Hair clippers are a wonderful tool indeed. They help you make creative and stylish haircuts without much effort, and they also help you save up a nice amount of money because you don’t have to pay for the barber’s services.
If you want your hair clippers to continue being so useful and reliable, you have to take care of them properly. Otherwise, they’ll gradually start performing worse, until they eventually break down, forcing you to spend money on repairing them or buying yourself an entirely new model as a replacement.
One of the most important, if not the most important aspect of proper hair clippers maintenance is regular cleaning. It sounds simple enough, you just have to clean them after using them, right? Well, there’s more to it than just that, you have to know how to do that properly, and it isn’t as simple as one would think.
So, if you wish to avoid having your hair pulled on or chewed on by your clippers, stick around for a while and check out what we have prepared for you. By the time you’ve finished reading this article, you’ll know everything you need to in order to be able to adequately clean your hair clippers.
How to clean hair clippers: introducing the basics
Even though they are small, easy to use, and accessible to anyone, hair clippers are still a machine of some sort. And as everyone knows, all machines require maintenance in order to perform well, from cars to hydraulic presses.
Therefore, it’s important to spend a few minutes on tidying up your hair clippers after each use. Hair bits and pieces can dull the blades relatively easily and quickly if you leave them be. In order to avoid that, you should swiftly remove all of them with a small brush. Most hair clippers come with such a brush in the original box, but any narrow brush will do so don’t worry if you didn’t get one when you bought yours.
The blades should also be oiled properly, so that hair doesn’t stick to them, and so that all parts can move smoothly, without any hiccups. You don’t have to oil the clippers after each use, once every two times is quite alright.
Every now and then, depending on how often you use your clippers, you should disassemble them and get rid of any dirt or hair that found its way inside. Be careful while doing this, don’t force things to separate if they can’t be disassembled easily, otherwise you may end up breaking certain parts. Some models can be completely disassembled, others only partially, but either way, it’s surely enough for you to be able to clean the insides adequately.
Does cleaning my clippers matter so much?
Definitely yes. If you neglect conducting regular maintenance work on your clippers, they will, without a doubt, become damaged. Hair bits will gradually dull your blade which will result in the machine pulling or jerking your hair instead of cutting it cleanly. Not only is this painful, but it could also some nasty injuries like ripping out a chunk of hair straight from the root. The area where those hairs grew will have difficulties producing new hair for a while, so you’ll end up with a bald patch.
If you let dirt accumulate inside the clippers or on the blades, anyone who has their hair cut with those clippers will most likely end up with skin irritation, or even worse, skin infection. This will ruin your career as a hairdresser in a flash, because no one will want to come to your shop once they learn that your hygiene level isn’t satisfactory.
And last but not least, avoiding hair clippers maintenance will eventually cost you money. It’s pretty simple actually, your tools will break down sooner than they would if you took proper care of them, and you’ll have to buy new ones quickly. Obviously, it would be much smarter and less expensive if you just cleaned your clippers regularly, so don’t forget that.
Next up we’ll talk about the cleaning process itself, which can be done in two ways. By using products specifically made for hair clipper blade cleaning, or by doing the cleaning yourself, at home.
Disinfecting/Cleaning clipper blades with blade wash
Blade wash is a solution that cleans clipper blades as best as possible and using them guarantees that your clippers will perform well and stay in top condition. These products do six things to your clipper blades. Cool them, lubricate them, disinfect them and removes all leftover bacteria, eliminate bad odors, protect them from mold, and prevents them from rusting. Mind you, if you find a blade wash that doesn’t do all of this, don’t buy it, keep searching until you find one that does.
They are used in a very simple manner, you just spray them all over the clipper blades and that’s it, you’re done.
Cleaning clippers with distilled white vinegar
Blade wash isn’t exactly very cheap, so if your budget isn’t quite big, or you just don’t want to spend money on such products, you can use a replacement instead. One which can be found in almost any household, white vinegar.
Yes, that’s right, the thing you use to clean your kitchen, your fridge, your stove, and so on. It does a great job at cleaning hair clippers as well, it’s true. They are powerful enough to kill all bacteria and remove any dirt, yet it isn’t harmful so it won’t affect you or the person whose hair you’ll be cutting in any way.
You use it the same way as you would the blade wash, spray it over the blades and you’re done. But make sure to let it dry properly before you store away the clippers, otherwise it may cause the blades to rust.
This is an adequate replacement for a blade wash, but it isn’t as effective so it’s recommended that you use the blade wash after all. But if your don’t use your clippers often, vinegar will suffice.
Next up we’ll explain how you can clean your clippers at home by yourself.
How to clean hair clippers at home: Step by step guide
This process isn’t exactly rocket science as far as difficulty goes, nor does it require a lot of time, so there’s really no reason for you to be afraid of it and avoid it. It consist of four stages, and they’re exactly the same if you use either vinegar or a blade wash as a cleaning solution. Let’s begin.
Remove the batteries and unplug the clippers
You wouldn’t want to get electrocuted while cleaning your clippers, that not fun at all. So before you begin, remove the batteries or unplug your machine, depending on the type of power source it has.
Get rid of any hair and open the machine
When it comes to leftover hair bits, they usually hang around the very blade. You can use a small brush to remove them, or if you don’t have one, you can just turn the blades towards the ground and then gently shake the clippers so that all hairs can fall out on their own. Using compressed air is also quite effective, but it does make a bit of a mess, so think twice about that before you decide.
After that, you should disassemble the machine and remove any dirt or hair that got inside. Use a screwdriver to unscrew the screws, and then remove the blades. Try not to lose any of the screws, if your machine isn’t properly tightened, it could malfunction.
Let the parts soak and then clean them
When using white vinegar as a cleaning solution, you have to mix it with an equal amount of water before you soak the parts in the mixture. Leave them in there for about half an hour or an hour, then rinse them with regular water and clean them with a soft cloth.
With the blade wash, the process is a bit different, but essentially the same because the parts soak anyway. This time however, you soak the parts in plain warm water. Leave them there for a couple of minutes and lightly apply the blade wash on them.
Let your clipper parts dry out a bit
This step is very important so don’t skip it no matter what. If you do, your clipper blades will probably end up catching a bit of rust, especially if you used white vinegar as a cleaning solution.
Put the parts on a clean towel and let them dry in air. After about an hour, they’ll be ready to go back into the machine, completely clean and dry.
Don’t forget to oil the blades every now and then, you can do it after cleaning while the parts are still out and easily accessible.
With this, we conclude our instructions on how to clean hair clippers. If you remember them and follow them precisely, your hair clippers will serve you well for a long time. Now go and cut hair without a care in the world!
