Historically, barbers were special because of their unique skills in using sharp materials to trim and cut hair but also they were also medically skilled in various hair and skin treatments and surgery.
These skills were often practiced at home in Lebanon until the 1900’s, following which a new era began when barber shops began to open up. My great grandfather was a very popular barber in Beirut in the early 1900’s as he would, accompanied by my grandfather, go to customer’s houses and cut their hair and provide specialist hair and skin treatments such as Alopecia and Skin Tag, satisfying them with his exceptional services.
In 1945 and after many years of learning from my great grandfather, my grandfather, at the young age of 27, was one of the first person to open up a barber shop in Nabatieh, Lebanon. People used to call him the ‘King Barber’ as he was recognised as the best barber in Lebanon.
My grandfather’s barber shop was a huge success and was the go to place in Lebanon for customers to get a haircut and hair and skin treatment services. My grandfather’s business was so popular that on busy days, he would have long queues of people waiting to get their haircut from him. This then allowed Kanso name to grow into a household name.
My family were passionate and motivated with the business as it now stands over 78 years in business. I started working as a barber with my family when I was 15 years old in Lebanon. I later took over and managed the business at 18, with my family support.
We decided in the family to expand the business by planning to open up more stores. However in order to this, we need to create a better brand name. I came up with the name Head Barbers and my family liked it so much that we started using it as our brand name.
After my grandfather died, it was very difficult time for my family. My father had no interest in barbering and did not want anything to do with the business and wanted to sell it. But I stepped up and took the responsibility of continuing my grandfather’s legacy and fulfilling his dreams of seeing the business expand.
I continued my barbering education in France and learned new techniques in barbering and was fortunate and privileged to provide hair styling for male and female models at fashion events in France.
Between 2001 - 2004, I would fly every two weeks to a month to Saudi Arabia and Qatar to cut hair for private clients, with techniques that traditionally ‘Head Barbers’ and my family have used over the years. This experience really opened my eye to the world of hair cutting and styling as I learnt and adopted new techniques.
I then returned to Lebanon and developed a successful team of barbers and brand partner to follow the beginning of our journey to global expansion of the business. I then expanded Head Barbers by opening a new branch in 2004 in Beirut, Lebanon.
People quickly started to be attracted to my unique combination of the old traditional style and new revolutionary techniques that made Head Barbers as the pioneers of barbering in Lebanon.
After the second anniversary of the opening of our second branch in Beirut, Lebanon, Head Barbers were offered a lucrative contract to showcase our barbering skills at internationally renowned and famous fashion shows in France hosted by leading designers such as Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel. I therefore took my barbering team to France and we made sure that all the male and female models looked glamorous when they hit the runaway.
My barbering services were then in high demand between 2005 - 2009 and I then developed a VIP list of clients regularly flying to different countries such as UAE, Qatar and Nigeria, where I provided my services at luxury weddings, parties and events.
One of my VIP client was a highly respected and well known businessman and owner of Eko Hotel, Mr Chagoury in Lagos, Nigeria. I was called to his personal residential palace in 2008, where I provided him with full hairdressing, grooming and hair and skin treatment services and was paid upwards of $7000 for this service.
In 2009, I, together with a partner, took the first step of global expansion by opening a branch in Glyfada Athens, Greece. Whilst it was challenging to operate branches in two different countries, I ensured that the quality of our unique barbering skills was maintained.
In 2010, I was invited to attend an event in Wimbledon, London and I fell in love with Wimbledon and London. Wimbledon had a friendly community and was famous for hosting the best tennis players. I instinctively decided that my next branch would be in Wimbledon.
I then opened my first Head Barbers branch in the UK in South Wimbledon, London. Wimbledon was a very challenging place to set up a barber shop as there was a lot of competition and it was difficult market to establish the brand quickly.
However, I persevered with making the Wimbledon shop a success. This experience opened me to exploring a new form of marketing using social media as a powerful tool to attract more customers and demonstrate my unique barbering skills. I set up a Head Barbers dedicated webpage and social media accounts such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. I found that Instagram was best for the business and have achieved 170,000 followers.
Head Barbers is now known in Wimbledon as one of London’s leading British brands and this is all thanks to the our growing social media presence and academy. We have been visited by journalist from Big Review TV in Australia who have promoted our store on their TV channel and YouTube.
We then decided to open our second branch in the UK in a shopping mall at Dartford Shopping Centre, London in 2012.
After successfully running the branches in London and achieving fame on social media, I was inundated with messages and requests for training people who want to learn the unique barbering skills offered at Head Barbers.
I then planned to set up an academy to teach the unique barbering skills to everyone that wanted to learn, but I felt I did not have the infrastructure yet for this. So instead I started to offer barber courses from beginners to more advanced levels at my shop in Wimbledon.
The courses were personally taught by me and our team to give opportunities to every person, experienced or not, to be able to learn and expand their passion to work as a barber.
Over a period of 6 years, I have taught around 150 students who have successfully achieved jobs as barbers, some of which have been working for Head Barbers in the UK and abroad.
In 2016, Head Barbers was offered a lucrative contract with a production company called ‘STYRAX PRODUCTIONS’, who are film and movie production company based in the UK and Lebanon. I was credited with the role of Hair Stylist in the movie called ‘The Bride’s Bracelet’. My team’s were tasked with looking after the actors’ hair and style throughout the whole production process. Our services in the film production as whole earned us north of $69,000.
In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic stalled the continuing growth of the business and was an extremely tough time for me and the business as I was not able to provide any haircuts during the lockdown period and the business was seriously disrupted.
Following the aftermath of the Covid-19 Pandemic, I started to pick up the pieces again, but recovery in the UK was very slow as UK was hit double not only by the Covid-19 Pandemic but also because of Brexit and then the War between Russia and Ukraine. These were very tragic times.
I came across an opportunity to expand the business to Cork, Ireland and decided to take up the opportunity straightaway. We then opened our branch in Cork, Ireland in 2021.
The shop in Cork, Ireland was a new project for me to turn a struggling barber shop and transform it into a successful barber shop bearing the Head Barbers name. This project allowed me to combine all my skills and experiences, by not only physically operating the shop but also training the staff at the shop and making it very busy over the first 4 months. The shop then was fully booked every day and we struggled with labour shortages to meet the growing demand.
We then set up a bespoke training academy in Ireland, where we would teach my unique skills and recruit new barbers from the academy into the branch. The training academy complemented the Head Barbers business model very well and we quickly found that we were bringing quality barbers into the business and found a great way to grow our business exponentially.
We are now in a strong position to expand the business further across other countries and have a strong interest in setting up a number of branches in the UAE.