There is a crisis in French hairdressing as the industry faces pressure from inflation, Covid, taxes, women’s changing hair habits, and an excess of salons across the country, leading to a number of businesses expected to close this year, as reported by The Times.
With more than 600 salons in liquidation in the first half of 2023 (according to the B2B data firm Altares), hairdressers fear that the industry will be dominated by brand chains and franchises that employ only one third of hairdressers. What’s more, many smaller hairdressers are struggling to repay state loans paid to 18,000 salons to help them through the pandemic.
Hairdressers blame energy costs and France’s costly employment laws as well as women reducing their appointments often by changing to simpler styles, embracing their natural colour, or spacing out colour appointments, following the effect of the Covid lockdowns.
On average, French women account for 70 percent of hairdressers’ income (according to Statista). Women are now visiting only four times a year on average, but the figure is much higher for the urban middle classes, for which a wash and blow dry remains a regular service.
Nicolas Waldorf, a salon owner for 10 years and an Instagram influencer, has removed five staff members after a fall in customers in recent months. “For the past three months, we have been at under half our target turnover. I’ve finished €40,000 in the red before paying salaries. I haven’t paid myself for a year and a half,” Nicolas told BFMTV news. “We used to have a two-year waiting list, and now it’s hard to fill the booking list.”
With 100,000 hairdressing businesses, up from 85,000 in 2018, Christophe Doré, Head of the National Union of Hairdressing Businesses in France, said that the industry was facing a crisis worse than any before Covid: “There are too many salons in France. The market has to regulate itself. It’s incredible. France has three times as many hairdressing salons as Britain.”
