Shear Genius

A cozy, fun evening at home with your girlfriends with manis, pedis, wine and gossip. Sounds like a good evening, right? One way to make it just that much better is to have a professional stylist come in and cut and style you and your friends in your kitchen, at a “cut” rate (no pun intended).

The New York Times ran an article in December suggesting that more high-end stylists are working after-hours to provide friends and certain clients with budget services.

Welcome to the stealth world of the underground hair party, an exclusive girls’ night that combines the pursuit of beauty with the irresistible appeal of an insider bargain. Often, private haircutting parties are born when a salon client approaches her stylist with the whispered promise of a festive atmosphere, a guaranteed number of guests and cash under the table in return for reduced rates. [source]

Now, of course, the salons are doing more than frowning on this practice because not only do they have policies against offering services outside of work hours, but the salon themselves are losing out on the income as well.

The trend has come about because while people are looking to save money on their beauty treatments, they also still need to look good. The stylist in the article was charging $60 a head, which is a fraction of the salon he works in, and the interviewee sad she wouldn’t be able to afford to go to his salon.

So, how do you join this seemingly exclusive group of black market hair services?  You’re most likely to find a moonlighting stylist by being invited to join an existing party. When that party gets too large, one group will often break off into another group and seek new clients for their under the table wunderkind.

The alternative, which is propositioning someone at a salon, take talent and tact. You should already have a relationship with the stylist and should broach the topic casually and discreetly, say those who have had done it successfully. Hounding and nickel-and-diming are deal-breakers.

This is becoming quite the trend – the stylist interviewed in the NYT Article had 7 more groups to get to after he was finished at the first one.

[image source, Wikimedia Commons]