Hairdressing slipping on the professional scale

Published 20th Mar 2009 by bathamm
Hairdressing slipping on the professional scale matthew-news.jpgHJ News Editor, Matthew Batham, considers Michael Van Clarke's call for higher professional standards in hairdressing.

VAN-CLARK-Michael.jpgMichael Van Clarke's salon in Mayfair London has long been a paragon of high standards in service and training - HJ's British Hairdressing Business Awards 2008 Junior of the Year was trained there.

There couldn't really be a better ambassador for professionalism in the industry, which adds impetus to the survey he recently commissioned into client perceptions of hairdressing.

Key findings of the survey by One Poll (2,000 women were questioned), include:

  • The majority of women change their stylists before their fourth haircut
  • Less than 25% of clients stay with their stylist beyond a year
  • Half of women outside London prefer their own home blowdry to their stylist's efforts
  • 40% of women avoid salons on a regular basis because of unhappy experiences and lack of trust in hairdressers' abilities.

These findings are worrying to say the least - particularly at a time when holding on to clients is vital to the survival of many businesses.

But for Michael the saddest element of the survey findings is that they illustrate how far perception of the industry has deteriorated since the distant days when hairdressing was considered a profession on a par with medicine.

 

"The survey shows how desperately the industry needs to change if it's going to scrape itself off the bottom of the pay scales," said Michael. surgeon.jpg

"What is offered generally simply isn't good enough and that keeps wages low. Hairdressers could and should earn the same as experts in other fields. There was a time when medics and hairdressers had a similar status in society.

"People don't change their dentist or doctor on a regular basis, and they shouldn't need to be switching stylists either. On average, medic earn six times more than hairdressers.

Not that many in the industry would want to return to the old days of when the neighbourhood barber also performed surgery and dentistry - even Michael Van Clarke would be hard-pushed to train staff in these skills.

"Would you like an extraction with your trim, madam?"

Some things are best left in the past!

More Hairdressing News Reviews

bathamm

bathamm

Published 20th Mar 2009

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