On this weeks episode Sarah dives into an honest, thoughtful conversation about the shift in salon pricing, specifically the decision many stylists are making to begin charging separately for blowdrying after color or chemical services.

This episode isn’t about defending policies, it is about creating understanding. Whether you are a stylist navigating how to communicate new pricing or a client feeling confused by these changes, Sarah breaks it all down with grace and empathy.

Plus, Sarah shares a little podcast reflection and encouragement to check out past episodes featuring powerful guests, from cancer survivors, to celebrity stylists, therapists, and more.

Well, hello and welcome to the lessons from your hairstylist podcast. I'm your host and hairstylist friend, Sarah cruise. So this is the second time that I am recording this episode. I recorded the same episode last week and the audio didn't turn out. I don't know if you've ever had a situation where you were relying on tech and you spent all this time and it.

didn't work out and it is just like the most frustrating thing. I know you've had that happen. It was just, I had to vent that. I had to vent that because this is my second time, second time recording this podcast episode, but that's okay. I'm glad that we are here together today. And you know, I've had a week. How has your week been? When my clients come into the salon, we talk about

know, what's been going on with them, what's been going on with me. And it's kind of like, it's kind of like that small talk thing, you know, and it's, I know all of pretty much everybody's lives, what's going on, all the people in their lives, their families. And, ⁓ you know, we catch up on, the story from the last time. So that's what I feel like when I come on the podcast here, I feel like, you know, it's like, I've got

you back in my chair again for your next appointment from the last time that we were together.

you get the update and you get the scoop and all that stuff, it's like, I feel like this is kind of like what this podcast was really supposed to be about. And I'm just in the mood to keep this a little bit more informal today. You can see that I haven't made a lot of effort in the...

presentation department as far as hair and makeup goes today, but I've been spending some time at the pool. It's finally been nice out. We've been able to use the pool finally. It has been raining on and off. It is so unpredictable here in Tennessee. Like you don't know from one moment to the next if it's gonna rain, what's happening. So I try to grab the sun when I can and I've

only in the last like week or so been able to get some, which is why I'm kind of frustrated that I'm recording this again, because I could actually be catching the 10 minutes of sun that we have for this afternoon. But I'm so glad I'm here with you and because I have something I wanted to talk about, something that I've been seeing on TikTok and Instagram here lately. it seems to be a trending thing in the salon.

And I think it's got some people kind of upset. I think clients, know, are, if you're on the hairstylist side of TikTok, you know, you're seeing hairstylists talk about this. You're also seeing clients complain about it. And I get it. You know, I get it. it's got to do with, of course, pricing again, right? Pricing. I know going to the salon is so expensive.

It really is. It's a huge investment. It's a lot to keep your hair up. And things have changed very, very rapidly over the last few years. It's true. And I know that pricing has dramatically gone up and it's hard to keep up. But on top of this, we have the latest where many of us out there working behind the chair

are starting to charge for our blow dry services within a color service or within, mean, if you get a perm, ⁓ yeah, I don't do perms really. mean, I could, I'm probably one of the few hairdressers that can still do perms. There's a few people at our salon that do perms, but if you get a chemical service of any kind, I would say, or like a larger service besides just a haircut, then many of us in the industry are starting to,

charge for that service and it's got some people kind of piss off and I understand I do get it. The school thought has been lately on the socials that I've been seeing from clients that are coming on and talking about this. They're saying this is crazy. The blow dry should definitely be

included in the cost of the service. My gosh, getting your hair done is so expensive already. And traditionally it's always been included. So it seems like a big ask from the consumer's point of view for the stylist to not only be raising their prices so dramatically, it seems, but now also tacking on a blow dry charge. And it's kind of like, what the

Like what's wrong with what is what is wrong with you people like like let's just like let's just calm down I get it from the consumers point of view. It's like Why what's happening? Like what is happening with these hairstylists? I Get it. I think if I were on the outside looking in I might I might think the same thing But I did want to bring this up because coming from a hairstylist point of view I wanted to talk about this subject

and shed a little bit of light on it. Cause as I've seen it come up over and over and over again on, you know, these posts, both sides from hairstylists and also from clients, consumers, people are, it's, it's really causing some, anger. seems like, you know, I like, it seems like it's, it's got, it's got some people pretty bothered and,

So I wanna talk to you a little bit about where the blow dry charge is coming from. So let's just go back to the way that things used to be really quick. So it used to be that you get your hair colored, cut, and then the hairstylist just blow dries the hair and blows it out, smooths it, looks great. You can wear that for maybe a couple of days, three or four days.

You can wear that style and you know, clients would always, they've always said, man, I love it when you blow dry my hair and it smells so good for days and it just lasts and I can't do it like that. And I just love it. I love getting my hair done. And it's a lot of it has to do with, mean, of course the color you need to get your color done, but it's like, it feels so good. It looks so good afterwards. that's honestly, if you,

If you think about that, that is a value. That

of it is valuable too. the color service, having somebody do your color and keep it the way that you like it and do it right and have you feeling good about your hair color, yeah, you know, that's really important. But that blow dry service, that, hey, that was like, really, if you think about it,

I'm like an added bonus that everybody's been getting for decades. And you know, it's just been kind of assumed that it's included. And so now I'm seeing a lot of consumers, a lot of clients on, and they're going like, this is ridiculous. This, this should be included. And then I think to myself,

Okay, I understand. It's a leap. It's something we're not used to. But when you say it should be included, I think we have to think about that a little bit differently. The way that I think about it and how I came to the decision to begin charging for my blow dry services was because I've been in this industry for 30 years.

And when you think about how long it takes to do a blowout for someone, if your hair is long, it could take 30, 40 minutes. And when you think of the repetitive motion that happens when you are stretching and pulling and smoothing and styling long hair, then you realize that you have day in,

and day out spent 30 minutes here, 40 minutes here, and you haven't gotten paid for it. And so if you do that, say four or five times a day, and you take that and you multiply that over so many years, 10, 20 years, the figure is astronomical when it comes to how much revenue someone is losing. And you say, well, everything else is so expensive.

The whole service is so expensive that should be included. The rest of the service is, has traditionally only covered the cost of product and what it takes to actually provide hair styling and hair cutting and hair coloring services to a client without operating at a loss. There's a lot of overhead for a stylist and for a salon. So

It's not just how much does that tube of color cost or how much time is the stylist putting into it. It is all of the things on top of that. So yes, it is expensive to get your color done as it is, but truly the blow dry has not been rolled into that cost. It's just been a complimentary service for decades and people got used to it.

So now when people got used to it, the school of thought is that should be included when in reality it probably never should have been included. It always should have been charged for. It's just that we're kind of riding the ship right now. And I know.

If you're if you're a consumer or you're a customer, you're just like this is just it's ridiculous It just I mean getting your hair done just like you just I know you got to go back to like it's crazy It's just some what these hair stylists are charging is astronomical but when I tell you that there are so many things that go into providing the service and

There is no other, there is not another job in the world where an employer would say to someone, hey, we're gonna take maybe, I don't know, let's say a blow dry takes 30 minutes. All right, say we're gonna take two hours out of your pay every single day.

you know, five days a week or however many days that you work. You think about that. You think about how many people would go for that. How many people would sign up for that? There's a lot that people don't really understand about the way that stylists operates and a salon operates. And so from the outside looking in, it can seem very unreasonable. And I...

Completely acknowledge that I can understand that I don't know how a lot of other businesses run obviously and so You know, it's like when other types of businesses raise their prices or they begin charging for something that's traditionally been free You know, we all just kind of accept it. I mean look at some of the apps out there You know, there's like there's different apps that used to be free

And now there's some content, say a podcast, let's take a podcast. most podcasts are free, but once they start to do well and they churn out content and it's valuable to people and they are offering something that takes a lot of footwork, a lot of time and labor and thought, and it takes all of this effort to go into it. Some podcasts will start to put,

some content behind a paywall. So that's where you have something like Patreon comes in, where now you can get some stuff still for free, but other content is put behind a paywall. And you'll have different apps that used to be free. I mean, I've got different editing apps that I used for social media that used to be free. Now you have to pay for them. Now they have upgrades.

I mean, anytime you go to the grocery store and they have gone up on something, I mean, there's just inflation all over the place and Nobody bats an eye at this stuff. remember back when, ⁓ here's an example. I remember, this is how old I am.

I remember when bottled water first came out. Okay, water traditionally in my life was basically free. I mean, yes, you had a water bill, but you get water out of a tap, you get water from a public fountain, and it's free, basically free. Once they started to bottle water and sell it, that seemed like the most ridiculous concept in the world. I thought to myself,

Who would pay a dollar for water? Water's free. It's almost like saying, we're gonna start charging you for air. It was almost that ridiculous, and it seemed absurd. you know, now everything is kinda like that. It's like, things that used to be free, now there's a charge for it. Now there's value placed on it, and people are paying for it. But...

In our world, in the beauty industry, this blow dry thing has got some people really bothered and people are not seeing that, yes, it used to be complimentary. That probably never needed to be complimentary. Actually, it probably always should have been an additional charge. Now I will say this, I work in a salon where I have an assistant and actually,

In the salon where I work, we run on a business model called the Summit system. Summit has a complete framework for stylist and salon success. and within this, there's an educational wing or an educational component for training.

so part of that, the education part is where you have like an apprentice or an assistant. So we call

the assistant or the apprentice and associate. So in the salon, I have an associate. Traditionally, my blow dry was always complimentary. recently we started to see where stylists are starting to charge for blow dries. And I have been an adopter of that practice.

I can still offer a complimentary blow dry because my associate could blow dry their hair. That's just a luxury that I have. Some people may not have an associate, but for me and for those who do, it still could be offered complimentary. And the reason why I do that is because A, it allows for the associate to get their practice down. It allows for the client to still get a blow out.

and have it complimentary But it doesn't take up my time or take me away from another client who I may be applying color to or doing a cut, that sort of thing. So it works really nicely for us where there is an assistant or an associate available. But it's just a discussion that each individual person really needs to have with their clients.

On a case-by-case basis and work with them and explain to them. I think that people feel that People aren't gonna understand But it's only when we do stuff that's kind of shady or we try to avoid the conversation Or you know, we don't want to talk about it and we just kind of like slide it in and there's like sticker shot I mean you don't want to do any of that you want to be very authentic and say hey if this ends up that

it's not gonna work for you at all. First of all, let's try to find a compromise.

I did the best that I could to have a very authentic and upfront conversation with my clients about it. Face to face, this was not an announcement on social media. This was not a newsletter or a blanket text that went out to everybody. I I wanted to have the respect of talking to each person individually to explain to them why I would be charging for a blow dry. And then I started out at a smaller

fee and then I started to stair step it up and I let them know that we would be going into this gradually and I told them that at the beginning this would be coming on board and it would be within like the next two to three visits. So I gave them I gave them like two visits before they could expect to be charged for the blow dry. Now even with that

My associate could blow dry your hair, which a lot of my clients, they're gonna like the way I do it. They're actually gonna want for me to do it, and they're actually going to wanna pay for the blow dry service that I would provide. Some of my clients, they don't mind if my associate does their blow out. They'd rather just have the complimentary blow out, get their hair done, and it still looks good when my associate does it.

But there is a definite difference between my 30 years experience and the 12 to 18 months experience that my assistant or my associate would have. So I am able to produce a more polished finish many times for my clients and that does make a difference. Maybe the longevity of the blowout. Maybe it has to do with

how well their hair is styled afterwards according to the way that they really like to wear it. You know, how smooth can you get it? How, how volumous can you get it? Like I have certain skills that have been honed over several decades now that someone coming out of school wouldn't have. So there is value in that 30 minutes that I would spend with someone. And to me, it is worth paying for.

It's something that is a skill that cannot be reproduced by the client themselves the same way that I would do it. Yet there's still an option with my assistant or my associate. And then we also have another option where there is this thing called a hooded dryer or a lamp. People can do a wash and go. It's not like they have to leave in the dead of winter with their hair sopping wet. They could sit under a dryer.

or you can set up a blow dry station where someone can blow dry their hair. Now I've seen clients saying, ⁓ they're saying I can blow dry my own hair. What do I do when I come to the salon? I shouldn't be having to do my hair. The stylist should be doing my hair. That's right, that's right. If that's the experience that you're looking for, of course the stylist will blow dry your hair. But I think it's really important that we have to understand that just because something has always been a certain way doesn't mean that it necessarily.

should be that way. And that's really the conversation that I wanted to come on and just explain because I see a lot of people that are really pissed about it. And so I thought this might be a good episode to discuss because if you ever wondered about it or if you're a consumer or you're a customer and you're going to the salon, you've started to notice this and you've been irritated by it or

you just didn't understand why, then I hope that it has helped to shed some light on why that could be happening right now. know things are, things are just crazy though, expensive wise. the world is just, it's so hard. Everything is hard and it's getting so expensive just to live. It does seem like a pylon. I get it. But you know, stylists, work really hard.

We do everything we possibly can to bend over backwards and make our clients happy. We love you guys and we wanna do a good job. We do wanna see the color finished and blown out and looking beautiful. Yeah, that is satisfying for us. We do wanna see that. That's kind of the magic moment, of course, but we can't be doing it free of charge anymore.

I just got to tell you, I'm sorry. We just can't be doing it. We can't be doing it. Now there may be stylists out there still. If you're a stylist out there and you're like, well, this is bullshit. I think it still should be included with it. And I am going to, I think that is great. Cause to each their own, like we all just need to run our business the way we see fit. but just giving that point of view as to why this is happening.

And what I don't like so much is, you see a lot of stylists that are super defensive on Instagram and on Tik Tok and they're making these videos and they're just, it's kind of like you're schooling the client. Like here's how it is and blah, blah. Like you, you don't understand. Well, no, you don't understand, I don't understand somebody else's business. I don't know what it takes to, you know, run any other type of business. I only understand my own. So.

Nobody really understands what it takes to run a different, to be in a different industry. I mean, really none of us do. So that's why I think that we have to just be kind and we have to communicate like adults with our clients because it's really important to have that good rapport. And I think you, if you're a client, you're gonna respect your hairstylist if they come to you and say, listen, if this doesn't work for you, I get it. Let's find a compromise.

Let's find, the compromise could be, again, maybe an assistant does it. Maybe they just sit under a heated dryer. Maybe they do it themselves. Or maybe you give them a little bit of a heads up and you give them several appointments to come where you're not implementing the charge. And maybe you stair step it up. There's a million different things. But at the end of the day, if it doesn't work for your client, you can say, look, I totally get it. I totally get it. Let me see if I can help you find someone that

would work better for you and no hard feelings, right? Love you. Please. If I see you out, don't act like you don't know me. I, there is no hard feelings. You know, I think we all just prioritize the things that are important to us and we have to make those decisions. Did I lose some clients? Very few. I think I might have lost maybe only one or two out of my clientele.

So that was, to me, that was pretty good. And not mad about that. You know, I understand it's not, it's not worth it for everybody. And just because it's not worth it for somebody doesn't mean that we're not worth it as, as stylists. think during COVID was like there, it arose this, this way of thinking, like this whole movement of charge your worth, charge your worth. That's all we heard. And COVID was like,

hair sizes were like rising up like pissed like, you know, we've had some time to like sit and think about this now, you know, where we realized we've been, we've been working so hard for so long. And now here, even during COVID, we're still trying to like pour in and make this content and do all this stuff. And, and we started, we started thinking we need to start charging our worth. We need to start trying that just exploded.

to the point that I think it was pretty off putting on social media. And I think clients almost started to turn against us a little bit like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Like who the hell do you think you are? I mean, yeah, we think we're worth it. Of course we think we're worth it. And we know what went into being able to get to where we are now, but it may not be worth it for somebody else. And that's okay. That doesn't take away from our value as a stylist and this whole

Well, if you can't afford it, then I'm just not the stylist for you. Well, I mean, that's true, but you can still be kind. We can still want the best for people and we can still try to work with people. And how about coming up with solutions? know, us as stylists, how about we come up with solutions or compromises or ways that we can work with our clients instead of just being like, ⁓ this is it. This is my policy. Posting these policies on social media.

putting up all of this fine print and our booking

I think people have gotten so saturated with having to jump through all these hoops just to work with a stylist. And then on top of that, all of this stuff, all of this stuff I think has just rolled into one big ball. And then now you've got this blow dry charge. And I think that people have just kind of been sent over the edge with this whole thing. I totally get it.

I would just invite us as stylists to take a step back. Let's put ourselves in our clients shoes and let's be a consumer for a second because we also don't understand what it takes to be in a different industry. We don't know all the behind the scenes or what it takes to bring a certain service or a certain product to market. So I think we just have to have a little bit of grace. need to have some communication and some understanding, not take things personally.

and understand that people have choices to make. This is their livelihood. And I think we just have to be kind. I am starting to see that you're seeing less and less of defensive stylists on social media, just like schooling clients, making fun of clients, do it, kind of just being bad. It wasn't good. Some of that stuff was really cringy and I'm glad that it's over.

⁓ it's not completely over, but it's, it's definitely, I think it's seen, I definitely think it's seen its day. And I'm glad about that.

I want us to get back to a point where we're seen as a support, as a safe space, as a respite and a place of rest and a place that clients can come and talk to us and not feel weird about anything, not feel like they're doing something wrong or that they have to feel anxious in any way.

I think that if we can just try to be a little bit more understanding, work on our communication, be very transparent, very clear, and just explain to people on a really authentic level, like here's the deal, then I think that's gonna go a long way. We just have to be real people. We just need to be real people.

I do hope that that has given you some perspective, whether you're a stylist or you're a client. If you have seen this coming down the pipeline, you're like, what the hell is going on? Why am I being charged for a blow dry? It should be free. Hopefully this has given you a little bit of insight into like what's going on behind the scenes with this. So that's really all I have for you today. Even though I had to record this again, I'm glad I had a chance to because I just...

I do enjoy being here with you and I'm so glad that you listen. It's been a little bit odd lately with the podcast. The podcast, think we're into like 25 episodes, maybe 27 episodes. And I don't know, if you ever start something and you just, it's like, you're like all about it. I'm not sure, I think creatives are notorious for this. If you're creative, you probably understand.

just like all in on something. You're like, yeah, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna set the world on fire with this. This is gonna be great. And you know, like I was like, I'm gonna do this weekly. I'm gonna have all these guests and I have had some amazing guests. Let me just say, if you, yeah, at the beginning, okay, at the beginning, I needed a lot of work. I still need a lot of work. This is not a fancy podcast. There is no production going on whatsoever here.

It's basically me behind this little microphone here and my laptop. That is it. Me just talking to you on a real level. But if you go back to the first ones, is, you know, I really needed some work. I mean, we've improved some since then, I think. But it's been it's been tough lately with this with this podcast because I'm in a weird place. So like, where am I taking this thing? What am I doing with this?

It's called lessons from your hairstylist. But I have all these guests on, know, I just have like people on just like for all different, for all different reasons. And it's meant to be inspirational. It's meant to equip you like

One of the things I love to do, one of my favorite things about my job is that I get to encourage people on a regular basis every day behind the chair. I like to prop people up. I like to make them see their own beauty and their unique characteristics that really set them apart. And I like to show them their beauty. And I like to talk about the stuff where we share resources and...

you I'm sharing a podcast with you or a book or you're telling me about, know, this great coffee shop over here that we have, you know, this new restaurant or, know, like we're talking, we're just like, we're just sharing information. That's really what, that's what I'm doing here. I think this is such a, this is such a, um, I'm probably not even going to take all the ums and ahs out of this because I really just kind of want this to be like real and

I know it's hard to listen to sometimes when there's a whole bunch of pauses and there's a lot of filler. I've been trying to take that out in the, in the past, but you know, the editing process is a lot. It's a lot. It really is. And you know, I don't want to dread this. I want to continue doing this and truly enjoying it and feeling like I'm making a real honest, authentic connection. So I don't know. It might start looking a little bit different going forward.

We'll see how it goes. might like it. You might not, but I would encourage you to go back to what I was saying. There's been some amazing guests. I want to share with you some of the people that I have met along the way up until this episode. And I think, you know, I mean, when I think back on everybody from interviewing everybody from ⁓ somebody who has changed their career path, like later in life, like in their late forties,

early 50s. Somebody who went from being a hairstylist to a realtor and she's just like setting the world on fire. Like she's just killing it. Courtney, amazing. Go back and listen to her. Everybody from her to, ⁓ you know, Amanda, Amanda, celebrity hairstylist here. Like she's, she's just such a

an amazing businesswoman She's a mom, a wife. She is just an incredible person and her story is just, it's so interesting. I would just encourage you to go back.

Listen to Amanda. Hey, listen, I interviewed my therapist even. I mean, we did that. We, we did that. just recently had someone on the podcast who literally survived. are nine years out from pancreatic cancer. Like I've had some phenomenal people on this podcast. go back and listen to, I'll gravy baby. You got to listen to her. Like she has been going through the gray transition. She is in the middle of the transition. Her hair is really long.

and she's growing out her gray. Like that was a great one. I've had personal stylists. I've had fitness experts. it just, we've had so many amazing, interesting people. So if you haven't listened to some of the past podcasts, go back and listen to some of those. Cause I know you're going to get some really, I know you're going to get some inspiration and I know you're going to like really take away.

from some of those people, just fascinating people. I'm so lucky and excited that I've been able to have them on. ⁓ But yeah, just invite you to go back and do a deep dive into some of the earlier episodes. And that's basically all I've got today. I just wanted to hop on and rant about that subject that I've seen come up on Instagram and TikTok and all over the place. But I hope that shed some light. I hope you've enjoyed being here with me. I know I've rambled on, but.

was kind of a good conversation and I enjoyed it. I hope you did too. And I hope I'll see you back on the next episode of the Lessons from the Hairstylist podcast. Until then, take care.