By Mustafa Jmal Murad in Baghdad

The rest of his family used to love football and in the neighborhood where he grew up, the Dora district in Baghdad, the alleys often came alive with the shouts of children chasing a ball or each other.

But Saif Saad, 23, didn’t often join them. Instead he was in the courtyard of his family home, eyes fixed on a hair clipper in his father’s hands — the way it carved shapes transforming hair into tidy, crafted shapes.

His father eventually placed a clipper in Saad’s small hand.  

“It shook,” Saad recalls. “Maybe it was heavy. Maybe I was scared. Probably both.”

Today, Saad, a physical education student at Al Farahidi University in Baghdad, has become one of the city’s first “mobile barbers.”

Traditionally an apprentice barber will watch a senior barber work for years before touching any customer’s hair. By 2018, Saad felt ready to step into the profession and he joined a training course, then went door to door in Dora looking for a shop that would take him on. Saad still remembers the first man who sat in his chair, a strict-looking Iraqi army officer.  

“I was terrified,” Saad says. “He asked if I was new. I said yes. He told me the haircut he wanted and said, ‘Go on. Don’t be afraid’.”

When Saad finished, the officer paid him IQD10,000 (US$8) which was double the usual fee and told him something that had a great impact: “You have a future in this. Keep going.”

However the barber business is tough in the big city. Senior barbers jealously guard their regular customers and assistants are only rarely allowed near them, plus it takes time to develop your own customers.

But Saad grew impatient with this and tried opening his own shop. It lasted only a month. Rents were simply too high.

When COVID‑19 shut Baghdad down with salons closed, Saad began cutting hair in his garage at home. He filmed one session and posted it online. The reaction surprised him. People didn’t seem to want another barber shop, they wanted him to come to them.

Baghdad’s historic barbers once cut hair in public squares and performed everything from cupping to tooth extraction. But Saad’s version was different – ​​he wanted clean tools, sanitized equipment, privacy and convenience.

He now works mostly on the Karkh side of Baghdad. He doesn’t own a car so he rents or borrows one. His bag — filled with clippers, disinfectant, dyes, razors, combs, scissors — comes with him.

His prices range from IQD10,000 to IQD18,000 (between US$8 and US$14), depending on distance traveled and the service required. Parents often hire him to cut their children’s hair and elderly clients like to have their hair cut in the comfort of their own homes. Some of the better known individuals he works with also appreciate the privacy.

But not everyone has been enthusiastic. “Some barbers said this was a form of begging,” Saad explains the reactions he got. “They said I had no dignity, just because I was doing something different.”

On Facebook, some mocked him but many users on Instagram and TikTok thought it was a great idea and social media became his storefront.

The good customers outweigh the bad although sometimes he does arrive at a customer’s door only to find it closed and his number blocked.  

“It’s part of the job,” he concedes.

On the other hand, many customers have become loyal clients if not friends.

He also listens carefully to what his clients want. Saad finds they often speak more freely at home. Sometimes they share problems. Sometimes he helps them find solutions. Every client teaches him something.

Eventually he’s hoping to expand the business and give other barbers like him, people who can afford to open their own salons, an opportunity to work in a similarly mobile way.

The young hairdresser appreciates one thing above all: “No rent. No crushing monthly bills. Just my work and my tools.”