How Long Is Too Long To Spend In The Hair Salon?

The hair salon is a place that has long since equaled dread for many ladies. Hours upon hours spent sitting and basically doing a whole lotta waiting. Under the dryer for twice as long as it takes to dry your hair. Stomach growling from pure hunger. Kids ringing your phone wondering if you’re still alive. And husband furious that you have been MIA for nearly 8 hours on a Saturday.

Raise your hand if you can relate to one or all of the above. My hand is super high in the air right now. This is not by any means to discredit the professional stylists who keep to their booked appointments, show up on time and treat you like they respect your valuable time.

This, unfortunately, is about the opposite experience which a lot of us go through much too often. While witnessing a woman completely break down and lose her cool in the salon one such Saturday, I began to wonder how much time was really too long to spend getting a fresh do.

There is time associated with having any service performed. We all know and expect that, but are our expectations too high?

One thing I know for sure, we should not be in the salon for 6 and 8 hours. That is ridiculous by anyone’s standards. Let’s examine some of the standard services you may go in for and how long they take. Then we will remove any factors that could extend that time frame and see how quickly you could get in and out of the salon in a perfect world. Ok? Let’s go!

Wash, condition, set and style.

I think it’s fair to say that longer hair for any service will obviously take longer than that same service would on shorter hair. But, all other things being equal, it takes about 15 to 20 minutes to thoroughly wash, rinse and apply conditioner to the hair. Without deep conditioning*, you should spend about 3 to 5 minutes with the conditioner in your hair and then have it rinsed out.

We are at approximately 25 minutes on the high end of things.

The time it takes to set the hair will definitely depend on length. With a short cut, you would get your hair molded and wrapped before going under the dryer. That should take about 10 minutes. Then, depending on the density and thickness of your hair, you would be under the dryer from 25 to 45 minutes.  Let’s go with 45 minutes, which puts us at a total of 1 hour and 10 minutes.

For long hair, you may get a roller set. That takes more time to complete that a short wrap, so we’ll allow 30 minutes for rolling the hair up and 1 hour to 1 ½ hours under the dryer. Again, thickness and density play a part here.

So for long hair, we are at about 2 hours and 25 minutes on the high end.

Now, let’s pretend that you are actually taken from under the dryer when your hair is dry and not 45 minutes after the fact. In that case, if you have a shortcut, your hair would be styled at this point.

An average pixie style would take around 20 – 40 minutes. In a perfect world, you would make your payment, tip your stylist and be out the door in a grand total of 1 hour and 50 minutes. Let’s go ahead and round up and say that you should be in and out in 2 hours if you rock a short cut and you were not getting a deep conditioning treatment or relaxer applied.

For the longer style, once you’re done drying, your rollers would be removed and then your wrap perfected. That shouldn’t take more than 25 minutes. Which puts you at 2 hours and 50 minutes. Go ahead and make it an even 3 hours. This is also without deep conditioning* or relaxer application.

So typically speaking, with a short style, maintenance only visit, you should be in and out in 2 hours. Longer hair, in and out in 3 hours. If you add deep conditioning*, coloring or relaxer services to either of these visits, easily tack on another 1 hour to ½ hours each.

Max time you should be in the salon, in a perfect world, would be 3 ½ hours for short hair and 4 ½ hours for long hair. These numbers are approximations and in no way are they exact, however, when you sit in a salon for 8 hours and you rock a pixie cut, that is a problem!

Work with your stylist and do your part to cut down on an excessive time in the shop. One of the biggest pet peeves of professional stylists are clients that are not on time for their appointment. So be courteous and get to the salon on time. Additionally, do not add on services you didn’t book and be respectful of the other clients’ time as well ladies.

Finally, do the consultation that way you and your stylist have a plan before the actual appointment which will help your actual appointment run smoothly.

Are you headed to the salon today? Comment below!