Is £40 a lot for cut and blow-dry at home?

[thatsgotit]

Hoping there are some mobile hairdressers out there, or clients of mobile hairdressers, who can advise as I'm really not sure what to think.

My elderly mother is more or less housebound and has a mobile hairdresser come to do her hair once a month. Her hair is very short. She has a wash/cut/blow dry, very simple, no styling products or anything. The hairdresser lives about 7 or 8 miles away I think, and I realise she has to factor petrol costs into her rates.

We're in the East Midlands.

She charges £40 for this and it just seems a bit steep to me considering she doesn't have the overheads of owning a salon. When I have my (long) hair cut and coloured at a salon it costs me in the region of £65, so £40 just for a cut and blow dry of very short hair seems a lot.

Am I out of touch? Perfectly happy to accept if I am, so hopefully no one will jump on me for asking this😄- I'm just asking because I'm wondering if we should shop around a bit or whether £40 is reasonable.

Thanks in advance.

That was what I was quoted when looking for a mobile hairdresser, if your mum likes her I wouldn't bother changing to save all of about £5.

I think that sounds pretty steep for a mobile hairdresser.

You are paying extra for the convenience of having a service at home, and the mobile hairdresser will not manage as many clients in a day as they will need to travel between appointments, plus the cost of fuel.

It sounds very reasonable!

Sounds fine to me. DSis is a hairdresser and she would charge that. A short cut is usually much more technically challenging with less margin for error than a long one, it's just the blow dry is quicker.

Way too much.

You're paying for the convenience.

The hairdresser needs to cover her fuel and the lost time spent traveling (when she's unable to book another client in).

The fee sounds reasonable to me.

I can’t believe you only pay £65 for yours - I think you have a massive bargain!

Steep for a mobile hairdresser on short hair, probably just an all over colour too

No colour - just the cut and blow dry.

Yikes. I think it’s a lot, but then everything’s gone up.

I paid £85 yesterday for a cut and full colour. Does this sound reasonable? I didn’t question it really given the cost of living but I did only pay £55 before the pandemic.

I think it's quite pricey but I'd expect a mobile hairdresser to have a minimum charge of say £30ph. In this case is it worth paying a little more of your mum is comfortable with the hairdresser in her home? I see a lot of posts where elderly parents are very resistant to strangers coming into the home.

I had a look at what my local barber charges(they do womens hair) and it's £20 for a 15 minute appointment so I assume that there's no hair washing.

TBF my hairdresser actually went under shortly after Covid, so maybe her prices were too low to be viable for her over the long term. Shame, as she was an amazing hairdresser.

Does your mums hairdresser have a name beginning with T?
If so it's my exes gf, she works in East Midlands.
I think £40 is absolutely fine, she has lots of costs to cover, also hairdressers were affected massively by the pandemic as they couldn't work OR be furloughed due to being self employed.

So when someone is paying it's pay rises for everyone. When it's you who's paying for that individuals time, expertise and overheads, wayyyy too expensive.

Blimey. If that was aimed at me, I did say I knew I might be out of touch. Not sure why there was any need to be snarky.

I think it’s a bit steep but obviously depends what prices are like in your area. I’m in the north west where it is usually a bit cheaper for things and I pay £17.50 for my hairdresser to come and do a cut and blow dry at my house which I think is very reasonable.

I'm in London but that sounds well cheap. You couldn't get a haircut in a salon round here for that cheap and I would pay extra for the convenience of it being at home.

Not aimed at you or anyone in particular. It's aimed at the double standards on these threads.

I was thinking the same. I pay £100+ for a colour cut and blow dry

It’s not cheap but not excessive either.

£5 fuel
£3 per client car/insurance
£1 per client liability insurance
£1 per client towards renewing scissors (insanely expensive), hairdryer, straighteners, brushes, combs, heat spray, hairspray, shampoo etc.

Then her time and expertise to cut the hair plus travel time.
From that she will be paying tax and pension contributions.

Everything is getting so expensive though, and many people are stretching out appointments by another week to save overall. I used to be every 5 weeks, now every 7.

It may be cheap for London, but it's not for the Midlands! I've recently changed from mobile to salon, I paid £17 for mobile, £40 in a good salon, I'm just outside the Midlands in the North East.

Having your hair done at home is generally cheaper than the salons - no nice person to shampoo your hair, no fancy teas and coffees, you have to clean up afterwards. The stylist keeps all of the money rather than having to pay a cut to the salon/chair rental so can charge less and keep more.

We have our hairdresser come and cut all of us on the same session, usually saves us a good 25% on going to the salon.

I pay £60 for mine - cut and colour (I have shoulder length hair). We're in Scotland.

Where I live it is 60 quid for a cut and blow dry in a salon so it sounds reasonable to me!