‘Necessary expense’: More customers are willing to spend $400 (or more) for a haircut

Detailed summary

The consumer price index shows prices for haircuts and other personal care services surged nationally nearly 40 percent from 2019 to 2026.

It’s around noon on a recent weekday, and the upscale salons lining Newbury Street are booked solid. Rows of women in styling chairs, their heads covered in shiny foil packets, scroll their phones. Stylists snip neat layers. Freshly coiffed clients smile at their reflection.

Customers leave with sleek locks and boosted confidence. The bill for their great hair day? Hundreds of dollars. Plus tip.

At high-end salons in Boston and surrounding suburbs, it’s no longer unusual for a cut and color to cost $400, $500, or more. While such prices were once reserved for the well-to-do, they’ve become routine at a growing number of salons, as the cost of doing business — from rent to product to wages — soars.

This isn’t 2007, when a $400 haircut tarred a presidential candidate as out of touch with the American people.

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Boston Globe. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.