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Women's haircuts are almost always more expensive than men's, whereas if you're a guy who goes for regular manicures, you can expect to pay a few more bucks than your female friends. Most New Yorkers just accept that sort of gender-based pricing discrimination, but technically, it's against the law, and over the past two years, the city's Department of Consumer Affairs has started cracking down on salons that violate the rule.
The manager at Kim's Holly Salon, for example, tells the Wall Street Journal that his business was fined $300 for charging men an extra $2 for manicures. He argues that the higher price is reasonable because men's nails require so much more work than women's. And at Vanilla Hair Spa, the manager admits that she used to charge $5 more to wax men. "If someone's waxing a man's back and a woman's back, it's like day and night," she told the paper. "Of course it takes longer for men. It's more labor, more product." Which raises an important question: How often are women coming in for back waxes?
· City Nails Sex-Based Pricing [WSJ via Daily Intel]
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