What do Trump’s tariffs mean for hair appointments?

Cara Feder, a 29-year-old hair stylist in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, offers clients a service she calls the “root and run”. Essentially, you pay $70 to have your roots dyed and leave the salon with a head of wet hair. With personal care prices rising over 27 per cent from 2019 to 2024, Feder started offering the standalone service as an easy way for people on a budget to cut their haircare costs. “In this economy, I think it’s better to offer things à la carte, and let people decide what they can and can’t afford,” she says. Now, staring down the barrel of Trump’s 10 per cent tariff on nearly all imports, punishing levies of at least 145 per cent on Chinese goods that come into the United States and (currently paused) “reciprocal” tariffs on America’s largest trading partners, Feder says she will have to increase her prices just to stay afloat. So, how will Trump’s tariffs impact America’s salon owners, hair stylists and the resulting cost of getting your hair done?

Where Trump will land on exact tariff percentages still remains to be seen, and this uncertainty is rippling across industries, including the beauty world. Feder says that every product she currently uses is imported. Some products, like Matrix and Redken colour, are imported from Canada, while Pravana hair colour is imported from Mexico and Brazil, and Schwarzkopf products are imported from Germany. (The list goes on.) Even products manufactured in the US – Joico, Pulp Riot or Paul Mitchell, for example – still have international distribution or ingredients that are imported. “I don’t think there’s a single stylist who doesn’t use a colour line that’s imported outside of the US, there’s no way around it,” she says. “As a business owner, I don’t want to eat the cost of tariffs alone and just lose money, but just because my expenses went up, doesn’t mean people are able to pay higher prices.” 

People don’t entirely stop getting their hair done during uncertain financial times, but the economy does impact hair trends themselves, meaning so will the tariffs. Feder says she’s already seen a huge shift towards natural or low-maintenance colours in recent years – cue the “recession indicator brunette” dialogue. “It’s a huge 360 from when I first started doing hair back in 2019 and silver hair was super in,” she says. “Everyone wanted super blonde hair, almost white hair, but now no one does, and people are not keeping high-maintenance colours for as long anymore.” As colour is a luxury service, the good news is that people getting cuts alone won’t be majorly affected by tariffs (depending on shampoo and styling product prices). Even still, Feder says people have already been swapping their bobs, bangs and angled cuts for more grown-out, layered haircuts. 

In Joon Drop in New York, founder Julie Dickson says most people coming in are in denial about the impending tariffs. Dickson’s personal plan, however, is to pass on only a portion of any price increases to her clients. “In my salon, our prices are pretty high and we charge a premium for our expertise in colour placement and formulation, not necessarily the amount of colour we use,” she says. “I think the consumers in smaller cities and towns, because they charge less, will be affected a lot more if the costs of the goods we use go up.” Despite this, extensions in particular will be greatly affected across the board. Dickson uses hair from Northern Europe, but says the process of disinfecting, colouring and manufacturing extensions is mostly done in China. “They’re already very expensive, and we’re expecting the base price to be at least 20 per cent higher,” she says. 

According to Dickson, what New Yorkers are currently asking for when it comes to hair is political. “People seem to fall into three categories: buttoned up and high maintenance, reserved, natural beauty inspired or bold and rebellious,” she says. Under tariff pricing, maintaining a more demanding style or going to a more expensive salon will further become symbols of the country’s wealth divide. There will be salons, stylists and people extremely impacted, and others for whom it’s more of a mere inconvenience. For Simone Henderson, a hair stylist based between Virginia and New York, tariffs on hair products are a slap in the face to Black women, who overwhelmingly did not vote for Trump. “We knew this was going to happen, and it’s so annoying, but this is not our fight because we've already tried to fight for so long to say something, right?” she says. “But I promise you, you can’t play with a Black woman’s hair: now we have to get up because you’re playing with our crown of glory.” 

As a stylist, Henderson knows how much the hair industry is worth. “Big business might not see it that way because it's women, it's Black women, it's an afterthought,” she says. “But, for us, hair is not just a service.” As a custom wig specialist, she’s already started promoting “tariff sales” and says her vendors are currently trying to bulk up with enough hair that their prices don’t go up too drastically. All her vendors are across Asia, down to shears, combs and brushes, but some are already talking about shifting to get their hair from South America. Currently, she says it’s a waiting game before calculating final cost increases, but she expects all areas of her offerings to be impacted, from braiding to wigs to weaves. “No matter what, people are going to get their hair done, and there’s this underlying feeling of ‘we’re going to get through because we always do’,” she says. “I help build confidence, and that’s at jeopardy in a space where it's already hard enough being a Black woman outside.”