A fresh haircut can easily boost a man’s confidence, but lately, it’s also taking a bigger bite out of their wallets.
Beauty does often come with a price tag, but Torontonians say the price tag for a men’s haircut is climbing to extreme heights.
“Yesterday I got a cut and my beard done for $55, I tipped $5. $720 a year on hair cut plus beard seems ridiculous,” a Reddit user said.
The comment sparked a lengthy discussion on the site with men weighing in about the rising costs of a haircut, and how it often affects how much they tip, and sometimes if they even tip at all.
“It is crazy out here. I get a haircut once a month, $40 and $5 in tips. Then I just use my trimmer to keep the fade fresh, I hate it,” another user added.
“When I called around recently it was $40-$50, insanity,” another user said.
“When my barber told me my hair cut increase is $60 he ain’t seen me since January,” another user said.
Many users said they have started cutting their own hair to avoid the rising costs.
Meanwhile, some have mentioned that they have completely stopped tipping.
Julio Benitez is the manager of The Village Barbershop downtown and says that barbers have raised their prices overtime to keep up with the high costs of running the business.
“There’s a lot that goes into it, like rent mostly, it goes up, so you always gotta charge up a little bit so you can meet ends with the rent,” Benitez said in an interview with Now Toronto.
However, he said it’s not only rental costs, but each barber may price their haircuts based on time, skillsets, and other services offered.
In regards to the prices that people are mentioning online, he says most of them are the standard price these days.
“Defeinitely $40, $45, $50 dollars – that’s what most barbers nowadays charge,” he said.
But despite many feeling uneasy about those prices online, Benitez says those prices are lower than what some barbers may charge.
“There are some other barbershops that are $75 or $100, which is a little bit outrageous,” he says.
Alvin Auayang is a barber at the The Mad One Barbershop in Toronto, and attributes the rise in pricing to the growing inflation that the economy is facing, but also cites many barbers being self-employed as a contributing factor.
“The average barber right now is pretty much self contracted,” he said. “With the skills that they’ve developed and all the education and all the knowledge they have to drop on their clients as well, it kind of just raises the price to have more of a value.”
He says that this has led to “competitive pricing” amongst barbers in the city.
Despite many feeling the financial pinch, he hopes that clients can still keep an open mind when they’re in the mood for a fresh cut.
“We work hard to give the services that we provide, and all we want to do is give you peace of mind,” he said.
