Tipping at a salon?

I know Japan is not a tipping country. However, I went to a salon run by a Japanese man who had worked in the US for many, many years. I paid for the women's haircut, which I thought was fairly cheap compared to others in the area - only 5000 yen! He seemed disappointed/annoyed as I was paying.

I recently spoke to my friend who says she doesn't tip UNLESS the salon worker (whether it's a hair salon, nail salon, lash salon, tattoo salon) has worked overseas. She tips at her hair salon because the worker is Japanese, but worked in the US. She tips at her nail salon because the Japanese worker is born and raised in Canada. She tips at her tattoo salon because the worker is Brazilian.

Is this a thing? Should I tip the hair stylist at my next appointment?

I assume you ARE in Japan - Japan is not a tipping country. And how are we supposed to know that the salon worker is someone who has lived/worked in a gtippingh country? :)

However, if the salon is from the start advertising itself as gEnglish spoken,h gspecializes in fine hair,h or otherwise specifically caters to non-local customers, in the US/other tipping country style, so to say, or advertises in local English language publications, then the non-local customers who go there might be expected to tip.

If i were in your shoes, I might just ask about it.

tipping is taxable. but I am sure that he/she does not tax-file it. he/she is not honest. don't go.

Tipping is a dreadful system - don't do it.

You dont tip in Japan. If a person want tips, they are in the wrong country.
If they need tips to suppliment their earnings, then they should be charging more for their service.

In 18 years of living in Japan, I've never one tipped at a hair salon, and I've never had any hair stylist get bent out of shape over it. And while there are many salons that charge more than 5,000 yen for women's haircuts, there are a lot that charge far less too. The salon my wife goes to charges about 3,000 yen, no one tips, and none of the staff get upset about it, so it's not like 5,000 yen is such a low price that everyone thinks it should be obvious to add a tip on top of it.

As to whether or not the customers at the particular hair salon you went to tip or not, I can't say. If they do, though, that's a very unusual situation in Japan, and the staff expecting a first timer to know that they do things very differently from pretty much every other salon in the country, and getting mad at you for not knowing, sounds like very poor service.

So to answer your question of "Should I tip the hair stylist at my next appointment?", I wouldn't, and I also wouldn't be going back to that salon.

Hi,

In the 50 something years of getting professional haircuts in Japan (as a Japanese), it never occurred to me that I should/could tip. I do sometimes tip taxi drivers in Japan, so it's not that I deny tipping of all kind. But I've had (Japanese) hair stylists who had done shows in Paris cut my hair beautifully, in Harajuku, and I didn't tip.

Additionally, I don't think that 5000 yen is necessarily cheap. I think it's normal. On the other hand, I do notice that salons tend to add prices for certain hair stylists. For example, let's say a hair cut in ABC salon is 5000 yen. But if you request Mr. DEF to cut your hair at that salon, you need to pay an extra 1000 yen.

Maybe hair salons that hair models use have different rules, though. I'm just an ordinary woman in Greater Tokyo.