The French Coiffure Crisis

I've often seen on expat forums complaints about how difficult it is to get a decent haircut in France. I've always assumed it was just that in France they do things differently and the complaints were probably not justified. After all, Simon and I have no complaints about our hairdresser. She is our next door neighbour and comes to our house to cut our hair once a year. My hair is simple, but Simon has very wavy thick hair, and she clearly understands the tricky nature of hair like his. But it seems that complaints about hairdressers are just as widespread amongst the native population, so something must be up.

In France there is an average of one hairdressing salon for every 720 people, and French people make an average of four to seven visits to the hairdresser a year. Preuilly sur Claise (population 1009) has three salons and a mobile hairdresser (our neighbour), which I've always thought quite remarkable.

About a million people visit the hairdresser on any given day in France, spending €85 000 a year in a sector worth six billion euros a year overall. But -- the sector is declining and salons are starting to close at a rapid rate. Women are not going to the hairdressers as much, and they are opting for less complicated, lower maintenance styles. Since France is the world's leading producer of hair care products, it's got companies like L'Oréal rattled -- to the point that they have announced the opening of a new academy where students will study for a Bachelor in hairdressing and business. The aim is to reinvigorate a better business approach and improve training.

Since 2011, the sector, employing 90% women, and second only to becoming a baker as a career choice for school leavers who want to do an artisan trade, has been declining. There are 10 000 vacant posts in hairdressers across France. Twenty or thirty years ago there was a swathe of French household name hairdressers setting the trends and making their fortunes but now, good hairdressers are becoming rarer and rarer.

Technical training for apprentices concentrates on colouring and styling. There is very little on how to cut. Bad haircuts are the result, cleverly disguised with artful blowdrying and use of the curling tongs, only to disintegrate at the first wash. Some women still go to the salon every week for 'le brushing' (a blowdry) to maintain their style, but it is becoming much less common. Most women are just opting for simpler styles, either very short or like me, all one length and long enough to pull back in a simple pony tail.

There are a number of problems in the salons. First of all, what the apprentices are taught, which hasn't changed since the fifties. They learn how to do perms and chemical colours, but what the clients want are organic vegetal tints. They find themselves doing a lot of thankless sweeping up and learning obsolete skills. Some salons focus on selling a lot of product at the expense of the cut itself, so the apprentices have no sense of artistic achievement. L'Oréal says it wants to inject a sense of striving for excellence into the job. These days, many women can do better job on their own hair just using tutorials on the internet rather than a professional hairdresser. In the old days women learnt about new products at the salon, but now hairdressers are no longer the innovative ones. They are seen as old fashioned, dowdy, and expensive. 

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