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Ladies: Tipping at Hair Salons
Let me start by saying I paid my way through college by waitressing tables. I understand this job and I tip waitstaff very well. I also tip waitstaff based on the quality of the service I receive. If it’s really exceptional, an exceptional tip is given. If service is just okay, I’ll still tip, but there’s a quality scale. Many in modern society feel TIPS are meant “to insure prompt service”, after all. If that’s not what I got, then I’m not paying as much.
Do I resent tipping at restaurants? No.
This is in part because I know that waitstaff would not even make minimum wage without tips because compensation is driven by gratuity. (I think I made $2.01 per hour for years, which created a check from which the government could easily deduct taxes for my tip income.)
I also understand why waitstaff get a lot more per a large check in a fine dining establishment. That’s because their tables don’t roll quickly like they do in a diner. (I’ve worked in both sorts of restaurants so I am super familiar with the different workloads.) Also, the waitstaff at a fine dining place will tip out bartenders and busboys to ensure they get the help they need to fill the drinks of those twenty business people at one table who are all on expense accounts while attending a convention.
It’s a whole system, and I know how it works, so I don’t mind the system.
But now there are many other places that “require” tipping that I’m going to admit are making me resentful, and I don’t even know the logic as every coffee joint and sandwich place seems to have a tip jar by the cash register.
Call me cheap, but I think the “service” is baked into the $7 latte, right? If I order at a counter and have to go back to a soda fountain to fill my own drink, why should I give a tip? Because someone gave me the food that was being sold like they do every day at McDonald’s?
Those sorts of employees make a regular wage, unlike waitstaff, so the tips don’t serve the same purpose.
But here’s the kicker, and I think this one impacts women more than men. (This is not because men don’t go to salons, but women are often charged more at salons because we have more hair and more complicated services.)
How much do you tip at a salon?
Per an article I just read for guidance, the tip should always be %20 on the service.
Okay.
Well, I just got my hair colored and cut last night. This was $255 plus an additional $20 for more hair dye because, apparently, my hair is “thirsty” and absorbed the color quickly. That left me with a tab of $275.
The service took about 2 1/2 hours with thirty minutes of that involving me sitting there with the dye on my hair.
Many stylists at upscale salons are paid half the ticket, so that means my stylist theoretically made $137.50 before tip.
I am not going to count the thirty minutes I sat in a chair because someone could give someone else a haircut in that timeframe, so the stylist was working for me for two hours. She, therefore, theoretically made $68.75 per hour before tip.
Now I add $55 to the tab per the %20 rule. The stylist then made $96.25 per hour.
I understand being a good hairstylist requires skill, but I have two masters degrees, and I do not make anywhere near that kind of cash.
You may say, “Go to a cheaper salon!” But I live in a city in which this is what it costs to have one’s hair colored, and that’s really not the point.
If I paid $100 for the service, I’d probably feel a lot better about the %20, but it takes the same amount of time to color my hair in an upscale salon or a place in the mall, so why is this tip based on a percentage? (As I said, there really is a difference in fine dining versus greasy spoon.)
Am I being ridiculous here?
I do understand that some stylists do not get half of their tickets. They work for a base salary and then get tips, but I am still paying a pretty hefty fee for the time in the salon, whoever gets the cash-ola.
I also know the margins on food in restaurants is very small, so that’s why the compensation structure for waitstaff is set up the way that it is set up.
Is that really the case in a salon when I used to dye my own hair for $20 per the box I got from the grocery store?
What do you all think is actually reasonable to pay at a salon apart from what “etiquette experts” say. (Apparently, you should tip more than 20% at Christmas!!!)
Does anyone know how this industry works that would make me feel less like I’m just getting ripped off?
Currently, I let my roots often grow out to the point that I sometimes look like a secretary in a house of ill repute mostly because I dread standing at a cash register doing mental math and feeling resentful because it seems I’ve already paid a lot for what I’ve gotten, and they always want more.
Kinda like the government.
Published in Culture
I do steal my husband’s razors and put them in the shower. He’s not always pleased. :)
Freeven (View Comment):
Lois Lane (View Comment):
Wasn’t it Bill Clinton who had something like a $400 haircut in the 1990s that created a stir?
It doesn’t matter to me because I’m pretty sure he writes the checks without expensing that sort of thing, but I wonder what Donald Trump pays for haircuts?
—————-
How in the world do you get to that conclusion, @freeven? He might be a great tipper!
Anyway, I don’t care if someone loves or hates the president. He’s got some interesting hair, and he’s a billionaire.
Also, a student told me in class today that she liked my new hair color.
I said, “Thanks, but what do you think about my new bangs?”
She paused for half a sec, then said, “They’ll grow back.”
Oi!!!!
:)
It’s not so much a conclusion as a recognition that Orange Man Bad is the new 42: the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
It is worth noting that some people’s white hair requires treatments to remove a variety of yellow that no one mistakes for blond.
Having paid intense attention to the televised explanations, it is clear that the ladies’ stuff is specialer because it is made especially for them. Stuff made for men is less special. Shampoo, deodorant, soap, toothpaste, scissors, …. All special.
I have not yet seen ladies’ motor oil, but it is surely coming, no? They could probably tack a few extra bucks onto the price.
[If I wanted to make up a plausible story, I might claim that the hairs of men’s beards are tougher than the hairs of women’s legs, so the mighty multiple blades targeted to men are harsher than needed for the ladies. Problem is, the lighter blades (if such were true) should be less expensive, not more. So I guess we are back to ‘because they can get away with it’ as an explanation; so, why don’t you just buy the men’s stuff and save money?]
Surely someone’s making a pink razor for men.
So I just went to a dairy farm with some kids in my family. We had a grand time, but we learned some interesting things about billy goats. There was this very handsome one with gorgeous blue eyes and a long white beard. Except the beard looked yellow. My niece was going to pet him, and our guide said NO! Apparently–and this, of course, does not apply to human ladies–the billy goat seems to have streaks of gold in his face because he likes to stick his head in urine streams. Supposedly, this lovely perfume makes him more attractive to the lady goats. It’s like perfume.
We learn something new every day! :)
Well, as I said, I often steal my husband’s. I guess I fall into the marketing? I guess I keep thinking.. maybe because it’s more expensive it’s better???? I guess I do like pink???
Clearly, I’m a sucker.
That made me laugh. Surely this is true! Pink used to be, after all, the “male” color. If I remember something correctly from an old class on gender that I thought was actually interesting–most of it bored me–these colors switched places in great part because of those paintings “Pinkie” and “Blue Boy.” Before then, “feminine” and “masculine” associations were exactly opposite.
The word ‘tip’ does not derive from an acronym*, and came into this kind of usage in England c. the 1600s. Originally it was probably in the ‘top’ sense from Old Norse.
My understanding is that the people who worked for tips got no wages at all, and were the low classes who would wait for ‘the rich’ to need their bags moved to or from carriages and had to hope for something that was closer to alms than pay (though if they already had your bags there might be an implied hostage situation).
In our mostly classless American society tipping is an Old World custom that came over with rats and other invasive species but has found a home nonetheless.
It is certainly appropriate in – and built into – the restaurant industry. I am reluctant to tip just any old barista, though I do over tip the people at my specific coffee shop. Not because of promptness of service but because, I suppose, I like being liked. And remembered.
While I would never write a tipping guide for America – as tipping is not traditional per se – to my mind tipping is more about giving extra to someone you have an actual relationship with than bribing someone you’ve just met to not treat you poorly; a thank you to a friend rather than a please to a stranger.
Your mileage will vary because we’re still making it up as we go along.
If you liked this advice and want to fund me, my patreon account is….
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*Acronyms are almost always 20th century and military in origin.
But…but they’re not pink! And they don’t have daisies molded into the handle.
They can’t possibly be safe.
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So NOT news to be used?
Very interesting. Perhaps it was my first boss–an older lady with a big bun on top of her head, the type of woman who had a kind heart but shiny shoes and a disposition that tolerated little nonsense because she had survived a lot of it–told me the acronym thing to get me moving???? I certainly liked good tips and was a decent waitress.
Trump never tips his hair stylist…but he does pay hush money.
And this turns the whole concept of tipping on its head.
Wait. No. You’ve got your billionaires mixed up. That one’s Michael Bloomberg.
There are a lot of words that are falsely claimed to be acronyms – there is a very popular word that begins with f, for example.
I could have written an economics paper on this way back when if I had only thought about it like this. While the tradition (such as it is) is that owners set their own price and get the profits, so tipping is not relevant, the instinctive need of a college student to be somewhat controversial impels me to point out that there are two income streams here. The owner’s profits can be considered the return on capital. If he hires himself, he should follow all the rules as for other employees, so tipping would be appropriate. It should help keep him from being condescending to customers, so is in the best interest of the business as well.
Whatever the custom is, that assumption is baked into the price you’re charged and the revenue-sharing relationship between the stylist and the business. When you deviate from the custom (is it 20%?), you short-change someone. If the custom changed so that tips are not paid for hair-dying services, then the prices would increase, probably by 20%.
Have you noticed how restaurants helpfully calculate tips for you right on the bill? Fifteen percent, twenty percent, twenty-five percent. Never three percent. And calculated on top of the tax, even! Ever wonder why they do that? The owner knows that tips paid to his employees ultimately benefit him, too. People figure tips in to their decision-making.
It might be a more rational world if tipping weren’t a part of complex hair-care procedures, but what are you gonna do?
I never tip coffee people. Come on.
tl;dr Things cost what they cost.
Haircuts are not going to be a big part of my life that much longer. I found a nice, young Vietnamese lady who has her own shop (hey, Hien!). Whatever she charges for a haircut, I tip her that amount again. Makes me feel like a big shot. And I like to think she might extend the head-massage with the conditioner a moment longer, but who really knows. Anyway, it definitely isn’t two hundred bucks, so I’m not recommending that approach. Just sharing.
Tipping at 100%? Your hair lady wants you to keep your hair forever! :)
I agree with tips being baked into the restaurant cake. The hair thing feels newer and gotten higher.
Why isn’t the same logic apply to coffee?
Well… if so she’s fighting a losing battle. ;)
Let me push back a little. Tipping hair stylists may be newer, I’ll defer to you on that, and the amounts are obviously substantial when you’re talking about complex procedures. I get why you’re raising the point. But do you disagree that something like a 20% tip is “customary” at this point? There’s nothing in the logic that differentiates new customs from old ones. If it isn’t customary, then a big tip is icing on the cake — truly a reward for good service. But if it is customary, then the “baked-in-ness” is the same as for restaurants. No?
Why doesn’t the same logic apply to coffee. Let’s see…. I started out to give you a technical explanation about how some coffee places make tipping easy and others don’t and how there’s no difference between good and bad coffee service. But the truth is, I don’t because I don’t. I’m going to take the bull by the horns and be completely rational in my irrationality.
Uber added the option to tip drivers. I regard this as an insult to the spirit of the enterprise. I usually end up tipping, but with a grudge.
(When I get a glimpse of my own psychology, I’m not always impressed with what I find.)
If I use valet parking, I would like to tip the attendant. But who carries cash anymore?
We go to many restaurants where the pre-calculated tip is before tax. I appreciate that as I always tip on the before tax amount.
I guess I’m not really sure about tipping at salons because it wasn’t really as clearly defined for me when growing up… or even now.
I mean, I don’t know when it became “custom” to leave another $60 on top of an already expensive service in a salon because the pay structure in those places is not the same as in restaurants.
I’m not even sure when %20 became a “standard tip” instead of an ”amazing tip.” (That applies to every industry.)
I’m not sure that women *do* tip this across the board at nearly the same rate that they tip at restaurants.
It all just makes my stomach hurt.
I agree that knowing what the custom is isn’t always so easy.
You might expect tips to increase as a percentage of the bill over time, as wages increase as a fraction of the total cost of a thing.
[Math warning]
The real price of, say, beef has dropped by 50% since 1970, whereas real compensation has increased by a similar percentage. If in 1970 a $10 restaurant bill was half stuff and half labor (I’m making those percentages up), then a 10% tip was a 20% bump to the labor portion. (I.e., labor is $5, the tip is $1/$5=20%.) In 2019, that bill would still be $10 in 1970 dollars (0.5x$5=$2.50 for the stuff, 1.5x$5=$7.50 for the labor — labor is now 75% of the total). But a 10% tip would be only a 13% bump to the labor portion. (I.e., the labor is $1/$7.50=13%.)
This all assumes that the productivity of cooks, busboys, and waiters hasn’t changed much, which seems reasonable.
Now, maybe tips should be based on absolute dollars, not percentage of wages. I don’t know. And I have no idea how this relates to hair stylists. I’m just saying that the implicit assumption that the percentage should be constant over time may not be valid.
Waves hi.
Then there is no limit to the tip hike that will eventually happen? I’m going to have to some day pay a 50% tip on top of a haircut that has also gone up over time?
I’ve been going to my hairdresser longer than I’ve been married – maybe 40 years now. Got her through her cancer treatment and she did my hair for my wedding and my son’s wedding. One of the reasons I really don’t want to move (even to be near grandchildren) is I would have to find another hairdresser – or commute 2 hours each way. I figure if I do have to find a new hairdresser it will probably be as traumatic as getting divorced and getting back into the dating scene. So I tip her a good amount (over 20 %) and give the hair washer a tip separately. She’s one of the owners so I don’t give her anything extra for that. Thanks for the great post. I think JAMES LILEKS ought to consider this for post of the week.
It is amazing how attached we can get to people who just do this particular job right as hair can be really, really important
After that many years though, that sort of person—especially at a familiar salon where everyone has been going for a long time—is as much friend as worker. They know a person’s family and even provide a bit of “free” therapy.
Though just as a side note…. there’s another job that tends to a person’s well being, ie provides a personal service, that doesn’t automatically come with a 20% up charge… unless, of course, some clever therapist comes up with the idea of putting out a tip jar???? :).
Thanks for the kind words. It sounds like you’ve got a great stylist.