Why I don't publish a fixed price list

Almost every extension website in San Diego opens with a number. "Extensions starting at …" It reads like transparency. It usually isn't.

I don't publish one, and I want to explain exactly why — because "call for pricing" is what salons say when they're hiding something, and that's not what's happening here. Two parts of your quote honestly cannot be known until I see your hair. Everything else is published, fixed, and further down this page.

What a "starting at" price actually does

A starting-at price is the cheapest install a salon can imagine, and almost nobody is quoted it.

Here's how it plays out. The number on the website is one row of the shortest hair. You come in wanting length and fullness, which is three rows of longer hair. Now the real number is very different from the one that brought you through the door, and the conversation starts with you feeling misled instead of excited.

In my chair I'd rather the first number you hear be the real one.

The two things I can't price until I see your hair

The install itself and the hair it needs — both depend on what your own hair can carry.

Four things move that number:

• Method. Hand-tied rows and I-tip strands use different amounts of hair and different install time. The method gets chosen for your hair, not for the price sheet.
• Amount. One row? Two? A handful of strands around the face? What your look needs — and what your hair can safely carry — drives most of the cost.
• Length. Longer hair costs more from every vendor, without exception.
• Colour. Sometimes a seamless blend needs toning or dimensional colour on your own hair. If it does, it's quoted separately and clearly.

There is no honest way to guess those four from a web form. That's the whole reason the consultation exists, and the reason it's free.

What I can tell you right now

Every price that doesn't depend on your hair is published — here they are, in full.

This is the part people are usually most anxious about, because it's the part that repeats. Living with extensions has a rhythm, and the rhythm has fixed rates:

Move-ups come around roughly every two months as your own hair grows. Removal is the same rate whether you're wearing rows or strands — taking extensions out carefully is the same skill either way.

So the honest summary is this: I publish every price I can, and the two I can't publish are the two that genuinely depend on you.

When you'd actually pay anything

Nothing is owed until you've decided to go ahead and hair is being ordered for you.

The consultation is free and stays free whether or not you book. If you decide to move forward, new clients place a deposit of 50% of the hair cost when the hair is ordered. It applies in full to your install, and colour work is never part of it. Long-time clients are exempt. All of that is written out on the policies page.

And if extensions aren't right for your hair — if it's mid-recovery from bleach, or the look you want needs more of your own hair than you currently have — I'll tell you that at the consultation, and it still costs you nothing. Hearing it in 45 minutes is a much better outcome than hearing it after an install.

Why this is the version I'd want as a client

A quote you can trust is worth more than a number you see early and stop believing later.

You leave the consultation with an exact figure, itemised: method, hair, and any colour work. Nothing appears on the final bill that wasn't in that conversation. That's a smaller promise than "cheapest in San Diego", and it's one I can actually keep.

If you want a starting point before you come in, the 60-second method quiz gives you an honest suggestion about which method fits. When you're ready for the real number, book a free, no-obligation consultation in my Mission Valley studio.