Things to consider....
I hesitated to write this for a long time, but now that I am currently unemployed (I'll get to that), I feel liberated enough to share this with everyone.
Ladies, gents, anyone and everyone who has ever gone to a salon for a service, whether for a haircut or color or massage, etc, please consider these things the next time you make your appointment:
-Our ability to afford living depends on YOU. Hourly wages in the salon industry are extremely rare, and the vast majority of stylists working are paying the establishment owner a weekly fee just to be there. So when you decide at the last minute to just "not go"? That cripples the person you were supposed to meet. Please, please, PLEASE give the salon at LEAST 24 hours notice so that time can be given to someone who will show! Trust me, we greatly appreciate the honesty and are much happier to work with you!
-Tip according to how your service actually was, and not by a percentage or your personal budget. A stylist's performance within a company is heavily weighted by their tips, which are seen as an indication of the stylist's success at being skilled as well as personable. So if your color was amazing, your haircut perfect, your skin glowing…a standard "great job!" tip is at least $10. And that's actually pretty low. On the flip side, if your experience was bad enough for you to feel it warrants a complaint, DO NOT TIP. Complaints are not handled with as much sincerity when the client tipped the stylist, since tips are seen as a reward for a job well done.
-Speaking of complaints: unless you legitimately felt insulted by the service provider, and that does include instances like "he/she wasn't paying attention to what they were doing" or "he/she rushed through so fast I found mistakes later", DO NOT FILE A COMPLAINT. Absolutely no one is perfect, so there WILL be errors made - TALK TO YOUR STYLIST, FOR PETE'S SAKE!!!! I cannot emphasize this enough. Haircut too short? Tell me. Color not right? Tell me. Missed a spot? Tell me. An average stylist will apologize, a good stylist will make it right, a great stylist will apologize, thank you for your feedback, encourage more of it, and correct the issue immediately (with the obvious exception of too short cuts, because science). Complaining just to get free services will not only NOT get you free services, it will negatively, and strongly so, impact the stylist being scammed.
-BRIDES. BRIDAL PARTY MEMBERS. RELATIVES OF THE BRIDE. READ. THE. CONTRACT. A high-end salon will have a VERY detailed contract, most especially regarding cancellation policies, that is followed to the letter with zero exceptions. Too often I have seen happy-go-lucky brides completely screw over their friends by scheduling services for their bridesmaids, make said BMs pay, and not let anyone know about the opt-out policies. Personal Example: A wedding party had been scheduled at least 6 months in advanced (I was told a year, to be honest), so this means the bride had discussed the contract with our coordinator and been told, and given in writing, the cancellation policies (in case a BM decided to do her own hair, etc). This particular salon required 48 hours in advance notice, with a 24 hour grace period because hey, stuff happens and we understand. The bride did not tell ANYONE she had scheduled hair and makeup for all her ladies, and she did not pay for anyone AT ALL. So when my BM declined having her makeup done because she couldn't afford such a luxury on her tight budget, she was screwed. By the contract that the bride, her friend, blatantly ignored, she had to pay the full amount whether she had me do her makeup or not. She complained, publicly, about this and could not grasp that her own friend would do such a thing to her, so she blamed us. (side note: I did not know the bride didn't pay for the makeup, so I was able to talk BM into letting me touch up and enhance what she was already doing. I felt a bit better knowing her money didn't go entirely to waste in the end)
-Your service provider is wicked intelligent, and in ways you may never be able to grasp. Stylists don't just "do hair". A cosmetology license requires intensive education in chemistry, anatomy, biology, psychology, and knife skills that could terrify a weak heart (shears are NOT to be messed with), all learned within 3-4 months and immediately applied to living people! I about slapped a radio when I heard the national list of "easiest jobs" and the #1 "Easiest Job in America" was hairstylist! ARE YOU KIDDING ME????
Imagine, if you will, getting up at 5am because you have to get ready for work, which means making sure you look like you stepped out of Vogue. You can't wear sneakers because you have to look fashionable, but you will be on your feet for at least 6-8 hours on tiled flooring. You HAVE to smile and be cheerful with EVERYONE. You also have to suddenly become psychic, because almost every client who sits in that spinny chair will change their mind and/or have no idea what they want…but heaven help you if you don't do it right. The average customer will also lie to you about their hair/skin/nails which could potentially result in a chemical disaster. Did you know that hair can BOIL? Oh, it can and it will if a new client lies about their permed hair so they can get those highlights they HAVE to have. But again, if that happens, it's your fault. And don't depend on tips to get you through the week, since it is now standard for salons to put all debit/credit tips on your paycheck and guess what? According to my last 6 paystubs since that started, tips and taxes are EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT. Unless your clients tip with cash, YOU WILL NEVER SEE THOSE ELECTRONIC TIPS. Unless you're not doing so well in this business, in which case that once-a-year refund MIGHT reimburse you for being so impoverished.
So after a long, long day of treating clients like royalty and starving yourself since there is almost never time to eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you still have to clean every strand of hair from every corner and crevice from your station, chair, and the rest of the building. Disinfection of your tools, laundry, maintenance, accounting, reminder calls….gotta get those done, too. And if you forget something, another stylist will be sure to let you know how you failed because despite the industry motto of "teamwork", such a concept is not grasped by all. So after hours of pretending everything is utterly fantastic in the universe, you finally get to go home. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Potentially a meeting with the owner who received a complaint from a client who had insanely long, thick hair but felt the balayage you did took too long and was "too light" despite her constant worries that it would be "too dark like last time with another stylist".
Sorry about the long post, I just…. I lost my job at a prestigious salon only, and I do mean ONLY, because I wasn't making commission and the owner could not afford to pay me hourly. Why wasn't I making commission after 8 months of extensive training, an established loyal client base, and some of the largest retail numbers anyone has brought in?
Because people scheduled expensive services with me and then just never showed up. People looking for "freebies" created complaints about my work, despite other stylists confirming I did everything the client wanted (we work within hearing range of each other, trust me, we're always listening). Other stylists so terrified of losing their commission, they started blaming me when their own clients made errors in scheduling. I was placed on restrictions to "save me" from these situations, which meant I couldn't take call-ins or walk-ins for three months, which is how we pad our books for a solid income. Were there things I could have done better? Definitely. Did they warrant my termination, or even factor into it at all? No. My boss felt horrible for letting me go, but she was bound by the numbers and they did not add up in my favor.
So please, think about these things the next time you need a haircut or want a color, etc. You could be helping a mother feed her children, a widow pay her mortgage, a recent graduate balance loan payments with rent….or you can completely and utterly ruin their career with no-shows, mixed messages, and general selfishness. I am an anthropologist and graduate student as well as a fully licensed cosmetologist, whose current apartment is scheduled to be demolished, and a new mother trying to be there for her family. And I just lost my only source of income because I was "just another airhead stylist" to just the right amount of people.
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