How to swap stylists within a salon without hurting their feelings
Our columnist Anne Robinson has advice to a reader who wants to change hairdresser but worries about hurting their feelings.
Alun Callender
Our columnist Anne Robinson has advice to a reader who wants to change hairdresser but worries about hurting their feelings.
I’ve been going to the same hairdresser for eight years – he’s perfectly good and we get on well. But when he was on holiday recently, a new, young stylist at the salon did my hair and it looked heaps better. I got so many compliments.
I’d love to move over to her permanently, but I feel incredibly awkward about it. My husband doesn’t know why on earth I am tying myself in knots over this, but I thought you might understand.
Yes, I do understand. It’s easy to think of your hairdresser as part of the same list as your doctor, dentist, Pilates instructor or golf coach. But he’s rather different. Each visit you and he chat for say 40 minutes and doubtless there have been appointments where you’ve shared all manner of detail about your life, including when you were cross or upset, even tearful. Always happy that the detail would not go further. Plus, of course, him giving you – until now – a very decent cut and blow-dry.
Therefore, to ‘dump’ him and move on without a word is heartless. It’s not something you or I would like done to us.
My hairdresser runs a small salon within a rather swanky retirement village. It’s just James and his working partner Clara. When I raised your dilemma with them, both were adamant you were entitled to book whichever stylist you wished. But if I suddenly switched from James to Clara after a decade and said nothing, I know he – rightly – would be upset and puzzled. There is also the practical problem of seeing your old hairdresser each time you visit the new one.
I suggest you take a deep breath and drop him a handwritten note. Say you are feeling a bit stuck in life and fancy a few changes. Tell him he’s been wonderful, performing miracles on your hair for nearly a decade but now you are going to try another stylist. It won’t wipe away his disappointment, but he will appreciate your thoughtfulness.
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