MetaChat - How much do you guys pay for a haircut?

Mine is usually about US$16. That includes the tip.

posted by fallenposters 26 July | 07:22

I live in New Orleans and pay: $11.00 plus $2.00 tip equals $13.00. (I went to college for the ability to do higher math.)

posted by govtdrone 26 July | 07:25

£10-£15 ... have paid as much as £30.

I need to go somewhere swanky and have it done. My hair is very hard to cut and everyone fucks it up... except people who are real pros.

I've grown so tired of this that I have started growing it long again.

Wanna see? I look like a goofball.

posted by chuckdarwin 26 July | 07:38

My husband pays around 15 euros at a regular barber, not a salon.

posted by taz 26 July | 07:46

Nothing. I cut it myself and spend the savings I make on tobacco and alcohol.

posted by seanyboy 26 July | 07:51

usually £25 ($50) and I don't go as often as I should...

posted by altolinguistic 26 July | 07:55

$59 USD.

That's a lot, but I tend to get haircuts a lot less often than most folks. Maybe once every three months. And my stylist is really good at taming my hair once it hits what I call the "Doc Brown" stage.

posted by grabbingsand 26 July | 07:57

About $15 including tip.

posted by plinth 26 July | 07:57

Aside from the occasional $200 haircut on the tarmac at LAX, I'm pretty much on the seanyboy plan.

posted by box 26 July | 08:00

I get mine cut by a Kosovan barber—I do prefer it when the hair-butcher and I don’t share a common language, but, alas, he does speak a little English: it costs about 120 SEK (€13 US$18 £9).

posted by misteraitch 26 July | 08:01

I cut my own hair. It takes 2 to 3 minutes every two weeks. Literally takes longer to get the equipment out and put it back afterward, than it does to do a haircut.

posted by paulsc 26 July | 08:05

Hee! Why is that misteraitch? I used to feel the same way, back when I got professional cuts - but that's because I'm a woman, and the hairdressers seemed to feel that they had to "pamper" and flatter me as part of the hair "experience", which just irritated me and made me feel extremely uncomfortable.

My fave was the guy who worked on his own, instead of in a salon, who would come to our house, cut my hair, my husband's hair, and our neighbor's hair, all the while smoking weed, drinking whiskey, and telling us outrageous stories of his zany exploits around the world. For like $12 apiece. He was purely wonderful. Now I just get my husband to do a straight trim, and let it go.

posted by taz 26 July | 08:12

£45 for a cut and another £45 if I have highlights. Par for the course in an upmarket salon in 'Footballer's Wives' country.

posted by essexjan 26 July | 08:13

$20, but the salon I go to doesn't accept tips. They compensate by paying the stylists more.

posted by tr33hggr 26 July | 08:14

paulsc: You cut your hair with *that*????

What happened to good old fashioned clippers.
I'm saying nothing more, but this face... this face I'm pulling now. The one that seems stuck between fear and confusion. That's what I'm feeling right this minute.

posted by seanyboy 26 July | 08:16

$0. Unless you divide the cost of my clippers by the number of haircuts I've had, in which case the cost of a haircut (and every haircut up till now) is decreasing with each one.

Oh, and my clippers have a vacuum built-in. No mess!

posted by mike9322 26 July | 08:22

Taz—I don’t much enjoy haircut chitchat; at least with this chap it’s limited & (usually) predictable: first he asks me how long I’ve been in Sweden, and, second, he announces his plans to move somewhere else (variously to England, the US, or back to Kosovo). Once or twice he has attempted to talk about current affairs: developments in the Balkans, or the situation in Northern Ireland, but these conversations tend to get stuck at the limits of his poor English & my pidgin Swedish.

posted by misteraitch 26 July | 08:24

Wait, wait, wait ... 'Footballer's Wives' country.

You mean they really do exist? I always thought they were just tarted-up nonsense pandering to gullible Americans.

posted by grabbingsand 26 July | 08:25

Hrm, with cutting, highlights and tip I pay over $200. And then I don't ever bother to style it properly. Which is typical for me.

posted by gaspode 26 July | 08:25

"paulsc: You cut your hair with *that*????"

Yep. Works great. Only thing I ever bought off a TV ad that works just as advertised. Fast, accurate, no mess, no stray hair, cool & clean. You can cut your hair in your suit and tie, if you decide you need a trim at the last minute. Don't even need a mirror. No chance of screwing up, once you work out what spacers you want to use for your hair and style.

posted by paulsc 26 July | 08:26

misteraitch, you and I are on the same page. Haircut chitchat sucksucks.

posted by taz 26 July | 08:38

Costs me $35 US, with tip, which is easily half what this particular salon could charge in this market.

posted by crush-onastick 26 July | 08:50

Usually about $20, with tip; I get it shampooed and cut, minimal styling. I like getting my scalp massaged.

I never really understood why men go into supercuts to get "1 on the sides, 2 on top". Can't they do that themselves?

posted by muddgirl 26 July | 08:52

My place is in the 30-40 dollar range, although it seems to get more expensive every time I go.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 26 July | 09:11

80 bucks and 15 dollar tip for color, highlights, and cut. It should probably be around 150, but the owner and stylist are friends. I think I was grandfathered in at this low-low rate a long time ago.

I cut my husband's hair, or he does, and I shave his hairy neck regularly. He's bald and so very handsome. He hasn't paid for a haircut since I don't know when.

posted by LoriFLA 26 July | 09:13

Another vote for the crank patrol (cutting your own hair is one of the top ten signs that you are a crank).

posted by Capn 26 July | 09:22

LoriFLA, mr.FLA is vavavavoom! And you make cute kids. Good work!

posted by taz 26 July | 09:26

grabbingsand, I live in what they call the 'golden triangle' in Essex. There's lots of footballers (West Ham, Spurs and Arsenal) live round here, as well as a number of soap stars (EastEnders or The Bill). Oh, and Jade Goody.

So all the normal shops in our little area have gone, replaced with countless hairdressers, nail bars, shoe/handbag shops, designer boutiques, florists, estate agents, two designer wedding studios and a huge Botox clinic.

My nearest store, about 1/4 mile from my home, sells sex toys, exotic lingerie and hardcore DVDs. Very useful (not) if you run out of milk or bread - it's a major expedition to buy food round here. But 'Michelle Fashions' (as it is called) usually has some very fetching little Santa-ette costumes at Christmas, as well as other seasonal and themed window displays. I think it's 'doctors and nurses' this week, judging from the various exotic medical-type outfits and enema kits in the window.

posted by essexjan 26 July | 09:30

Thanks taz! I think your husband is ooh la la. I saw a pic of him you posted a while back.

Paulsc, I have to get the Flowbee. My nephew has autism and freaks and screams as if his arm was being amputated without anesthesia. This is when his mother and I cut it, not a barber. The barber shop would bounce us right out of there. He'll probably be traumatized with the Flowbee too, but at least it's a no - brainer. Vacuum to the head.

I think it's 'doctors and nurses' this week, judging from the various exotic medical-type outfits and enema kits in the window.

Hah! essexjan!

posted by LoriFLA 26 July | 09:34

I pay $12 to the Russian man across the street. I don't tip him, as he's the proprietor. We exchange pleasantries every morning and evening, and every few months he makes me look like Yuri Gagarin.

posted by Hugh Janus 26 July | 09:41

Last time I went, it cost $200. That was in September 06 and included cut, highlights, lowlights, color and god only knows what else: it took all day. Obviously I cannot afford to do this more than once a year so I've been ignoring my hair ever since. I could get just a cut for $50 but lately I can't afford that either, sigh.

However, this evening I am going to Sally Beauty Supply and I am going to dye the hell out of my hair for the first time in a year. Look out, world! I'm thinking stripes! I'm thinking fuchsia, blue and auburn! Possibly some blonde too! Yeah! It is time!

posted by mygothlaundry 26 July | 09:52

My last three haircuts - since I moved - have been for $20, more than 15% tip included. My hairdresser insisted on taking off three or four inches, saying it was all damaged, so it's much shorter than my hair has been for years - a longish, layered bob. But I've never gotten so many compliments on a haircut.

posted by Orange Swan 26 July | 09:56

I pay about 15-20 bucks (including tip) every six months or so, and I don't really want to fucking talk too much during the process, thanks.

posted by Divine_Wino 26 July | 09:58

I don't really want to fucking talk too much

That's why I go to the Russian's. Stoic motherfucker.

posted by Hugh Janus 26 July | 10:02

You know what sucks shit? Having my hair washed in one of those torture sinks they have in the expensive joints, and then being charged for the pain they caused and then tipping the hair-washer separately. They're like, "Are you comfortable?" and I'm sweating and gritting my teeth, and I growl, "Get it over with, you monster." Those seats must be made for somebody, but it sure ain't me.

posted by Hugh Janus 26 July | 10:10

But I've never gotten so many compliments on a haircut.

piccy?

That's why I go to the Russian's. Stoic motherfucker.

The Russians and the Kosovans don't yap too much, apparently, while applying the knife; perhaps a former Soviet Bloc thing. Must seek this out.

yeah, I loved our guy who used to regale us with weird and wonderful stories, but that was him talking to entertain himself and us... not that awful usual tete-a-tete (yes! pun!) that is normally required/expected/delivered.

posted by taz 26 July | 10:11

$50 plus tip. I've followed the same stylist through 7 different salons over the last 13 years. It takes someone about a year to learn how to cut my hair, so I tend to stick with them.

posted by matildaben 26 July | 10:14

I love talking to my hairdresser. He's British and adorable and we talk about politics and music and the club scene in NY in the eighties and all the drugs we used to to do and have a great old time.

posted by mygothlaundry 26 July | 10:19

I useta go to an old German guy with great hands, who didn't talk at all, until one day, he pointed at his old crony, who was sitting there as always, reading the newspaper and coughing in German, and said slowly, "He iss a malingerer. A ma-ling-ger-errrr."

posted by Hugh Janus 26 July | 10:19

To do. Not to to do. Those are either the drugs that are yet remaining to be done or the result of all those damn drugs. One or the other.

posted by mygothlaundry 26 July | 10:20

we talk about politics and music and the club scene in NY in the eighties and all the drugs we used to to do and have a great old time.

I could talk like that, mgl, and enjoy it if there was a real rapport, but the ones who have to be all icky and drooly must die.

I actually had one guy saying something (as he washed my hair/massaged my scalp) like, "mmm, I bet that feels good, doesn't it? Doesn't that feel good? Isn't this nice? mmm. mmm." Creepiest thing ever, and, I think, the last time I ever went to a salon... so many years ago, that, well... some of you are younger.

posted by taz 26 July | 10:29

I once had this horrible woman clean my ears before cutting my hair.

(embarrassing)

posted by Pips 26 July | 10:39

Not to mention the fact that my head was basically at his crotch-level, and I can't be certain, but I think he was doing all this porno noise for me. Like, what? I was going to pay $40 to get my head somewhere in the vicinity of this guy's crotch and hear him say "mmm. mmm."? Like I didn't have 20 billion chances to do this any other way? And this would build customer loyalty or something?

ugh. ugh.

almost as bad, pips. She and he are roommates in hell.

posted by taz 26 July | 10:45

$20 (including tip) at Lindsay Station in Chicago. Lori's the best. She's also a chatterbox, but I don't mind.

posted by eamondaly 26 July | 10:45

The torture sink, god I hate that. That's why I only go to the barber, never a "hair salon". Fuck off with that neck pinching boiling hot water piece of shit.

posted by Divine_Wino 26 July | 10:49

I pay $60, and usually tip $15-20. I just found a hairdresser that I love; my last guy didn't talk at all, really, which was fine with me except I started to get this weird creeping feeling that he was bored with both me and my hair. So in my typical conflict-avoidant way, I just changed salons.

My new guy is great -- talks a lot and asks a lot of questions, but not really in a small-talk sort of way. It feels like a real conversation, where he tells me about what he's been doing and what his friends are doing and the restaurants he's gone to and then he'll ask my advice or actually listen when I respond with stories of my own rather than giving me the feeling that he's not really paying attention and just thinks we *should* be talking. And it was like that on my first visit, it's not like we know each other very well.

He's also willing to make suggestions about what I should do with my hair, which I appreciate, since I normally just show up when it's grown out enough to look totally ragged and just say, "Fix this, please. I don't really care how."

I really want to get highlights but do not feel like I could afford the upkeep. I think the last time I did them, it was a $300 salon bill.

posted by occhiblu 26 July | 11:06

The ancient barbers up the hill charge $11 for a haircut. I tip them $5 for not dying during my haircut.

posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson 26 July | 11:09

Before I went to the curly hair place, I had a few inches chopped off every so often at Astor Place for $13, but the last time I was there, I saw employees being harassed. The curly hair place was 10 times that, but I'm happy with what they did...no products pushed; I wasn't told I "needed" highlights (no, YOU want to make more money!) etc. I need to go back...but it won't be until September.

posted by brujita 26 July | 11:09

$60 plus ~$15 tip for shampoo, cut, & style.

I was going every 6 weeks but it was getting expensive so I've decided to grow my hair out.

posted by small_ruminant 26 July | 11:19

My wife cuts it. Bitchin'

posted by signal 26 July | 11:58

I used to go to a barber in my old town, and still do occasionally. 15 years ago, she charged $11 dollars, and I was always so happy that I added a lavish tip. In recent years, her price increased, as they must: ooooh, $13 dollars.

She has mostly male clientele, and takes no appointments, so I'll come to town, zip over to her shop, pick a chair and sit reading Esquire with the guys while I wait.

I love going to her. It's so relaxed. We spend one or two sentences settling the haircut --- "shorter, like to here" or "longer" or "choppier" --- and then catch up. She tells me about her kids, her sculpture classes, bands she's seen...

But now I live in a town an hour up the coast, and I make the trip south less and less frequently, so I've been resorting to occasional haircuts at the Haircutz-R-Us places you see in strip malls. I pay about $16 dollars plus a good tip, and am perfectly happy with my hair, but I hate the time I spend in the chair.

I don't have Hair Vocabulary, so I don't know how to ask for the cut I want. Also, I don't have a lot of general chit-chat: I don't watch much TV and I don't want to talk about my private life with strangers. These seem to be the default topics among the stylists I've encountered.

But I can always get them talking about themselves, which is fun. The last woman who cut my hair had previously worked selling steaks door-to-door. She had some good stories, and gave me a saucy bob. I'm asking for her next time.

posted by Elsa 26 July | 12:16

When my hair was short I used to go to a woman who specialised in short haircuts, and always cut it just right. Then after my divorce I decided to grow it and didn't have it cut for a couple of years.

When it's long, it's curly/wavy. I went back to her for a tidy-up and it ended very, um, Eighties. Thankfully it was fine when I washed it, and I gave her one more chance with it but she just couldn't do long hair. Her prices were reasonable-ish, but the last time she cut it, she charged £25. And it's a 10-mile drive and I have to pay to park.

So I bit the bullet, decided to pay a bit more and found my lovely bitchy gossipy Richard who adores me for the Sky Mall magazines I bring in for him from my US trips and my lack of 'preciousness' amongst the footballer's wives. We talk about Top Model, Project Runway, the latest As Seen On TV products, skincare ... He's my best girlfriend.

posted by essexjan 26 July | 12:50

Usually about $20 with tip at my barber.

posted by jjb 26 July | 13:39

I can't believe cortex hasn't answered this question yet.

posted by iconomy 26 July | 13:57

I once had this horrible woman clean my ears before cutting my hair.

Are we talking in depth wax removal like they do in Japan, or a sort of "oh my gawd, your ears are filthy!" scrub with a wash cloth? 'Cause I would pay good money for the former, if the girls at my salon started doing it.

I pay about 20-30 including tip for a shampoo and a cut. The higher end of that includes a few cuts where I was talked into buying product as well (never looked right on me). My place does nice cuts, and getting my hair washed by a pretty young thing is perfect training for the dirty old man I hope to someday become, without doing anything that breaks my marriage vows.

posted by Lentrohamsanin 26 July | 15:22

Wow, Lentrohamsanin, that's very peculiar. Also, I wonder why they mostly have brown hair? Is it the fashion these days in Japan?

posted by sectorsf 26 July | 15:59

When I travel abroad, I enjoy getting my hair cut. I like the language barrier, I like exploiting the economic disparaties, I like fetishizing the secret barber knowledge that these poor savages must posess (which has no doubt been lost to us with our computers and our mochaccinos). I got a $2 haircut from a squinter who shared his "salon" with an auto mechanic in Chaing Mai, and I had to show him a photograph of myself from soon after my prior haircut (which luckily my girlfriend at the time had with her) in order to get to the right length. I got a fantastic haircut from a leering Portuguese man in Boston, whose chubby wife kept asking me lustily about my beard.
"You must be quite a man, yes?" she'd say, while stroking it, as her husband stropped the razor. When he was done shaving it off, he said "Not so much a man anymore."
My regular barber, for a few years until his dwindling health and his ever-increasing prices forced a parting of ways, was an Italian named Eddie, who peered from behind giant glasses, and barely spoke, preferring to focus all of his energy on holding his cigarette between his lips, ash slowly floating down onto the crown of my head. The other regular barber there was good too, and looked exactly like Dom Delouise, and while he knew more than any other man I've ever met about the physics and engineering of hair, he was too talkative for me to ever relish climbing into his chair.
But the most foreign haircut may have been when I was moving my grandmother's stuff up from outside of Tampa, where I got a fine haircut from a stripmall Supercuts off business I-10. The shop was all y'alls and florescence; my parents were sure that I was going to get some butchered mullet. But I fell back on what I used to tell barbers when I was a young, perhaps overly serious child, that I wanted a "businessman haircut," and they lopped off a couple years of high school ponytail in dead, sweating silence.

I think that one cost me $8.

posted by klangklangston 26 July | 16:15

I pay £3.50 (that's tree fiddy) at The Barber's Daughters, which is indeed run by the daughters of a barber. He is quite chatty when he visits, but they are happy with minimal conversation if that is how I am feeling.

This weekend I shall however be getting a Venezualan style cut, whatever that means. Toma reggaeton!

posted by asok 26 July | 17:16

God, paulsc, I would never have believed that anyone actually used one of those contraptions more than once.

Since I surrendered to the fact that all my hair is going to fall out and decided to just keep it super-short (if I have to start brushing it, it's way too long), I bought a set of clippers and my partner trims it, so the cost is clippers ($24.95) divided by number of haircuts (yet to be determined) they last for. I used to pay $13 for a barber (a woman from an unknown east european country) to do it until I got smart. she also cut my son's hair for the first time, taking him from a cute, curly-haired angel into a handsome boy complete with short-back-and-sides-and-spiked-up-on-top-with-gel in a matter of minutes - nearly broke his poor mother's heart when she saw what had happened to her baby.

I always hated it when people cutting my hair tried to engage me in conversation, but I hate talking to people at the best of times, so that's nothing unusual. Just cut my hair and shut the fuck up - if I want to pay someone for conversation, I'll go to a hooker.

posted by dg 26 July | 18:49

Science Girl cuts my hair, so I guess I pay by being a halfway decent guy, mowing the lawn every now and again, and cooking from time to time. Plus, no extraneous small talk. Sometimes we talk about whatever we were discussing before she got the shears out, but usually I stay quiet and let her focus on making my lumpy head look somewhat symmetrical.

posted by bmarkey 26 July | 20:03

"God, paulsc, I would never have believed that anyone actually used one of those contraptions more than once. ..."

I'm not vain in the least, but it's not a bad haircut as far as I'm concerned, and it beats sitting in chairs waiting for a stylist, and paying $15+ every 2 weeks. It's also very, very consistent, because of the vacuum/plastic spacer combination, but this is also the reason the device doesn't work well on very curly hair.

Because I can cut my hair frequently, I like not ever looking really shaggy, or like I just got a haircut, or that I got a haircut from someone who didn't know what they were doing. My head's too lumpy and scarred for a buzz cut, and in the back, if a stylist unfamiliar with my head isn't careful, I have hair sticking out at all kinds of weird angles for weeks, but that never happens with the Flowbee. I also use it to cut my brother's hair, so together, we save about $60 a month on haircuts, with much greater convenience than having to go to a barber. In the 10 years I've been doing this, I've probably saved something like $5,000+ in barber fees.

That's a decent used car, where I live.

posted by paulsc 26 July | 21:19

Umm, late to the conversation, but for what it's worth, I've not had my hair cut since I was 10. (except every 4 or 5 years or so, my Mom cannot stand it and trims the ends.)

It really doesn't matter since I keep it knotted up all the time. It's easy and, shall we say, fiscally conservative. So, maybe that has saved enough for a car too! *wanders off looking around for all the moola...*

posted by mightshould 27 July | 07:34

How much time do you spend brushing and washing and whatnot, and how much money do you spend on hair-care products? I used to think that never cutting my hair was the most economical option, but, after trying it both ways, the clippered buzzcut option is, for me, significantly cheaper, especially if your time is valuable (ymmv, depending, among other things, on how dreadlock-prone your hair is and whether you enjoy hair care).

posted by box 27 July | 08:21

Don't know about anyone else here, but that's the beauty *ha* of mine. I buy the cheapest shampoo. (whatever it happens to be at the time) My hair is fine (but long) and doesn't take much to clean. I wash it at night so it air dries by morning. It's in a ponytail all the time when not knotted up, so it doesn't tangle. Takes 5 mins max. in morning.

I've thought about getting it cut and styled at times, but the hassle and cost just seem to be more than I'm willing to do. Besides, I'd not know who was looking at me in mirror if it was short after all these years!

posted by mightshould 27 July | 08:38

I pay $15 plus tip to get my hair cut. BUT, I haven't had a haircut in months except for trimming my bangs myself. I'm thinking I might go get the back tidied up a bit but the mister might be able to handle it.

And, although my hair is long-ish (shoulder blade area) and very thick, I don't use much shampoo. I've been using Neutrogena recently, shampoo only - no conditioner or other products.

posted by deborah 30 July | 20:57

26 July 2007