Figuring out How Much to Tip Hair Stylist can be anxiety-inducing math at the end of a relaxing experience in the salon. Let’s clear up the confusion: Fifteen to 20 percent of the pre-tax bill is the standard for a good salon service. For exceptional service you can leave a 25% tip.
This guide is designed to cover everything you need to know when it comes to modern salon tipping etiquette. We’ll explain what’s customary across services, why your tip matters so much and how to navigate any situation with confidence. Knowing How Much to Tip Hair Stylist can make sure you feel comfortable in those moments when hairstylists exceed your expectations and those times when they under deliver.
How Much to Tip Hair Stylist
A normal tip for service at a salon is between 15-20%. This is the range you should aim to be within. Consider 15% a good place to start increasing from, with 20% the standard for an excellent job. This established tipping percentage has long been customary in the United States for showing gratitude for a stylist’s skill and services. The issue of tipping hair stylists one often reduced to this basic percentage.
Why Tipping Your Hairstylist Is So Important
Tipping is not just a formality; it’s a crucial way that hairstylists make money, and an explicit mark of your satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
Here’s How Much to Tip Hair Stylist typically works for most stylists. Most are paid by commission, receiving roughly 40-60% of the service cost. The rest goes directly to the salon, in support of overhead like rent, utilities, professional products and more marketing. Booth-renting stylists pay the salon owner a flat rate, often weekly or monthly, and keep the rest of their earnings; they also supply themselves with equipment, insurances and taxes.
In both cases, the tip is an essential supplement to their take-home pay. This extra income allows them to sustain ebb-and-flow appointment schedules and reinvest in additional training or further their education so they can continue to be at the top of their career game. At the end of the day, a tip is more or less saying you appreciate them personally and putting cash in their pocket to let them know it something that directly speaks to their skill set and hours poured into helping make you look as great as possible. This is an important point when you’re thinking about How Much to Tip Hair Stylist professionals.
How to Tip According to Different Salon Services
The 15-20% rule is a good baseline, but the exact percentage depends on your financial situation and how costly and complex the service was. Here’s a guide to help you determine what to tip hair stylists for specific services.
How Much to Tip Hair Stylist Haircut
When it comes to a typical haircut, we advise that you should by no means ever simply give a 15 or even 20% tip in case your total bill goes up to thousands of dollars. For a $50 cut, you should tip your stylist $7.50 to $10.
How Much to Tip Hair Stylist Color Services
For services such as all-over color or simple highlights, a 15-20% tip is customary. But for something more complex and time-consuming, such as balayage, a tip around 20 percent is standard to account for the skill involved. If your balayage is priced at $300, you’ll end up tipping moving somewhere between $45 and $60. Tip the colorist separately if there was an additional one assisting.
How Much to Tip Hair Stylist Blowout or Styling
To tip, you can follow the same gratuity rule for a blowout or styling: 15-20%.
How Much to Tip Hair Stylist for Special Treatments
For more labor-intensive jobs like keratin treatments or extensions, which can take a few hours, a 20% tip is normally an appropriate way to show your appreciation for the stylist’s additional time and effort. And for these longer appointments, you should know how much to tip hair stylists.
Shampoo or Assistant
Let’s not forget the one who washed your hair! It’s good manners to tip the salon assistant or junior stylist who shampooed and massaged your head. A suggestion of $3-$5 is a nice and just gesture.
Factors That Determine Your Tip Amount
Your tip need not be of a set amount. There are a few factors that could affect whether you decide to tip less for haircuts or stick with the baseline of 15%.
- Quality Of Service: Most obviously, people are motivated to tip better service more. Were you happy with your stylist’s prediction?
- Time and Complexity: A five-hour transformative color correction deserves a larger tip than an easy 45 minute trim.
- Stylist’s Experience: A higher tip might be warranted pre-pay the cost up front for a branded OM stylists are masters, and several have completed an advanced education program.
- Salon Location: Tipping standards are slightly higher in big cities with high living costs, and a little more relaxed in small community type towns.
Tipping Etiquette for Hair Salons
And determining the way to make that payment can be just as tricky as deciding on an amount.
- Cash vs. Card: Tipping with plastic is easy, but most stylists prefer cash. It’s instantaneous, and nobody needs to wait for the check to show up in their bank account (or worry about a processing fee).
- Tipping the Right Folks: If somebody other than your stylist washes your hair or an assistant mixes the color for you, then tipping each person is a good idea. Inquire at the front desk about How Much to Tip Hair Stylist get distributed so that you know no one is forgotten.
Do You Tip a Salon Owner?
This is a timeless tipping problem. It is considered customary that you do not tip the salon owner by most owners’ and managers’ standards, anyway since they directly profit from the business. But even that is an increasingly outdated view.
Many salon owners also work as stylists and depend on that service income just like their employees. How Much to Tip Hair Stylist owner for outstanding service is also generally acceptable these days. You may want to continue following the 15-20% rule, or go slightly lower, but it’s no longer a faux pas.
When to Tip More (or Less)
Sometimes a bit of extra tip generosity is the move, and sometimes it makes sense to leave less. How Much to Tip Hair Stylist can be situational.
Tip More For:
- Exemplary Service: How Much to Tip Hair Stylist when your stylist has done something extra to justify it.
- Squeezing You In: “If they squeezed you in to make a last-minute appointment work or stayed late.”
- A Big Change: For a complicated color correction or new style that demanded extra expertise.
- Holiday: Some give a bit extra around the holidays to express thanks.
Tip Less For:
- Lousy Service: So yeah, if you got bad service, perhaps you would tip less. But it is better to deal with the issue head-on.
How to Handle Bad Service
And if you don’t love your cut or color as much as you had hoped, a lower-than-usual tip might take (dollar) value under the table for clear communication but it can be even more important to tamp down any snippy au revoirs with a polite chat about what went wrong before stepping out. Say what you’re unhappy about, and ask if it can be fixed. It’s more likely that a stylist will prefer having the chance to fix it than to lose a client. If you do decide to How Much to Tip Hair Stylist, then tipping a lower amount of 10% instead would be more appropriate in this case.
Other Options if You Can’t Tip Enough
If you can’t afford or confuseed how Much to Tip Hair Stylist, it pays to be forthright. There are other methods of displaying gratitude that can be just as worthwhile.
- Drop a Rave Review: A kind review on Google, Yelp or social media may lead to new business.
- Refer Friends: Word-of-mouth references are the bread and butter of whether a stylist makes it in business.
- Pre-book Your Next Appointment: This will show your loyalty and helps your stylist set their schedule.
- Interact on Social Media: Leave a comment and like or share their work to give them visibility online.
The Rise of “No-Tip” Salons
A new beauty-industry trade term is cropping up: the “no-tip” salon. These businesses factor service charges into menu prices, which in turn allows them to provide employees with a higher, more predictable salary. This is said to make the system more predictable for clients and staff but we wouldn’t like to see it mimicked in law firms. Though far from universal, it’s part of a broader discussion about the fairness of wages in service industries.
Final Thoughts
It’s more than a nice gesture; How Much to Tip Hair Stylist is a tradition that signals appreciation and helps their livelihood. The 15-20% rule is a good overall guideline but ultimately your happiness and budget are what you should consider when deciding How Much to Tip Hair Stylist. By being up front and sharing your thanks whether by tipping well or leaving a killer review online you also help foster a great relationship with the person who trims your hair.