Solid hair clipper maintenance is essential not only for your clippers’ performance and longevity but also for the person’s health and safety at the receiving end of the blade.

To keep the blades in top shape, you should know how to clean and sharpen hair clipper blades, whether it’s for repeated use throughout a workday at the barbershop or infrequent personal use at home.

Why Clean Hair Clippers

Cleaning your hair clippers after use is critical to extending the blade’s lifetime and sustaining its efficiency. Without this maintenance step, your clippers will essentially become a breeding ground for germs and bacteria, which will pose a risk to you or your clients’ health.

Allowing too much hair and dead skin to build up in the device’s crevices will gradually dull the blades and impair the motor’s operation. These issues can reduce your clippers’ efficiency, resulting in a patchy cut and possible skin irritation.

People often believe that a quick rinse of hot water will suffice for getting their clippers back in top shape. While this can help clear your blade of accumulated hair and ready it for back-to-back personal use in a single sitting, hot water rinses are insufficient for a thorough cleaning.

Instead, you’ll need to fully sterilize your blades to protect yourself and others from infections such as folliculitis and “barber’s itch“. Fortunately, it’s very easy to clean your blades, as it requires just a few tools and relatively little time, whether you’re doing an in-depth cleaning or sprucing up your blades between clients.

Cleaning Clippers Between Clients

Professional barbers need to maintain hygienic tools for each of their clients throughout the day. This type of quick, repetitive cleaning requires only the following essentials:

• A towel
• Brush (e.g., spare toothbrush or color brush)
• Cool Care or similar all-in-one disinfectant product

Now that you have the appropriate tools, follow the steps below to clean your hair clippers: