The barber pole emoji is the universal sign for “fresh cut coming in hot.” People drop it when booking a trim, celebrating a glow-up, or teasing that post-cut selfie that magically adds +10 confidence and +15 jawline. It can be used flirtatiously (new haircut, who dis), or ironically when the fade didn’t fade and you’re pretending it totally did. You’ll see it in captions like #FreshCutFriday, in DMs hyping a lineup, and in memes about barbers who talk like life coaches while wielding clippers.
On Apple devices, it’s a glossy, vertical glass cylinder with a crisp red-white-blue spiral, finished with shiny chrome caps top and bottom—sometimes looking like it’s mounted to a wall, classic storefront style. It screams old-school Main Street vibes, barbershop quartets, and the “just a trim, please” era; historically, the red and white nod to blood and bandages from the barber-surgeon days, with blue often read as veins or an American flourish. Online, it also stands in for “spinning” drama, dizzy timelines, or candy-cane energy during the holidays. Pair it with scissors, razors, or a mirror to announce your appointment, or throw it into a thirst tweet after that clean lineup—instant ‘say less’ energy.
Definition
Red and Blue pole with helix type stripes. The pole may spin or be stationary. The origin being from when barbers would perform minor surgery and bloodletting.
Disqus Leave a comment!
Emoji History The emoji code/ image log of changes.
This emoji was part of the proprietary / non-standardized emoji set first introduced by Japanese carriers like Softbank. These emojis became part of the Apple iPhone starting in iOS 2.2 as an unlockable feature on handsets sold in English speaking countries.
In iOS 5 / OSX 10.7, the underlying code that the Apple OS generates for this emoji was changed.
Emoji General Information
Twitter Emoji Popularity (Rank)
1677 of 2393
Apple/iOS Picture
Google Android Picture
Google Hangouts Picture
Twitter.com Picture
LG Emoji Picture
Samsung Emoji Picture
Phantom Open Emoji Picture
Not created yet
ASCII Conversion
"Short Code" Name
:barber:
Keywords
Unicode Category Information
Unicode Category
Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs
Unicode Range
1F300–1F5FF
Unicode Subcategory
Personal Care Symbols
Proposed Unicode Information & Notes
Unicode Category
Human/living Things
Unicode Subcategory
Personal Care Symbols
Names & Annotations
BARBER POLE
Symbol Information
U+1F488 proposed
Proposal Identifier
e-199
Character Mapping/Crosswalk Notes
DoCoMo
[床屋]
KDDI
#411 床屋 U+EAA2 SJIS-F375 JIS-7956
Softbank
#270 #old302 床屋 U+E320 SJIS-F9C0
Emoji Character Encoding Data
Emoji Code Version
iOS 5 - Current
UTF-8 Unicode Character(s)
💈
UTF-8 Character Count
1
Character(s) In Input
AppleColorEmoji Font (available in OSX/iOS)
💈
Decimal HTML Entity
💈
Hexadecimal HTML Entity
💈
Hex Code Point(s)
1f488
Formal Unicode Notation
U+1F488
Decimal Code Point(s)
128136
UTF-8 Hex (C Syntax)
0xF0 0x9F 0x92 0x88
UTF-8 Hex Bytes
F0 9F 92 88
UTF-8 Octal Bytes
360 237 222 210
UTF-16 Hex (C Syntax)
0xD83D 0xDC88
UTF-16 Hex
d83ddc88
UTF-16 Dec
55357 56456
UTF-32 Hex (C Syntax)
0x0001F488
UTF-32 Hex
01F488
UTF-32 Dec
128136
Python Src
u"\U0001F488"
PHP Src
"\xf0\x9f\x92\x88"
C/C++/Java Src
"\uD83D\uDC88"
Emoji Character Encoding Data (equivalent or similiar)
