HAIRDRESSERS' TRICKS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4942, 22 February 1926, Page 1

HAIRDRESSERS' TRICKS.

HOW* SOME RUN UP BIG BILLS.

LOTIONS. AND OINTMENTS.

The action of the ’Public Control Committee -of the < London County Council, in revoking the 'license of a Charing Cross hairdresser for massage arid special .treatment because an 1 charged a customer £7 18b 3d for .unnecessary ultra-violet ray treatment should prove a salutary less.cn to hairdressers who make a, point of tricking: customers into buying unnecessary articles) or services. A hairdresser said to a Daily Mail reporter : “There are a number, of gocalled hairdressers’ shops in London where hairdressing is a ; secondary consideration. The sale of cosmetics, preparations, and the advocacy of special treatments, is the. chief work of the assistants. 'lhave worked in such places, and I was tjold directly-1 joined the staff at asniall wage th,at I was expected to push the sale of bottles of lotion and other preparations’, my'reward being 12:% per cent, commission on all I sold, ,a bonus'the proprietor could well afford to give when we had to charge, 7s 6d and 6d for bottles of stuff which cost very little to put up. We were always told hot to bother about trying to .sell things to men or women who were ap-’ patently business people, but to confine our attention -to visitors from the country or suburbs.” ThejS’e are-some pf the artifices, employed in these shojps. • Directly ' a customer enters, apt assistant hurries forward to take his. hat and coat; and glance ,at the label! in' the hat or the :ta,b on the coat gives an lmmedlat<e cue : for, activities,. ‘ the assistant notices .that the man. pomes from the provinces, he urges certain treatment as “refreshing after a train journey,” recommends the use of ,a Ihtion for this/that, and the other, and the customer, who came in for a; shave, finds that he has. to pay 10s or'lss before he gets out of the shop.

Not very- long ago a country visitor to London entered a/ West Khd saloon fpr a shave. He came out with lotions and ointments which had cost him more than £l, and he had also undertaken to buy aS £6 6s suit.