How Much to Tip at the Hair Salon: Your Ultimate Guide
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But many salon regulars who have a good relationship with their stylist report leaving 20% tips each time they visit. Fifteen to 20% tips are always welcomed and appreciated – you can’t go wrong with these amounts. If you liked or loved the results, are a regular or plan to be, or if it’s your first time at a new salon with a stylist you like, tip at least 15%. A general rule offered by both Waldman and Gottsman is to tip anyone who touches your hair. So, no need to tip the salon coordinator who checked you into the appointment. But if you can, give about $3 to $5 to the assistant who shampoos your hair or rinses color from it.
Do you tip hair salon owners?
If you’re unsure on exactly how to show your stylist how much you value them, we asked our panel to break it down to the basics. The usual gratuity for your stylist or colorist (yes, even if they are the owner) should be 15 to 20 percent of the service fee. And while assistants are sometimes tipped out by their stylists, it’s still a nice gesture to pass a little something their way.
Tipping Etiquette for Gray-Area Situations

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How Much to Tip Your Salon Assistant
Maggie Seaver is the digital health and wellness editor at Real Simple, with seven years of experience writing lifestyle and wellness content. She spends her days writing and editing stories about sleep, mental health, fitness, preventive health, nutrition, personal development, relationships, healthy habits, and beyond. She loves demystifying complicated health topics, debunking wellness fads, and sharing practical, science-backed solutions for healthy living. In this post, we explain the salon etiquette for tipping your hairdresser. We’ll show you how to decide which amount is right for your situation and when it’s appropriate to skip tipping altogether. If it’s an exceptional cut, color, or style, you can tip more than 20% to show your appreciation.
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“It’s not a to-go order — they’re cutting your hair.” She points out that you’re choosing to get this experience, which involves tipping. Our experts offered a couple of different views on what to do if you can't afford the tip. While tipping is a “very, very nice gesture,” Swann says, “if you’re not able to leave a tip, then so be it.” In other words, say thank you and leave without tipping. If you're not pleased with how your hair turned out, it’s OK to leave closer to 15%, but do not skip the tip, says Diane Gottsman, founder of The Protocol School of Texas.
How much should you tip your hairdresser?
Everyone has an off day and makes mistakes – don’t let a one-off unsatisfactory experience mess up your relationship with a good stylist. Just make sure you’re leaving a tip that equals at least 15% of the total. Even if leaving the salon slightly dissatisfied with the results, most customers will still leave a 10% tip at minimum. But these situations do happen occasionally, and if you think one of them has happened to you, feel free to skip the tip. It’s also not uncommon for stylists to share tipping information with others in the salon, possibly making it harder for you to book an appointment afterward.
How Much Do You Tip a Hairdresser?
Riley recommends loading the hair up with product to ensure you don't have any frizz or flyaways. She applies product to each section of hair, even if it's going to be covered by another section, because you can tell "if the hair underneath is still poofy." Etiquette experts say tipping pre-tax on a restaurant check is usually fine—there's no point in tipping on the part of the bill that's not going to the server or restaurant, right?
Writing for respected publications like Forbes and HuffPost, she’s committed to bringing her passion for great hair to the masses. Salons are social, customer-centric businesses and stylists rely on tips to indicate how satisfied their clients are. Maybe you’re dealing with a hairdresser who doesn’t care about your dissatisfaction. “I think we all love and appreciate cash tips–some salons require that clients leave tips for stylists in cash–[but] it really is whatever the client is more comfortable with,” said Turpin.
Stash an envelope of bills near your front door so you're always ready when the food arrives. Bigger orders, like for an office get-together or a family party, will often include gratuity. Check the receipt before you hand anything more to the delivery person. If you’re unsure of proper etiquette, you can ask the receptionists to help guide you through the tipping process.
It’s a balance between reflecting your feelings about the service and acknowledging the effort. If you scored a discount on your service, then figuring out how much to tip can be a challenge, especially since many deal sites won't list the price of the original treatment. While Lee thinks tipping 20 percent of the original price would be fine, Minardi and Fortin agree that tipping 20 percent of the discounted price is also acceptable. "That's another tricky one, but with promotions and discounts, the goal is to get them to come back for other services, so it's okay if you don't get the full tip," Fortin says. "For service providers, the shutdowns were some of the worst," says Dell Miller, master colorist and extensions specialist at Spoke & Weal. There are arguments to be made for tipping and not tipping if you don’t like the results, but the bottom line is that figuring out how much to tip your hairdresser in this situation is up to you.
“I'm not going to give you a different service because you did or didn't tip me—I'm a professional,” he says. Otherwise, even if your service wasn't the best, always tip something. "Use the standard 20% as a mental marker and you can go up or down from there," says Post, who says you can tip less if your experience wasn't quite how you expected it to be, or more for a phenomenal experience. One of the perks of having a regular hairdresser is developing honest and open communication. Situations that warrant not leaving a tip are rare, but you don’t necessarily need to leave a tip if something went horribly wrong. Show them one of these seven common haircuts for women or talk to them about going gray on purpose.
She has over 15 years of experience under her belt, starting her career as an assistant beauty editor at GH in 2007, and working in the beauty departments of SELF and Fitness magazines. The majority of it, she says, goes toward licensing fees, personal supplies, and tools (blow-dryers, flatirons, curling irons), and continuing education classes. That means even on a jam-packed day, a stylist may only make enough take home pay to cover the essentials of food, shelter, and clothing. Post says that most small business owners don't expect a tip, and if the owner is present in the salon, but didn't work on your hair, there's no reason to tip.
If they’ve made significant efforts to fix the issue, a tip is certainly warranted. Just like a stellar piano solo onstage garners a standing ovation from the audience, talented hairstylists should also be awarded, with 20 percent considered the industry standard. Though if your stylist goes above and beyond the call of duty, you can always feel free to do the same with your gratuity. "When seeing any type of service provider, typical industry standard is your best bet," adds Carter. "If you are particularly close with your stylist, tipping on the generous side is always appreciated." On the other hand, if you're seeing a hairstylist you love who charges much less, "you may feel good leaving a higher dollar amount and disconnecting to the 20-percent standard," Miller says.
In some cases, stylists can also make money by convincing clients to buy a product that was used on them during their service. However, this represents a minuscule amount of revenue says Shira Devash Espinoza, a freelance stylist based in New Jersey. “When working in a salon, you’re constantly pushed and ‘rewarded’ to sell, but only earn maybe 10 percent of it if you’re lucky,” she says. Debra is a Nashville-based content creator and strategist. As the daughter of a long-time hair stylist and salon owner, she’s spent most of her life as a guinea pig for new color and cut techniques.
We asked Tahnee Seiler, student services coach at the Aveda Institute, and Elie Camoro, a top stylist at Frederic Fekkai, to tell us the right way to tip. We asked pros to spill the tea to help you determine an actual number and navigate gray areas where a gratuity isn’t so clear-cut. Sam's enthusiasm for makeup is only rivaled by their love of all things relating to cats. In their spare time, they enjoy watching scary movies, putting avocado on everything, and seeing how many shades of the rainbow they can dye their hair before 30.
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