QuoteReplyTopic: Dilemma Posted: March 28 2005 at 7:19am
I must be doing something right because I have 4 friends/coworkers now bombarding me with hair extension questions and wanting me to pump up their hair. Some are wanting full head extentubes for volume and length.
They want to know how much hair costs and then they squeal with glee at hair prices and how afforable that is and then it's all like "oh, amm do me do me!" Not ONCE has anyone asked me what I would charge for this.
Now, I'm not a licensed stylist but I think I have a pretty marketable skill here. If they were to go to anyone else they'd have to pay $400 or more for what they're asking for.
I want them to have as much fun with extensions as I am but I work 12-hour shifts and I run another business on the side and my free time is pretty important.
Thought, comments, outrageous remarks welcome.
Save~A~Stray
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Yip, you're definitely doing something
right......haha....that's a given...Miss Haar!!
No Dilemma here Amm!!
You charge for your time….you already have a lot going on. If
you are going to spend your precious free time doing
extensions for all these ladies who are gleeing at the hair
prices then glee a little more with your fee girl!! Extensions are
not a quickie job here. You are spending hours on your feet
and yes, you enjoy it and have fun…..but ya gotta set some
rules for yourself or you will be setting yourself up for people
wanting a free ride, and you will start to resent it. I know exactly
what your facing……so set your price and off ya go girl!!
You will beat any salon price…..that’s for sure!! These ladies
will be getting a bargain at any rate!!
Have Fun......and we wanna see pics!! Oh Yeah!! Lots o' pics!!
Edited by Save~A~Stray
mochachip
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Now if this were your best friend since kindergarten I'd do it for free
and fuilt her into helping you with any prep work for either your hair
or her hair in the future.
But if these are just people you work with, friendly but not the beall
end all, explain how much time it takes. "Well you know the
reason this costs so much in a salon is that it takes X hours to
prepare the hair, and Y hours to install it, and then Z hours to cut
the hair so that it blends well with your own. I'm a busy person
what with A B C, I just can't take time away from my ?home
business? to do everyone's hair. Find out what it costs ina
salon around here and then tell me what you think is a fair price for
my time."
I don't know, that's probably word for word how I would aproach
it. And seriously they should offer you something in the
neighborood of 1/3 cost at a salon in my opinion. More if your
other work is exceedingly profitable and they are at all aware of it.
Or do you have kids you could get them to babysit for free? I
know the people that I work with treasure a reliable babysitter more
than gold it seems. You should totally be able to guilt
tons of babysitting out of them in exchange.
Of course you could always play it low key "So I do your hair for you,
what are you gonna do for me?" and see what they say.
But definitely stand up for yourself and don't do their hair for free!
Even my sister went and bought me groceries for the weekend that she was here when I did her highlights as extensions.
This is the understatement of the year. You are extremely skilled, AMM, and those skills are very marketable. And hell, you're in California, where extensionists don't need to be licensed to do extensions anyway. So yeah--you should definitely be charging for your time. The only exceptions I might make to that would be for family and your very best friend, or if someone wants to barter something worthwhile (do your taxes, run your website, etc.). People should never work for free, imo. Period. This may sound harsh, but I'm adamant about this for a few reasons. I can tell you, I occasionally do work for friends and acquaintences (not hair), and for anything that takes more than an hour, I always charge. I did some free work years ago, and I always ended up regretting it.
First off, your time is worth a lot, so the moment you agree to work for free, you're functioning at a loss, when makes no sense at all.
Second, a lot of times, you feel like you're doing someone a favor by working for free, but it creates a weird paradigm wherein people see you as a "hobbyist" and give you less respect, ultimately, than they'd give someone who was charging. As a result, they don't take your recommendations as seriously, which could be a real problem when it comes to extensions.
Third, when you agree to do someone's hair, you're taking on a big responsibility. Especially if they haven't had extensions before, they may decide they don't like them, or they may have difficulties that require further adjustments from you. The initial generous "free service" you provided could snowball into neverending requests for adjustments and maintenance. And since it's a given that people will need occasional adjustments and mainteance, you need to establish from the onset what your prices will be.
And lastly, let's just say everyone loves their extensions, the requests keep pouring in, and before you know it, you're doing every person you work with and their friends. One person finds out that someone got a free service somewhere along the line, and then they're annoyed because they didn't get a free service, etc., etc. It could get totally out of hand.
So yeah, girl--you gotta charge. I would establish an hourly rate, then add the cost of hair and supplies to that. You may want to provide free adjustments if something goes wrong--they have slippage, or need a few replaced--but the same goes for standard maintenance: Charge 'em.
I just came draggin in from work but want to say thanks for all the
comments so far.
I've already promised the first one I'd do it for free so I'm definitely
stuck on that one. I gave her some unprocessed hair to take to her
stylist to get dyed in the tri-blend that she wears (there was NO WAY
I was going to try to do it and have her unhappy with the color).
Install and removal will be all I'll commit myself on that one.
Her stylist is amazed by the extension technique and wants me to
"teach" her. She wants to watch the install. Initially I said ok but now
I'm going to back out of that for reasons most of you cited above.
I think I speak for the majority here when I say a lot of us have
untold hours of research, practice, money and tools invested in this
craft so why give it up (or in some cases actually take a loss and be
paying THEM in time and equipment doing their hair for them) to
strangers or people who will constantly be coming back wanting more
and more done.
Now I got myself riled up.
Thanks again. I knew the answers. I guess I just wanted to hear it
coming back at me.
I think you should go for it Amm and I second what all the other ladies say. Although I really really love doing extensions I get really tired during the last hour, that's when I think of the money. Once its all done though and I take the client's pictures and show them their befores and afters and the big grin comes all over there face, its worth millions to me. I can wait to see the pictures Amm x
Hey Amm, you definitely need to charge. As you said, you invested your time and effort into becoming educated in this craft and you deserve to be paid.
When I do strand extensions, I charge $300-$500. A $300 job would be if I'm adding 2-3 ounces of hair, a $400 job would be 4-6 ounces of hair, and a $500 job would be 7-8 ounces of hair. In my area, this is considered on the low end of average.
In an extension class that I took once, they said you want to charge anywhere from $75-$100 per hour. I do not quote by the hour, though, otherwise the client thinks they own you and you can't break to eat, go to the bathroom, etc. I estimate how long I think the job will take me and then quote the fee. Sometimes it takes less time than I thought, but usually I'm right on about how much time it takes.
Do not do this for free! If you do, these people will become the biggest pains in the a**, because people tend not to value things as much when they are free. I find that when you offer discounts or very low prices, people are actually even more picky.
And trust me, they will call you for every extension piece that comes out prematurely. I tell my clients to expect that in the course of 12 weeks, they may lose 0-15 pieces, and if it bothers them, they can come in and I'll pop the piece back in for free (because I know MB shrink links stay in well so it won't become a problem for me). Anyway, that said, a girl on whom I did an install last week called me to say, "I'm freaking out, I just lost a piece and I don't know what to do!" I pointed out that 1 lost piece out of 250 was not a big deal.
My point is that extension clients tend to be very picky, for the most part, and girl, they are going to make you earn every bit of your money, so you darn well better charge for it!
whenever i've done my hobby stuff for money...i always look at what i'm
making per hour at my "normal" job as a baseline...and figure my free
time is worth that much if i can't use it for myself.
you can also figure if you're going to pretip the hair yourself, you
need to count not only your time, but your supplies as well. In
that respect, i usually considered "fresh" supplies each time - like
stenciling...maybe i have that color left from before...but you're
gonna get charged for a full jar because i have to go shopping for your
stuff.
you'll have to decide if you want them to buy the hair, or if you want
to buy it so you can control the quality....i would think about having
them do it...b/c if they back out before install, it's their hair...not
your's.
you can always give them the access to websites...tell them what to get and how much...and then you do it for the fee only.
i wouldn't let the stylist watch...she's gonna see how it's done when
she styles that gals hair during the time she's wearing her
extensions....it's just that you have more experience now.
and if you decide you want to do this more frequently...maybe your
saturday mornings are your extension time. you set 8a-1p every
saturday for your clientele...you have guaranteed income then.
and if they have to wait for you...then you must be REALLY GOOD!
:)
you'll have people jumping to schedule b/c you're so exclusive.
congrats and good luck!!!
has someone been swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool again?
You do have a gift when it comes to hair and you must realize that now since people are putting the trust of their hair into your hands. IMO before you do anyone's hair compose a contract stating you are not responsible for any hair loss, hair breakage, etc. of any kind. If something where to happen and your friend went home, had a knot and pulled their hair too hard to get it out - then - oops- their hair is pulled out, you do not want to be responsible for that. It's sad to say but friends can turn sour sometimes and get court happy.
A contract could be as this:
I ___________________ am paying $200.00 to have hair extensions performed by Amm the Hair Goddess. In under no circumstances will I hold Amm the Hair Goddess responsible for any complications that may occurr to my hair and extension hair. I have been forwarned about breakage, split ends, hair loss, allergic reactions, soreness, tenderness and matting of extensions hair.
print name______________________________
sign name________________________________
Date____________________________________
Signature of extensionist_______________________________
Date___________________________________________
LuckieDuckies
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well you know you could do a couple people and charge them but if you just want everyone to be happy cause their your friends etc. but dont have the time to do everyone maybe you can get them all together for a little charge for an hour or two to kinda show them how to do it themselves like you do, and still do a couple people personally on the side to make some extra money
mochachip
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Lucky - While in general that can be a good idea. I saw it bite
me in the ass once. I know a lot about hair color. None of
it came from official training. I used to get together with
girlfriends and help them with their hair in return for someone who was
willing to follow my directions explicitly when doing the back of my
head where I couldn't see/reach. Then one of them wanted to go
back to her natural color. I helped it worked. then two of
them got together without cause they thought they had learned enough
and created an orange hair disaster. And somehow I was to blame
for never having told them much about bleach.
Anyhow teaching others not always the best way to go cause it tooka
couple f months before I was really forgiven and I didn't even do it.
LuckieDuckies
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that is a good point mocha, it sucks that you got all that blame placed on you which is so unfair considering from the sound of it you werent consulted at all
Gina, the prices that I quoted are for the application fee only. I have spent well over $10,000 on hair extension classes over the last 12 years, so I feel for the knowledge and experience I bring to the client, my prices are quite reasonable.
I don't mark up the MB hair and when I do a consult, I tell them how much hair I feel would be necessary to get the look they want. When I know how much hair we need, colors, length, etc, I just pull out the MB price list and add it all up plus tax and shipping.
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amm wrote:
(My son had to add that happy face)
