Colour cost per service: stop mixing by eye

One Australian salon's price list puts the rule in two sentences. The Mane Space says its standard mix is 50g of colour, and any additional colour used for thick or long hair is charged per gram. It also says it uses Vish to monitor colour usage and charge accordingly. A salon that prices a full head as if every bowl were the same pays the colour cost of the long, thick heads out of its margin.

Charging per gram is one answer. Knowing what a service actually costs in product comes first, whatever you decide to charge.

Work out the colour cost of one service

Take a regrowth. Colourists on the Salon Geek forum describe mixing around 30g of colour with 30g of developer for a regrowth, and less or more depending on how thick the hair is. Your own numbers will differ, which is the point of writing them down.

1. Cost per gram of colour: the tube price divided by the grams in the tube.
2. Cost per gram of developer: the bottle price divided by its size.
3. Grams of each in a typical bowl for that service.
4. Multiply and add. That is the product cost of the bowl.

Do it for each service on the menu: regrowth, full head, half head foils, full head foils, toner. Foils add lightener and developer, usually in a different ratio from tint, and a toner after foils is another bowl.

Count what is left in the bowl

Mixed colour that goes down the basin was paid for. The cost of a service is what was mixed, not what went on the head. A bowl mixed "to be safe" costs the same whether it is used or not.

Count the back bar

Bond builder, stain remover, the colour-safe shampoo and treatment at the basin are all part of the service. They are easy to leave out because nobody weighs them.

Weigh the bowl, not the tube

A set of scales at the colour bar changes the habit more than any rule. Mix to a weight, not to a squeeze.

One colourist on the same Salon Geek thread describes weighing out what was wasted every week to keep an eye on it, and remixing prelightener in smaller amounts through a service rather than mixing one full bowl, so it stays fresh. Both are cheap to copy. The leftover weight at the end of each service tells you whether the standard mix is right.

Set a standard mix and say what happens past it

Once you know the grams a typical service takes, put that standard on the price list, the way The Mane Space does, and state how extra colour is charged. Per gram is the most exact. A flat surcharge for long or thick hair is simpler and still better than nothing.

Say it at consultation too. The Mane Space's price list notes that the final price is quoted at consultation and that thick hair may cost more. A client told before the colour is mixed accepts a surcharge that the same client, surprised at the desk, would argue with.

Put grams on the formula card

"6.1 and 7.0 with 20 vol" tells the next colourist the shade and the developer. It does not tell them how much to mix. Record the grams of each product and the developer for every service, and what was left over.

The next appointment then mixes the right amount the first time, and the price you quote at consultation matches the service, because it is based on what that client's hair actually took last time.

Look at colour cost per stylist

Once bowls are weighed, the colour cost of the same service can be compared between stylists. A big difference is usually a mixing habit, not carelessness: one stylist mixes a second bowl before the first runs out, another mixes the full tube of lightener every time. Treat it as something to train, not something to police, and it will stay honest.

Review the standard mix twice a year, or whenever a supplier changes its prices. A standard set when a tube cost less is a standard that is quietly losing money again.