花大價錢剪個頭髮是否值得?
Does a Pricey Haircut Pay Off?
Even a good haircut looks shabby after a few weeks. And a bad one usually won't look so bad after a few weeks.
At least that's been my logic over the past couple of decades, as I've gone from one cheapo barber to another.
My wife, Clarissa, has a different credo: A good haircut makes all the difference, and she's willing to pay big money for one. Happily for our finances, she doesn't cut her hair nearly as often as I do.
Hair is a defining test for cheapskates. You can make an argument that going to a fancy Ivy League college instead of a cheaper state school is a good investment. Or that buying a big house in a fancy neighborhood will pay off. I don't agree in either case, but that's beside the point.
How can anybody assert that a fancy haircut, something that begins depreciating almost as soon as you spring out of the barber's chair, is a good investment?
I believe Americans know this and distrust people, particularly men, who are too perfectly coiffed. Think of the pounding John Edwards took for his $400 haircut a few years ago. It took a sex scandal to eclipse it.
Bill Clinton had his own haircut scandal in 1993, when he kept Air Force One on the ground in Los Angeles (supposedly holding up some other flights) so he could get a clip from a celebrated stylist. A columnist back then questioned whether the man from Hope, Ark., was a true bubba.
Has the Great Recession made people get cheaper haircuts? Not according to Paul D. Finkelstein, chief executive of Regis Corp., which operates the Supercuts chain and a slew of other salons, some quite fancy. He says people are paying the same as before; they're just going less often.
'Hair is too personal to risk something you'll be stuck with for a long time,' he says. Visits at low-end Regis salons are down 4% to 5%, but they're down 10% to 11% at the chain's high-end salons.
Men and women have very different views on haircuts. A highly unscientific poll of a few colleagues here at The Wall Street Journal's New York office found two things: No man paid more than $40, and many paid less than half that. And no woman paid less than $80, and some paid as much $300, including coloring and highlighting.
'My husband only pays $7,' noted reporter Ellen Byron, who spends much more than that for the full treatment. 'He goes to a place where the guy turns out the lights if there's no one there.'
Now I'm jealous. Seven dollars is hard to top.
From 2001 to 2004, I lived in Verona, N.J., where I went to a barber shop that charged $9 a haircut. I recently called back the barber, Dino Ditizii, who has been working there since 1962.
Dino thinks he last raised prices 13 or 14 years ago. 'I don't remember,' he says, 'A long time ago.' He spends seven minutes or so on the average haircut. The customers get jumpy if takes much longer. 'If I take 10 minutes, they start to look at the clock,' he says.
Nowadays, I live in a different New Jersey town, where I can walk to the barber shop. It costs $16, not a bad price. It's certainly not worth driving half an hour to save a few bucks.
Clarissa spends more like $110 to get her hair cut and 'glazed,' whatever that is. But she'll go three months between cuts, while I get one every three or four weeks.
Our 18-year-old, Brendon, goes us one better by combining my approach and Clarissa's. He goes to the same cheap shop as I do, but very infrequently. Once he got a crewcut and didn't cut it again until it was a shoulder-length mop.
As a parent, I was appalled. But as a cheapskate, I applaud him.
All this pales compared to our 23-year-old daughter, Mariana. Last month, I wrote how she had managed to save money while living in New York City on a salary of less than $30,000. One of her secrets: She cuts her own hair, something she's been doing since her junior year of college.
'I don't always like how it turns out,' she says. 'But I don't like how they cut my hair in other places-and I have to pay for it.'
即使是剪得很精緻的髮型過幾個星期再看也是亂七八糟，而剪得不怎麼樣的髮型幾周後看上去往往不會那麼糟了。
至少過去幾十年來，我一直是這麼認爲的，期間我經歷了一家又一家的便宜理髮店。
我的太太克拉麗莎(Clarissa)卻有着不同的看法：剪個美美的髮型事關重大，她願意爲此花大價錢。好在她理髮沒我勤，這對我們的財務狀況來說算是一大幸事。
理髮是定義節儉生活的一項關鍵測試。你可以說，就讀一所常春藤名校、而不是一所學費更低的州立大學，是項好投資。抑或，在高檔社區買座大房子是樁好買賣。對此我都不敢苟同，不過這並不是我要說的重點。
怎會有人斷言，剪個漂亮的頭髮是項好投資？畢竟頭髮在你一跳下理髮師的椅子，幾乎馬上就開始貶值了。
我相信美國人明白這點，而且不信任別人，特別是那些頭髮做得紋絲不亂的男人。想想約翰•愛德華茲(John Edwards)，幾年前他花了400美元理了個發，結果付出了怎樣巨大的代價。最終是一樁性醜聞才蓋過了頭髮風波。
1993年比爾•克林頓(Bill Clinton)也曝出了理髮醜聞，當時他命令空軍一號停在洛杉磯（據信還影響了其他一些飛機的起落），以便找一位知名美髮師理個髮。當時有位專欄作家質疑來自阿肯色州霍普的克林頓是否真是個鄉下人。
這次的經濟衰退是否讓人們在理髮上少花些錢呢？據Regis Corp.首席執行長芬克史坦(Paul D. Finkelstein)的說法，並沒有。該公司運營有Supercuts連鎖店，還有一系列其他美髮店，有些店非常的奢華。他說，人們在理髮上花的錢和從前一樣，只是理髮的次數減少了。
他說，頭髮是個很私人的東西，如果理得不好，很長時間都可能會讓你有噩夢纏身的感覺。Regis的低檔美髮店顧客理髮次數減少了4%-5%，不過其高檔美髮店的顧客理髮次數卻減少了10%-11%。
男人和女人對理髮的看法迥然不同。對《華爾街日報》紐約辦公室的一些同事進行的非常缺乏科學性的調查顯示出了兩點：男人在理髮上花的錢沒有超過40美元的，很多男人還不到20美元；女人則都不少於80美元，有些甚至會花300美元，又是染髮，又是挑染。
記者拜倫(Ellen Byron)說，我丈夫理髮只要七美元。而她本人在全套美髮服務上花的錢要遠比這多。她說，我丈夫去理髮的地方，當沒有顧客的時候，理髮師會把燈都關掉。
我嫉妒她的丈夫。七美元理個髮對我來說是個難以企及的高度。
2001年至2004年，我住在新澤西州維羅納，我去的理髮店收費是九美元。最近我打電話給那裏的理髮師蒂提茲(Dino Ditizii)。他從1962年就一直在那裏工作。
蒂提茲回憶說，他最近一次漲價是在13年或14年之前。他說，我不記得了，那是很久之前的事了。他理一個頭發一般要七分鐘左右。如果時間太長，顧客會不耐煩的。他說，如果花十分鐘，顧客就會開始看錶。
如今，我住在新澤西州另外一個城鎮，我可以走路去理髮店。理一個頭發花16美元，價格還算可以。要是爲了省幾塊錢就得開車奔波半小時當然不值得了。
克拉麗莎做頭髮無論是什麼項目都能花上110美元以上。不過她要三個月才做一次頭髮，而我每三、四周就會理一次頭髮。
我們18歲的兒子布蘭頓(Brendon)則做得更妙，他把我和他媽媽的做法結合在了一起。他和我去同一家便宜的理髮店，不過他去的更少。有一次，他剪了個平頭，直到頭髮長到齊肩了，才又去剪了一次。
作爲一名父親，我對此深感擔憂。不過作爲一個精打細算的人，我要表示讚賞。
不過，與我23歲的女兒瑪麗安娜(Mariana)相比，這些都相形見絀了。上個月，我撰文寫了她住在紐約的時候，年薪不足三萬美元，是如何攢下錢的。她的祕訣之一就是自己剪頭髮，她從大三開始就給自己剪頭髮了。
她說，我有時也不喜歡自己剪出來的效果，不過我不喜歡其他地方理髮師給我剪的頭髮，何況我還得爲此付錢。
