A new colleague, an Englishman recently arrived in Istanbul, was having a cigarette outside the school the other morning.

“Get a haircut?” I asked. His hair had that sharp, spruce look, especially around the sides.

“Yeah,” he said. “Had the whole Turkish treatment.”

A knowing look passed between us. “Oh, yes,” I said.

That look said it all, for a trip to a Turkish barber is an experience you will not soon forget. It got me to thinking about my barber in Kadikoy. I haven’t been to seen him in some time.

From the outside looking in, the barber shops here are the same as they are anywhere else. (I’m talking about a real men’s barbershop, mind — not those colorless, “unisex” salons you find in the shopping malls and other spiritless wrecks of Disturbia.)

You walk in, and there are the daily newspapers sprawled out on a dirty coffee table. Old men are browsing the football scores, and up on a battered television set there are replays of yesterday’s matches. You hang your coat and hat , along with the other coats, and find a place to sit down.

The barbers – there are three of them in the place I go — are all the same as they were last time you were in. “Merhaba! Where have you been?” they ask, as if you have been away in the Arctic, and have come back resembling Bearskin. A cup of hot tea is hurriedly brought – it would be rude to refuse – and you choke it down just as a finished customer pays and you are almost shoved into the empty awaiting chair.

Your regular barber, Ali, and you both scrutinize your utterly contemptible visage in the mirror. With shame, you rub your fingers through the scruffy mess of neglected hair. Ali inspects it as well, and he shares your grim assessment.

“Allah! Allah!” he says.

Your Turkish is not enough to detail subtle ways you would like your hair to be cut. You just make a sweeping gesture, and say, “Hepsi,” which means something like, “All of it!”

“Evet, evet,” Ali agrees, nodding sagely. An overhaul of the Turkish variety. That is really the only way.

So for the next hour or so, you place your head – literally – in Ali’s hands. He places your head in the sink, running warm water over it, applying the shampoo. (In summertime, occasionally, there are water shortages – brown-outs—in the city, and I’ve seen the barbers do the washing with hastily heated bottled water) After several minutes of scrubbing and rinsing, a dry towel is wrapped around your head; blindfolded, you feel your head shaken vigorously, until all the wetness is gone.

The next part, the actual haircut, is fairly standard. The clippers are brought out for the back and sides; the scissors skillfully snip away at the top, picking up scrag and loose ends. Sadly, you can’t help but notice a growing majority of cut hair amassing on the floor is grey rather than blonde, but hey, you still got hair, right? Better than that poor balding sonofabitch sitting over in the next stall, where the barber has to employ some serious milking to actually make a half-hour job out of it.

Up on the TV, the programming has switched over to the news of the latest elections. The ruling AK Party has won, and there are images of the triumphant president, images of mass crowds waving Turkish flags. The men are watching and making comments, but you don’t pay too much attention. It’s better to just play the quiet yabancı and let Ali get on with the work.

The hair cut done, Ali pats your shoulder reassuringly. All seems to be going well, considering what we had to start with. He does a bit of fancy footwork, slyly reaching for a q-tex, and dowsing it in alcohol. He reaches in his pocket for a lighter. The lit q-tex suddenly becomes a flaming torch. Ali leans close with the flame, swipes it at your ears, first left, then right. You hear a whoosh! Sound as the fire hits the inside of your ear, and a momentary flash of heat. Whoosh! The other ear, and more heat!

You nod at Ali, but you see he is not quite satisfied. He’s reaching for some hot wax, which he proceeds to daub on the inside. This was the part you were dreading most, but it’s too late.

To distract you, Ali brings a small, portable mirror so you can inspect the work he’s done on the backside of the head. “Güzel,” you say. Very nice. “Güzel!” Ali says. “Çok daha iyi!” Much better!

While you are buzzing at the compliment, Ali takes the opportunity to rip the wax from your right ear. A sheet of white-hot, agonizing pain engulfs the whole side of your head. Then, while you are still reeling, he rips the other one out. If there can be anything like the feeling of a soul-scraping, it must be that, having hot wax applied to, then forcibly yanked, from your ears. Seriously: soul-scraping.

You shudder, shaking it off. Ali is grinningly broadly. You could even say the bastard is beaming. He repositions your chair in front of the mirror, and makes a final inspection. With the scissors, he carefully sculpts the loose hair around the eyebrows, and even makes a pass or two under the nostrils.

Then, he dunks your head back in the sink, washes and rinses again. The towel is rubbed vigorously, and he sets you back for the blowdrying and combing.

All of this done, comes the final act of absolution. The Turkish cologne, a kind of lemon-scented liquid, is applied, both to the hair and also the forehead and down around the neck.

You both now look in the mirror. There may have been a bit of tedium, and perhaps what could be classified as torture, along the way. But by golly, you are literally shining, my friend!

“A cup of tea?” Ali insists. How can you refuse, especially after all you have both been through together?

So you have another cup of tea, and go and get your coat and hat from the wall. Another man has already been set up in the barber’s chair, and more men are on the way.

“20 lira,” Ali says. Twenty? Wasn’t it 15 last time? Oh well, yabancı price. Or maybe he factored the tip.

“Next time,” Ali says. “Iyi günler!”
“Iyi günler!” you say.

So that is something of the Turkish barber experience, at least as I have known it. But judging from the look and general demeanor of my new English colleague – another satisfied, if somewhat violated (in a good way!) customer – the experience seems to be universal. But that’s OK, I’ll take that treatment over some soulless shopping mall salon any day.

Maybe next time, I’ll tell you about the Turkish bath.

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James Tressler, a former Lost Coast resident, is a writer and teacher . His books, including the recently published, “City Scherzos: New Stories from Istanbul,” can be found at lulu.com. He lives in Istanbul.