People compare hair colour the way they compare anything else in a salon: by the number on the menu. A root touch-up sounds modest next to balayage, so the touch-up feels like the careful choice.
Over twelve months it is usually the opposite. Here is why.
The arithmetic
What decides your annual spend is the regrowth cycle, not the price list. Hair grows roughly a centimetre a month, so a hard line at the roots shows in four to six weeks — and a soft, swept-through colour might not show for four months.
Set a root touch-up every six weeks as your baseline. Everything below is a multiple of that, first as a single appointment and then across a full year.
| What you are doing | Per sitting | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Grey roots every 6 weeks | 1.0× | 1.0× |
| Grey roots every 4 weeks | 1.0× | 1.4× |
| Grey roots every 6 weeks, ammonia-free | 1.2× | 1.2× |
| Global colour, three times a year | 4.2× | 1.4× |
| Highlights to mid-length, twice a year | 5.0× | 1.1× |
| Balayage, twice a year | 6.7× | 1.5× |
Based on our Sector 31 rates. For current prices, ask us on WhatsApp.
Read the two columns against each other. Balayage costs nearly seven times a root touch-up on the day — and about one and a half times as much across the year. The per-sitting column spans a factor of almost seven. The per-year column barely spans a factor of one and a half.
The expensive-looking service is expensive once. The cheap-looking one is cheap thirteen times.
What that means in practice
If you are covering grey, frequency is your only real lever. Notice that the first two rows cost exactly the same per sitting and differ by forty per cent over the year. You cannot make regrowth slower, but you can change how visible it is: going a shade or two closer to your natural base, or breaking the line with a few fine streaks, buys you two extra weeks between sittings. That is four fewer appointments a year.
If you are colouring for the look rather than the grey, pay for the grow-out. This is the whole argument for balayage over global colour. Balayage costs more on the day and less per visit over the year, because it is painted to fade into your own hair instead of stopping at a line. If you are someone who books a salon appointment reluctantly, this matters more than the sticker price.
Ammonia-free is a comfort decision, not a cost one. It is the one row where the two columns are identical — you pay the same premium every time, and it never compounds. Worth it if your scalp is sensitive, irrelevant otherwise.
Men's colour sits below the baseline. Shorter hair means less product and a shorter appointment, so even at a six-weekly cycle it works out slightly cheaper over the year than any of the rows above.
The part nobody budgets for
Colour is not the whole bill. Two things sit on top of it:
- Treatment between colours. Anything involving bleach — highlights, balayage, going lighter than your base — needs repair work alongside it. A hair spa a few times a year adds meaningfully to the total, and Olaplex adds roughly twice what a standard spa does. Skipping it does not save money, it just moves the cost to the haircut where you remove the damage.
- Home care. A colour-safe shampoo and mask is a real line in the budget, and worth it. Washing coloured hair with whatever is in the bathroom is the single fastest way to make an expensive highlight job look tired in seven weeks.
Add those in and the true annual figure for most people is comfortably more than the colour appointments alone. Worth knowing before the first appointment rather than after the fourth.
One honest caveat
None of this accounts for the thing that actually drives salon spend, which is changing your mind. Going dark to light costs far more than the table suggests, takes multiple sittings, and commits you to the upkeep of the lighter colour afterwards. If you are considering it, ask what the second and third appointments will cost before you book the first.
If you want a number for your own hair rather than a table of multiples, send us a photo on WhatsApp and tell us how often you are realistically willing to come in. We will work it out honestly, including when the answer is that you should come in less often.
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