Cleaning Your Persian's Eyes

Persians are prone to excessive tearing. If their eye area is not cleaned regularly, not only will they develop unsightly tear stains, discharge can build up in the creases below the eye and along the nose break causing their skin to become red and irritated underneath. It is important to gently cleanse their eye area at least once daily to prevent tear staining and buildup of irritating discharge.

1. Use cotton make-up pads soaked in saline solution to clean the eye area. Saline solution is found at any grocery store or pharmacy in the same aisle as the contact lens solution. Use one cotton ball per eye and gently wipe around the eye and nose break to get rid of any crusties or discharge.
2. Pat the eye area dry with a tissue or piece of toilet paper. 
3. Use a soft makeup brush to apply a small amount of powder like PinkPawPal Wink-Eye Powder to keep the area from staining.

Trimming Your Persian's Eyes

A Persian cat's eyes should be brilliant in color, large, round, and full. Set level and far apart, giving a sweet expression to the face.To create the illusion of large, round, and full eyes that give a sweet expression the area around the cat's ears should be trimmed with curved, blunt-nosed 4.5in scissors.

Comb the hair from the top of the head toward the nose. Hold your Persian's head gently in your hand and use your thumb or finger to hold the eyebrow whiskers out of the way. Trim the hair immediately above the eye nice and short, without cutting your cat's eyelid. Continue trimming from above the eye up towards the center of the head, making the hair longer as it goes up the head. This will create a natural-looking dome. Comb the hair again and check for any stray hairs. Hold the eyebrow whiskers to either side in order to trim the small hairs around the whiskers.

Repeat with the other eye.

Once the areas above both eyes have been trimmed, you will need to connect them in the middle about the nose break. The final look should be a round dome from the corner of each eye.

Cleaning Your Persian's Ears

For cleaning the ears, use a cat safe ear cleaner at least every 4-6 weeks. Les Poochs Medicated Ear Cleaner is an excellent option. To clean your cat's ear, gently grip the top of the ear and gently turn the ear flap inside out until you can clearly see the interior. Use at least one cotton ball per ear to gently clean. For really yucky ears saturate a cotton ball with cleaner and let the liquid drip into the ear. You can also massage the base of the ear canal to help break up any waxiness. Use a clean cotton ball to wipe the inside the ear clean. 

Trimming Your Persian's Ears

A Persian cat should have small, round ears – it even says so in the Cat Fancier's Association Persian Breed Standard 2024-2025. However, not every Persian has round-looking ears without a little grooming because they can have those little tufts of hair at the top of their ears. To create the illusion of a round ear you can trim the cat's ears to appear more rounded.

Using your thumb and index finger, gently hold the cat's ear between your thumb and index finger with the thumb on the topside of the ear. Slide your thumbnail along the ear up towards the tip of your cat's ear until you feel the edge of your fingernail just begin to slide off the end of the tip of your cat's ear. Make sure you separate the tip hair from the tuft hair (do not cut the tuft hair).

Holding this position trim the ear as close to your thumbnail as possible using curved, blunt-nosed 4.5in scissors. Using this method will prevent you from ever accidently cutting your cat's ear.

Trim as close to the tip of the ear as possible making the ears appear round. For some people, it is easier to trim the hair when wet so you can easily see the ear leather.

Your cat’s claws both front and back should be trimmed every 4-6 weeks.

Cat nails are clear and shaped like a hook. You want to trim the nails short, without nicking the vein in the middle of the nail, called the quick. A good rule of thumb is to cut the nail at the top of the curve. Push each toe so the nail extends out. Using a nail clipper especially made for clipping a cat's nail snip the nail cleanly, then repeat with each nail until they are all adequately trimmed.

Persians have greasy skin and coats. Grease causes the hair to stick together rather than fall away during the shedding process. Grease and dead coat combine to create mats, which lead to pelts. Regular removal of grease and dead coat prevents tangles, which prevents mats, which prevents pelting. If a good degreasing bath is done on a regular basis (4-6 weeks for most cats) and the coat is thoroughly blown out with a high velocity dryer, matting becomes a thing of the past. It is important to also comb out the coat thoroughly once it is dry, to remove any loose hair that is still hanging around.

Simply combing or brushing your Persian’s coat out does nothing to remove the mat-causing factors (grease and loose hair). Combing or brushing a greasy, icky coat simply moves the grease and ick all over, creating an even bigger problem in time.  The key to having a mat free Persian is having a properly clean Persian.

Many professional cat groomers have a guarantee that they offer to all clients: if they allow them to groom their cat on the prescribed frequency (normally 4-6 weeks), they guarantee their cat never gets matted or pelted. If the spacing between grooms is appropriate and the groomer does their job correctly, a cat owner will not have to do any at-home “grooming” besides eye maintenance in between grooming sessions. 

If you can learn to give your Persian a proper degreasing bath on a routine schedule followed by a good blowout and combing, you’ll honestly have no need to take them to a groomer.

Degreasing Bath Process

Place the cat in the tub, turn the water on low and adjust temperature.

Begin rinsing the cat from back to front, getting the entire body, legs, belly, chest and tail saturated with water.

Apply a degreasing shampoo (Chubbs Bars are great) and scrub into a foamy lather.

Rinse and then do a second shampoo application.

Thoroughly rinse the body, legs, belly, chest and tail. 

Use low pressure to wet the head, cheeks and chin. Apply shampoo into a foamy lather. Rinse well.

Do a final rinse to make sure all product is removed.

Gently squeeze out excess water and then wrap cat in towel before thoroughly blow drying with a high velocity dryer such as the Flying Pig Grooming High Velocity Dog & Cat Grooming Dryer

Combing Your Persian

Once the cat is completely dry after their degreasing bath it is time for a
thorough combing-out. A Greyhound with fine/medium teeth should be used. Every part of your cat’s body needs to be thoroughly combed out, with special care taken to ensure the underside and legs are smooth and flawless.

The face and head also need to be combed out, making sure there are no hidden tangles or any kind of dirt or
debris on the face.

Sculpting Your Persian's Face

The Cat Fancier's Association Persian Breed Standard 2024-2025 calls for roundness of the head and ears, and a sweet, open expression showing off the roundness of the eyes. When the face becomes overgrown with stray hairs, the breed standard is not enhanced. In fact, it is hidden

Plucking needs to be done to give roundness to the cheeks and top head to create the desired roundness. Using the outer edge of the mouth as a guide, a defined line should be made in a curved shape that extends to the outer edge of the ear. Gently plucking out the longer, stray undercoat and guard hairs along this line will create a nicely contoured cheek and a sweet expression. Along the top head, any unruly undercoat that is sticking out close to the ears creating “horns” should be lightly plucked to achieve a smoothly rounded top head.