Hair cut and colour now exceeds what I earn in a day. Absolutely fed up.

Wow I only pay 80 here for colour wash, highlights, cut and blow dry

OP, there is a home hair dye company called Madison Reed who custom mix your colour, and they'll adjust it for the next time if you find it's not quite right. I've used them and found it very good.

Alternatively, these temporary toning masks are meant to be good:
Wella Color Fresh Mask

Loreal le color gloss

There are MANY hair tutorial videos online. I definitely recommend learning to do the colour yourself and getting professional cuts. Maybe you could just get the professional colour done once or twice a year.

I have grown out my hair my grey hair twice. The front is pretty (I think so anyway), lots of different greys and whites and sparkly. But it's a lot of work in a hard water area!

The back however is about 40% grey and 60% ashy brown. It made the grey look yellow and the brown look mucky. The contrast emphasised the different textures too. It was just so ugly and dull and looked unkempt and neglected. I was sad!

My home hairdresser (very experienced, been working 40 years) charges £60 and I’m in the south - friend just had hers done at a salon and was over £200 😣

Ok, so let's break this down..£170 minus VAT, minus product cost (I estimate somewhere around £20-30), minus income tax, minus national insurance contributions. We are already down to about £80.
Take away cost of renting a chair, equipment depreciation. That leaves us with a total of about £70 (this is based on cost of chair in London at £55 per day on the assumption that hairdresser sees 5 clients per day). For a 2,5h appointment this is about £28 per hour pay. Now, considering that self-employed hairdresser is not getting holiday pay, it leaves us with about £20 per hour, I imagine.

Still think nothing justifies the price?

I’ve always seen a salon dye as a real luxury. I’d have thought people on normal salaries would only be able to afford it if they gave up something else. Doesn’t at all surprise me that a nurse (or teacher, police officer etc) would find it difficult to pay for.

You don't say what you do, but surely you are aware that £50 p/h is high (almost 100K full-time), and therefore much more than a nurse earns.

Box dye for me too. Like you, a cut and colour costs more than a days wage for me. I cant justify it.

Every hairdresser seems to have increased prices substantially so I dont think it is just some hairdressers being greedy. But then people cant afford them. Having said that, the salon I go to you have to book at least 2 months in advance, more if you want a specific hairdresser.

I would stop dying it.
You don’t see men dying their hair, they just go grey or bald.
I think more women need to embrace the grey and stop bowing to the ridiculous standards set by the greedy beauty industry.

Things I can no longer afford to do:

go to the hairdressers
Go to the cinema
Eat out
Go on holiday
Have the heating on for more than four hours a day

I don't usually think about it but this thread has pullled me up short and made me think. I never used to have to live like this, the cost of living crisis hit shortly after I retired and it has wrecked me.

There's nothing wrong with being grey.

@Burntout01 The fte job appears to be Band 6? So up to £46,500? Most people would take that in a cheaper area of the uk. Working part time impacts pension but everyone has that issue and the self employed hairdresser will not have an employer contributing to her pension. By comparison, yours is silver plated (maybe not gold) and I would advise you look around for another hairdresser but these staff deserve a decent wage too and a decent pension. We chip in a lot to yours so I’m afraid you’ll have to suck up the costs to keep other people employed. Maybe change jobs if you don’t like it? It depends how far you travel in your car doesn’t it? Not far for £27 I imagine.

I’m having very similar thoughts myself OP as I too earn way less than my hair £160 cut and colour. Long since given up manicures and waxing sur to cost but this way my one thing I love and value most highly. Seriously depressing how bloody expensive it is and this is nowhere near the dearest. Before I started colouring I used to get it cut at home but stopped when she put her prices up to £55 for a cut and blow dry (& I started
wfh and was desperate for an excuse to get out of the house!)

It's easier than you think to cut your own hair and there are lots of good demonstrations by hairdressers on YouTube.

My cut and blow dry has just jumped to £64, I normally give her a tenner at Christmas and no tips through the year but feeling a bit annoyed about the price hike this year but I think I will feel awkward if I don't as have done for past 5 years! I am socially awkward enough without adding to it!!

I decided my colour was too expensive,though it was roughly £96 in London hairdresser.So I have grown it out :it is now white and I have received dozens of compliments! Now I just have cut and blow dry,£46 about every 4 to 5 weeks.I assume a lot of your extra cost is for highlights,could you not go for an all over grey enhancing colour?

Agree it’s a nightmare. Local salon here - Oxfordshire - is £240 for full head plus cut and blow dry. Totally ridiculous. I used to be in zone 3 London and it wasn’t as bad.

Consequently stretched out the appt for weeks over when it should have been so looked a state the last month.

No advice just solidarity

Its expensive but if its relative to one day's pay, I actually think that is ok tbh esp. if its the one thing that makes you feel better about yourself. I might be wrong but I do not get the impression from your post that you buy a lot of clothes, have your nails done fortnightly etc? I spend half my salary on these things.

I live 7 miles from central London and pay £120 for highlights, cut and dry. Chin length bob.

It is expensive, it was cheaper in London than here up North, can't get a cut and BD for under £50. Everyone seems to start with stylist or jnr stylist at £50. For colour I use Wella Koleston, lots of wella PDFs to explain how to use, what colours are what, what % developer to use for what effect. Much better than the box stuff.

Are you in London op? That seems very expensive. I'm not in England but am in UK, when I lived in a capital city here I paid about £100 for a cut and highlights on very long hair. Recently moved a couple of hours away to another city and now I pay £60 for full head of highlights with cut and it looks just as good. I'm wondering if it's worth traveling for to save you money?

Sadly an expensive area - plenty of customers willing and able to pay. But lots also being priced out. I am seriously considering just getting my hair done when I visit my my mum (her hairdresser charges half the price). I guess the issue is that hairdresser chains have head offices etc to pay for

It makes you wonder how all the salons are staying open when so many people are no longer going at all or not going as often as they used to. I worry for them when I read about people who used to go every 6 weeks and now can only afford to go once or twice a year. I know a lot of the time, salons are forced to increase prices as their costs have increased significantly.

Could you share more about the videos you watched to do it properly please? Thank you