Cross contamination from Electric Razor?

[StrongerThanCeliac]

I’m still trying to 100 percent understand cross-contamination. I know a lot of fellow celiacs experience a great deal of anxiety. After multiple celiac flare ups over the past couple of months, I seem to always be on edge.

Today, what got me thinking was I was getting my haircut, I always have them do my beard and mustache as well…….as the barber was trimming my mustache with the electric razor, the razor came into contact with my lips a time or two. I got to thinking, what if someone with gluten particles in their mustache just had their mustache trimmed and the barber didn’t wipe down the razor before my cut.

Is that plausible? Or would there have to be visible gluten (ex: small piece of bread) or something on the razor? Also, I didn’t ingest right away, but if it’s on my lips it’s probably going to be ingested?

 

Please let me know what you think, thanks!

[Scott Adams]

I think it would be highly unlikely to get gluten contamination this way, unless you were to swallow a bunch of hair during your cut, which I doubt anyone would do. If you are seeing an actual barber who went to barber school they should also be cleaning the clippers between cuts, typically using a compressed air blower similar to what you use to put air in your car tires, and dipping the blades in alcohol.

That said, keeping your mouth closed, and wiping your lips after a cut might be a good protocol given how sensitive you are. 

[jage]

You're talking gluten actively on the moustache of the slob in front of you, the barber ignores that cutting through the sticky crumbs then skips sterilizing the clippers, then ingesting enough of the thrice transferred gluten - I'd call it statistically impossible. 

However this reminded me of getting glutened from sharing my wife's shampoo. It was not that we were sharing, mind, it was that the shampoo had wheat and I was washing my scalp with it. I'd swear I wasn't ingesting it but once I stopped using it the otherwise unexplained symptoms went away (normally I can identify pretty reliably what was new or changed).  I'd still say getting gluten sick from the barber is rare, I'm pretty sure gluten is not common in products but like i said your post brought that to mind.