Eyeball Scraping – The Vanishing Trade Practiced by Sichuan Barbers

The optional extras offered by this barber in China won't appeal to everybody.

But after using his blade to shave his customers' faces, Liu Deyuan will happily give it a quick rinse and scrape it along their eyeballs.

Eyeball cleaning is an ancient craft in China, where there is an old saying that cleaning the eyes renders the beauty in life visible.

 Blade: Barber Liu Deyuan scrapes a blade along a customer's eyeball to clean it in China's Sichuan province

The bizarre practice is dying out in China, but customers can still get the traditional treatment from the Mr Deyuan, who has been offering the service from his stand in a park in Chengdu city, Sichuan province, for the past seven years.

After holding the eye open and running his blade across the surface of the eyeball, the barber then inserts a small rod beneath the upper and lower lids and scrapes it back and forth.

Mr Deyuan will provide a head and face shave plus an eye cleaning for RMB5 - the equivalent of around 50 pence.

Ouch: The barber then inserts a rod beneath the upper and lower eyelids and slides it back and forth

Scraping: Eyeball cleaning is an ancient craft in China, where there is an old saying that cleaning the eyes renders the beauty in life visible 


Ancient craft: After scraping the eyeball with the blade, the barber then slides a small rod back and forth beneath the upper and lower eyelids


Source: DailyMail