$950 Haircuts Hit The Black Market

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.

Not surprisingly, salons frown on the practice, which is why stylists who work this way usually insist on anonymity to protect their day jobs. "People will call it black market haircutting sometimes," said the stylist who coiffed Ms. Zomorodi and her friends.

....Some stylists report an uptick in people asking for under-the-table deals. "I had someone call me last week," Ted Gibson, who charges $950 a cut, said recently. The potential customer was a guest at the Ritz-Carlton and wanted Mr. Gibson, who boasts a celebrity clientele and owns Ted Gibson Salon in Manhattan, to cut his girlfriend's hair. "He was trying to negotiate for me to come and do it for $650. I was like, �No, I charge double if I go out,' " Mr. Gibson said. "Needless to say, they did not book me."

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Comments

[eXcommunicate]

The comments on this board are kinda funny.

[NoSillyName]

Its not just the salons that frown on this; most State Boards can yank the license of the cosmetologist if they should happen to find out. The same rules apply to barber licenses. Unless the laws have loosened up in recent years.

[NoSillyName]

The prices we're hearing about for some "special" haircuts are absolutely ridiculous. I guess to correct my statement, I'd write "... for haircuts by "special" "stylists...".

If some people have enough money to waste on simple Hype and for something as impermanent as a haircut, they let them at it, John Edwards.

I know how to do great haircuts. Happy to do it for thirty bucks. Unless someone wants to pay more.

[Fernando]

If anyone doubts WHERE the Bush tax breaks have gone in the last eight years, this is exhibit A.

They didn't go into investments, they went into indulgences like two million dollar sweet 16 parties and $950 haircuts. Geez, even John Edwards got his for half that prize! At a time when people are losing their jobs, their health insurance and their life savings, the rich somehow got richer while the rest seems to have gotten screwed royally.

[brooklyncitizen]

though self-indulgent good hair days/ lifestyle is nothing to scoff at .

[sophieozz]

I'm still nostalgic for the Astor Place Barbers $5 cut.

[pointyheadprodigy]

950 dollar haircuts or 650 dollar haircuts are only available to the idiots of our society and then they must be overpaid idiots with no awareness of the term "value". How can a person be smart enough to earn a thousand bucks and then dumb enough to fall for this sort of cancerous hype?

[IndependentBadger]

It's amazing how well-packaged the regional stereotypes are. East coast and west-coast people love to rip on the rest of the country as backwards, dumb, inbred, uneducated, etc. Yet here is one of thousands of examples of coastal behavior which, in the absence of the "packaging", would reveal how truly inverse this image is to reality.

In the midwest, you don't pay $950 for a haircut, unless you're a rich, consummate idiot. Of course, if WE did something like that, you'd see clips on Leno, or Conan, pointing out the naivete of the provincial nouveau-riches.

Maybe the recession/­depression won't be lose-lose after all..

[yosoyeldecider]

I wonder how much Blago pays for his cuts?

[chewie2008]

He`ll probably ask the barber:"Hey,how much you gonna pay to make my day?"

[tx]

You city folks sure are scared

[tx]

Jez, where have you been? This has been going on for soooo many years. It's a good thing too. It's called commerce, some call it barter. And what it doesn't need, is all those corporate economic melt down banks and wall streets and ceo's. It's how people do business, get used to it. And if you've designed your future around being a middle "man". Better find a real skill .... like cutting hair! Now there's something almost everybody needs, and is willing to trade money or services for.

If you just happen to feel you need that expensive cut, remember, it's less the cut, then it is that someone knows you paid that much for it.

[Manuel]

Let's get serious. The public does not and will not ever understand a $950 haircut. Then again the public doesn't understans glamour or glamorous hair. The trouble isn't with the $950 service but with people who expect to go to a stylist and ask for a bouffant (hopefully with sharp scissors so that the hairtips are cleanly blunt) and expect that that cut will be the equivalent of a complete washout and redo of Bo Derek's braids, or of Farrah Fawcett's feathers, cut evenl;y and expertly with a razor.

Is removing Bo Derek's braids, having a washout, feeding the hair, a trim, and a rebraid worth $950?

Not to a laid-off fastfood worker, but perhaps to Bo Derek it might well be. $950 may even be a bargain.

Manuel

[Tinkeraw]

I cut my own hair, have for years. Not so much the money as I was tired of going in and asking for a certain style, complete with pictures and getting something very different. This would happen no matter the styles or the style. I have talked to other ladies who have the same problem. The stylists seem to have their rut and stay in it. I have had people compliment my hair and ask who does it so I must be doing something right (definately not very complicated).

Pay $950 ... those who do have too much money and/or should think about supporting charities.

[mapleaforever]

I can't believe some of the comments here. Haircuts for $10, my husband does it and so on. People who get their cuts from clowns like this, and at these prices, don't live in your world. The fact is that there will always be idiots with too much money in their wallets. Think country clubs are filled with people of common sense and humility? Think again. These are the same people who are unwilling to have their taxes raised so everyone can have health care. Yeah, I'll get a $950 haircut but won't pay $100 more a year in taxes. Hell, make it $1,900 and you can cut me at home. See you in three weeks and we'll do it again.

Now I know why tigers eat their young (thanks Rodney).

[johnnygoodwud]

i remember as a kid, giving myself and our dog a haircut with manual clippers. the dog loved it as it was summer and really hot. i wound up having to have all my hair cut off by a barber, and wore a baseball hat all summer, even to bed, until it grew out. i was even vain back than.