IT’S an ancient art which was in danger of dying out, but now a new breed of stylists are taking up the barbering challenge, and they are women.

The word barber comes from the Latin word barba, meaning beard.

But what was once a male preserve in the world of hairdressing is getting in touch with its feminine side.

Not least at the Big Yin Gents Salon, run by Adam Sloan and his son, Joe.

In October, they teamed up with Central Hairdressing Academy, in Southend, to launch a barbering course at the Rayleigh High Street salon, and were gobsmacked when more than 90 per cent of their students were women.

The course is now fully booked, until June next year.

Adam says: “We were surprised so many girls came forward for the course. But it is great it has proved so popular.”

Adam, who also runs three Big Yin salons, in Southend, has always had a strong interest in men’s hairdressing.

His own father, also Adam, was a champion barber in Scotland, and he has passed his love of men’s hairdressing on to his son. “Barbering is a skill and art which must not be allowed to die out,” says Adam. “But I also believe it needs to embrace modern techniques and move with the times to survive.”

Adam says: “With men putting almost as much effort into their appearances as women these days, the demand for skilled barbers to cut and style hair is on the rise.

“As well as being passionate about good hair cutting, I really believe in education. We must not let these skills go.”

The course has been designed to meet the growing demand for male barbering and grooming.

For those with at least three years’ experience in hair cutting, or perhaps those returning to the industry, this is an opportunity to develop new skills in men’s hair cutting and clipper techniques.

Anyone who enrols for the course must already have an NVQ Level 2 in hairdressing.

The course includes men’s styling, wet shaving and cutting patterns in to short hair, as well as how to wield a cut throat razor with precision.

At the end of the course, students get a City and Guilds qualification in men’s barbering, and the academy hands out its own certificates for the shaving and pattern cutting.

Some of the participants see it as an opportunity to increase their client base by being able to develop an expertise in men’s hairdressing. Anna Wilkinson, 20, who works at the Definitions salon, in Braintree, has just started training at the academy.

“Working with men’s hair is so different to women’s hair and it is really interesting to see the techniques employed,” she says. Laura Jo Gaterell, 21, from Options Salon, in Chelmsford, agreed. “The demand for men’s grooming in the salon has certainly grown,” she adds.

“Cutting men’s hair is more technical, as often it is shorter, so you can’t get away with any mistakes you could perhaps hide in longer hair.”

The earliest records of barbers show they were the foremost men of their tribe.

They were often the medicine men and the priests.

Primitive man was superstitious though, and early tribes believed both good and bad spirits entered the body through the hairs on the head.

The bad spirits could only be driven out of the individual by cutting the hair, so various fashions of hair cutting were practiced by different tribes, making the barber the most important man in the community.

Over the years, the role evolved and barbers were also surgeons and dentists.

Barbers also performed surgery, bloodletting and leeching, as well as the extraction of teeth, before developing into a more modern understanding of the term barber.