Dear Susan,
I have a style emergency.
I don’t understand the tipping rules for salon owners anymore.
Growing up in Oklahoma, I was always told, both by women who knew what they were talking about and by salon owners themselves, that you never, ever tip the salon owner. One salon owner told me that it was actually an insult to offer the salon owner a tip, like you’re not acknowledging his status as Head Stylist or something.
Then 20 years went by, and I moved 800 miles northeast, and these days, at least where I live, I’ve heard that salon owners expect to be tipped. At one very trendy place where I got the WORST haircut of my life from the salon owner, the snotty purple-haired receptionist even asked me how much of a tip I wanted to leave!
So now I really, really need a haircut, and I want to go to a stylist who did a great job the last time he cut my hair (a couple of years ago), but I haven’t gone back because I don’t know whether I’m supposed to tip him or not, and I don’t want to either a) offend him;
or b) look like a rube–either by tipping or NOT tipping.
Help!
Befuddled in Buffalo
