A barber in China’s Sichuan province is famous for cleaning the eyes of his customers by drawing a sharp razor across the inner surface of their eyelids, a traditional Chinese practice called “eye shaving.”
It might sound really horrific, but Xiong Gaowu, the 62-year-old veteran hairdresser, said he has been conducting the practice everyday and never made a blunder in the 40 years of his career.
The steady-handed barber works in a tiny alley in Chengdu city. After giving his customers their usual haircut or shave, he sanitises his razor and holds his customers' eyelid wide open to gently scrape the razor back and forth across the inner surface of both lids.
Xiong claims it is a “steady” and “gentle” technique which helps to get rid of dust particles and other unwanted pollutants from the eyes.
According to several doctors, eye shaving was widely practiced in Chinese hospitals 60 to 70 years ago to treat trachoma, which is a contagious bacterial infection of the eye.
As the number of people getting infected by trachoma lessened, the practice was gradually eliminated.
Qu Chao, an ophthalmology doctor at Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, told the South China Morning Post: “Eye shaving can scrape away the ulcers and scar tissue under trachoma patients' eyelids and stimulate the eyes so that they secrete a liquid to moisten the eye sockets.”
However, he advised medical specialists to warn the public to be cautious as the practice could easily result in damage to people’s retinas.
Even poor hygiene could result in the spread of infection, he added.
Sunday, July 19, 2026
