised I would have to join up and couldn't be bothered)
I read on.
Apparantly it's a culture thing. Well as the saying goes (and I should post this in my very fav quote thread) you learn something new every day.
Never in a month of Sundays, have I heard that before.

Can anyone tell me why some people choose to shave their newborn baby's head? What is it supposed to achieve?

Around Bolton, we wet the baby's head and that usually involves huge amounts of drink taken onboard by men in party mode. No actual babies are wet.

——Even babies' eyebrows. It is said that so that babies would grow better hair.

There are services that collect shaven baby hair and make them into a writing brush as a keepsake (?)

This has been some kind of tradition for centuries I guess.

Nowadays not many young parents choose to do that anymore.

But they often have to fight with the grandparents to keep their babies' hair on...

WhiteJade wrote:There are services that collect shaven baby hair and make them into a writing brush as a keepsake

Interesting - that's something I didn't know (as well as the shaving off of eyebrows!). I presume this is a chinese cultural thing?

Many cultures around the world also equate shaving of the head as a sign of sacrifice, or other reasons. Muslims shave the heads of babies around 7 days old - based on the practice of the prophet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_shaving#Religious

Cheers,

Shafique

Well I think it's an awful practice. I know myself after being shaved, it's damn itchy when it grows back.