Why are barber poles red white and blue?

It would be fair to say guess the answer has something to do with being patriotic – but that would be far from fact. History has shown back in the day, barbers did much more than just take a little off the top. Early physicians thought some procedures were beneath them, so it fell to barbers to perform such things as mending wounds, bloodletting, and pulling teeth. To represent their dual roles of cutting hair and cutting veins, barbers were soon known as barber-surgeons - and later in order to distinguish the academic surgeon from the barber-surgeon, were later referred to as surgeons of the short robe.

But to answer the question directly, the striped poles you see outside barber shops are a legacy that represent the barber-surgeon’s practice of bloodletting. The bandages were often wrapped around a staff with the blood bowl on top while procedures were being done – This equipment was placed outside the shop to both dry washed bandages and to advertise. In short, the stained bandages would wrap around the staff in the wind causing the swirling red and white pattern. The blue was added later just before legislation permanently separated the barbers from the surgeons and represented the protruding veins.

Over the years different companies have fashioned the barber pole after historical renditions - And Desert Viking, in celebration of the Barber, and the razor, dating back to the Bronze age and even mentioned in the Bible, carries not only a barber’s pole, but also a snazzy barber's pole clock.