Are your haircare costs out of control? You could save hundreds of euro a month by swapping your salon for a hairdressing school . Orla O'Sullivansurveys the not insubstantial costs
Women refused to be quoted by name for this article because they didn't want their partners to know how much they spend on their hair. A trip to the salon can cost a small fortune. Having a haircut and highlights - every six weeks, ideally - runs to €350 in Ireland's trendiest establishments, and even Peter Mark, the shopping-centre stalwart, charges €186. That's to highlight long hair, admittedly, but even a gloss, lowlights or colour correction can add at least €70 to the cost of a simple cut. Many women feel they could not live without a basic trim and masking of grey roots; they cost €225 at Reds, on St Stephen's Green, or €93 at Peter Mark, the country's biggest salon chain.
Your bills will be biggest if you're a woman in Dublin. Just a couple of years ago, in 2004, the Central Statistics Office reported a difference of only 3 per cent between prices inside and outside the capital. According to our survey, however, a cut and colour (roots) can cost up to €225 at a Dublin salon versus just €65 at a chic country cousin. (Men tend to pay between €10 and €20 for a cut.)
A recent caller to Liveline, on RTÉ Radio 1, was disgusted that a well-known Dublin salon had charged her €43 to blow-dry her €99 highlights. Drying normally came free with a haircut, she said, but that day the salon was running behind and couldn't cut her hair at the time she had booked it for.
One response is to make an appointment for a free or cut-price treatment at a hairdressing school. Free blow-drys alone would typically save you €25 to €50 a time. Schools are booming, and it's partly because salons have become so expensive, according to Lauren Fitzpatrick, head trainer at Robert Chambers School of Hairdressing on Liffey Street in Dublin. (There is also "huge demand" for hairdressing courses, she says, from people who view hairdressing as a lucrative career and a school as the quickest way to train.)
You might find the prospect of going to a trainee stylist as appealing as attending a discount dentist, but you'll often find that the students include fully-qualified hairdressers who are taking refresher courses. Remember, though, that you'll pay with time, not money. You'll wait longer for an appointment with an after-office-hours venue, and school services generally take almost twice as long as their salon equivalents. If you regard a visit to the hairdresser as a welcome break from the daily treadmill, you may not mind the relatively slow service - particularly if, like House of Colour, the school offers complimentary wine and a mini head massage.
If you're really lucky the hands that work on you will also have worked on the likes of Reese Witherspoon and Gabriel Byrne; both of them are on the celebrity-client list of Shay Dempsey, owner of Zoo Hair Salon in Dublin. He often oversees Zoo training sessions, and he says he will take up the scissors to correct a student's work if necessary. But he echoes other owners in saying that things very rarely go wrong. "We don't let students start on people. They start on dollies," he says, adding that hundreds of decapitated dolls sit in Zoo's basement.
And bear in mind that, because students need to practise a range of techniques, there may be times when they can't offer the service you want. It's worth checking a school's policy on this, as well as on pricing and allergy testing, before you book.
Róisín Godkin, a transition-year student in north Dublin, says many of her friends spend €150 every few months on highlights. She, though, switched to Robert Chambers. "They're just as good as a normal hairdresser, and they only charge about half-price," she says. "I've converted two of my friends."
It's not necessarily bad news for salons. Joy Hawkridge, who opened the Whetstone salon in Dublin about a decade ago, says it often works the other way, too. "Clients who start off going to the school follow trainees when they qualify," she says.
If you try to book an appointment, bear in mind that some hairdressing schools close in early November and do not reopen until February