Ten years ago I bought professional clippers for $200. I’ve shaved my own head with them every week since. It’s saved me well over $7,000.
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Don’t get me wrong. I’m not judging anyone, but I went to beauty school out of high school and have been doing hair on the side most of my life. I understand this business. The amount you pay to the salon is a made up number. 
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All numbers are made up.
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It’s good for everyone to understand this.
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I wish I could make up a few more zeros on by bank balance. 
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It is not enough that you make things up. You you should make up the zeros for the the person paying you – either it is an employer or a customer. Steve Jobs believed in charging whatever the market will bear. Look where Apple is.
Evidently, so do salons. 
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Hair cuts are Giffen goods. The demand curve looks the wrong way.
I pay around $80 for a haircut at a good salon. I could afford to pay $350, but I’m skeptical it would be any better than what I can get for far less. That’s the factor that would bug me-I don’t see how that cost can be justified other than because they can. On the other hand, I’ve spent several thousand dollars on a piece of art that some would probably believe they could do just as well (abstract) because I loved it so much.
To each his own, as everyone says. Back to subject, my D (two years out of grad school) has a good six figure salary and she is getting approached to switch firms for a huge increase in pay. She just has to figure out if the hit to life/work balance would be worth it. It’s a nice problem to have.
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Everything is made up number. You can buy $30 bag at Target or $12k Chanel bag. Or $40 watches and Rolex that still shows the same time.
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And the most expensive city in America for a haircut is… said in 2014, the average price for a women’s haircut was $71 in San Francisco and $69 in Los Angeles (and $73 in New York). It seems unlikely that it has gone up to 5 times that in the last 8 years.
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Often, people will pay for the “star” stylist whose fees may be based on the Steve Jobs model noted above. Salon fees are not based on the cost of the cut, style, products or their application. It’s all about perception. Like most things.
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One could make a similar comment about “elite” colleges.
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I get my hair cut at places that charge $20 or less. We used to have a hairdresser come to our house for that price. I give her a tip so that makes it slightly more. S had a fulltime federal EE job and part time job so he could have the money he wanted to live happily in DC. He quit his full time EE job as it was making 1/3 or less than his part time job and is now enjoying just growing the other job.
I am unsure of his actual salary, as he hasn’t mentioned actual money much but is very happy and has significant savings and income. He hasn’t cashed the last mss as my checks we’ve given him.
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Less the case. Colleges exist in roughly three buckets – instate public (say around 30k all in), out of state public (50-60) and private 80ish. All privates are at that level. Princeton is around 75 for instance. USC is more like 86. NYU and Columbia are also around 85. People don’t necessarily prefer the NY or the CA schools over Princeton simply because of tuition.
Just one of many haircut places in LA Service Menu – Spoke & Weal
So, probably more accurate to say “there are some places in LA that charge $350 for a haircut” than saying that’s how much a haircut costs in LA/SF?
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For $350, I would expect none other than Paul Mitchell or, since he has passed, another celebrity stylist.
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Well, sometimes you do get what you pay for. Quality of materials do impact products in terms of not only how they look or function, but how long they last, how efficient/accurate they are, how they hold up to wear and tear, etc. Yes, you can go crazy buying something simply for the name, but it’s not true that two products that serve the same function are necessarily of the same quality. I’ve had the $30 bag, and it turned out to be total junk. Not interested in the $12K bag either, but there is usually a happy medium somewhere to be found. Even adjusting for the location of a home, there is a reason one home is built for $150K and another costs $2 million.
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This is not outlier so you can phrase it differently but it doesn’t change the fact.