Hairdresser here, Im sick to death of people saying our charges are disgusting
I run a small salon in the North ,all employed with 3 stylists and me, and 2 juniors, VAT is taken off before wages which are a huge chunk of the turnover ,
we pay amongst other things
£110 000 wages
£ 40.500 Rent
£ 12.000 rates
£ 5000 light and heatind
£ 2700 accountant fees
£4000 employers national insurance on top of wages
£1800 pension contributions
£1000 disposable towels and laundry
£3000 staff training
£2300 drinks and biscuits including hot chocolate and beer and G and T
£5000 per annumn card charges and bank charges
£ 3500 insurance
£35.00 for a singe roll of foil
£250 each for scissors
£190 for light hairdryers x 6
£1000 for all our GHDS
£ 600 per week on colours and stock take note !
£ 500 to empty 2 sanitary bins
£ 400 per year music licence
£950 cleaning produnts
£3600 IT ans salon software
£ 300 magazines
£repairs and maintenance £2/5 000 ish
£ 1000 advertising
£500 staff xmas gifts
£ 1000 general expenses such as loo roll ect
£ 2000 phones and internet
£100 monthly for business coach groups and training subscriptions
£15 ish for spotify
£ 1200 per annum for new CCTV as someone walked inn and stole my GHD stock
£ 700 per month paying back COVID BOUNCE BACK LOAN (finished in June hurah)
oh , and the £25 000 for the fancy massage chairs
£ 2000 each for the styling chairs
there are many other costs as well, the list is endless …. I cant remember them all
My profit last year was £ 49.000 of which the corporation tax bill was just over £13 000 , my wages come out of this.
we charge £140/ £180 for regurlar highlights, and up to £ 270 for balyage packages .
No doubt you will all think this is exorbitant,
Im fully booked 3 months ahead, and we have a waiting list for the balyage packages ,
I absolutely love my clients ,and will go out my way for them , but i raise my prices every year and feel no guilt .
Hair is expensive , but it is a luxury, not a necessity , and we do not owe anyone cheap hair, the inference that as a senior nurse you deserve more than us is frankly insulting, as our the comments about our prices being “disgusting”
The training courses we go on are up to £500 per stylist along with the train to london and hotel x 6 people
at least once a year.
We do training to be very good at what we do so we can charge properly to pay us what we need
You can always find cheap stylists who don't invest , this results in the posts on here you see by incompetent stylists turning out shoddy work .
We may not be as clever as some of you all seem to think , but im on my feet 10 hours a day , running a business and training up the juniors,
I have been brought in presents from clients al week , my staff get brought drinks and cakes in often by grateful clients
Im able to pay my stylists £17 /£20 per hour , well above the living wage, i could pay them less to keep more myself but that would not be right .
Historically hairdresser have been paid terribly, things are changing thankfully
The colours clients are asking for now are much more technical and take hours sometimes and use a lot of colour. Why would that cost only £50 ?
Why do some of you think we don't deserve paying properly ?
Those of you paying £ 60/70 for colours, i assure you that the stylist will be left with very little especially self employed with no holiday or sick pay
When you all talk about the cost of living being so high and hair is now unaffordable, do you consider that hairdressers have to pay more for things too?
Or does that not matter as long as you get cheap hair …
Why do you happily pay tradesmen £180 for a couple of hours work but complain about us ?
We charged way less before covid, the costs have risen hugely and many salons are closing, the national insurance hike has not helped.
We really do need to charge these prices
There are many options if you don't want to pay our prices
But thankfully for me many of my clients are !
Rant over