‘Sexist’ haircut prices chopped down to size

Published on 22/01/2013 00:00

DENMARK is taking its belief in gender equality all the way to the beauty salon.

The Board of Equal Treatment effectively ruled last month that price differences between men’s and women’s haircuts were illegal. It ordered a salon advertising women’s haircuts for 528 crowns (about £59) and men’s haircuts for 428 crowns (£48) – plus extra for long hair – to pay 2,500 crowns (£282) to a woman who had filed a complaint.

Now a trade organisation for hairdressers has called the decision absurd, and warned of “pricing chaos”.

“It takes, quite simply, longer time with women,” Connie Mikkelsen, chairwoman of the Danish organisation for independent hairdressers and cosmeticians, said in a statement yesterday.

The board’s decision has been appealed and a court will determine whether hairdressers need to find a new way to charge for their services, in the length of time, or the standard of the cut.