When The Savings Aren't Worth It, Part 3: Vidal Sassoon Beauty School

I live in a city where haircuts are unreasonably expensive (an average $60 and up for a woman's haircut). In college, I'd tried several super cheap haircut places, but was horrified by how they treated my hair (what kind of salon doesn't wash your hair, or cuts a woman's hair without getting it wet first? That's just asking for an uneven cut). Getting a cheap haircut isn't worth it if you walk out with your hair looking worse than it did when you came in.

So I decided to try another method of saving money: go to a beauty school whose graduates go on to work at the pricey salons.

I knew going in that my haircut might take two hours (that's what the receptionist told me was standard at the school), but I had more time than money and since I have long, straight hair (nothing could be easier to cut), I figured I might get off easy. Wrong.

Not only did my haircut take an astounding three hours during which I was bored stiff (it's difficult to get involved in book when you're constantly interrupted), the woman supervising my hairstylist refused to allow me to get my hair cut the way I wanted it because she didn't like it. How does a haircut take three hours, you may ask? Well, when the student has to have nearly every snip of the scissors approved before and after making the cut and the supervisor is dealing with ten other students, it really can take three hours. Given that a haircut normally only uses up about 45 minutes of my life, I didn't think the $20 - $30 I saved was worth it at all given that I sacrificed almost an entire Saturday afternoon and didn't even end up with the haircut I wanted.

Sometimes spending the extra money is worth it. I've found that a better way to save money on haircuts is to go to a stylist I trust and stretch out the time between haircuts to four months instead of the recommended 6-8 weeks (which I think is a myth invented by hair salons, anyway).

Photo by stgerhm