Heating, hair dryer, washing machine… Essentials specific to hairdressing salons that drive up the energy costs of many of them. The owners are crumbling under unpayable bills. Some adapt, others feel the blow, with the impression of being abandoned.
Faced with soaring energy costs, Pascal, owner of a hairdressing salon in Auderghem (Brussels region), simply had no choice but to increase his prices by 10%: “We increased our prices to 1is August and we plan to possibly increase our prices even further by the end of the year”, he laments.
And for good reason, the sector, still weakened by the health crisis, is struggling to get by: “All of our bills are increasing dramatically. Energy and wage costs, suppliers increasing by 10 to 30% or even 40%… We don’t know where we are going. We feel like we have no help“, he adds.
Two factors can in particular explain the rise in costs, particularly in terms of personnel, which represents the first expense of a hairdressing salon. We can thus raise inflation, but also the indexation of wages. But for Patrick Dumont, Vice-president of the national federation of hairdressers, the electricity bill turns out to be an even more worrying element: “In September 2021, we obtained a refund of 704 euros. In September 2022, instead of being reimbursed for 704 euros, we must supplement 4,783.06 euros. Our deposit of 292 euros increases to 1362.77 euros. It’s almost the amount of the store’s rent.”
“We can’t do anything about the dryer or the washing machine”
A situation, more and more complicated to manage: “It will be unthinkable to ask companies to support more than 10% gross salary increase. It is absolutely necessary to intervene concerning these energy bills.”
Some then adopt certain habits to minimize energy costs. For Patrick, co-manager of a hairdressing salon, the reflex at the start of autumn is to turn down the heating: “Nothing can be done about the dryer or the washing machine. On the other hand, the air conditioning and heating we will try to manage as best we can.“, he confides.
The hairdressing sector risks being hit hard by the energy crisis. According to a recent study, out of 1800 consumers, 88% of them will drastically reduce their costs. Non-essential expenses such as the hairdresser are among the first to be abandoned.