“It’s feeling a lot like 2008,” said Christy Powers, who’s worked through three economic downturns since 1999. Operating out of Frederick, Maryland, a commuter-train ride from Washington, Powers said more and more of her clients—especially the large swath of federal workers—are “coming in telling me how stressed they are.” Others are halting services altogether to save cash.
Is Powers a financial planner? A real estate agent? Nope: She’s a massage therapist, and she and her service-industry colleagues working in beauty, hair and personal care have been witnessing firsthand some of the earliest possible signs the US is tumbling into recession.
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Powers was one of more than 32,000 spa technicians, hairstylists, colorists and makeup artists who recently streamed to New York’s West Side to attend a three-day trade show for professionals with one shared mission: making clients look and feel good. That gives them an intimate, up-to-date perspective on the mood of the American consumer, and what they’re seeing is ugly.
Stylists from Manhattan to rural New Hampshire are seeing regular clients start to skip cuts and blowouts. In from the Maine town of Brewer, hairstylist Alyssa Dow said customers are choosing cheaper, “more low-maintenance” looks—and tipping less. In affluent Longmeadow, Massachusetts, where “people don’t like to walk around with roots” showing, clients who previously got color every two or three weeks are stretching it to four or five, citing the “political situation” and implying they’ve lost money in the stock market, said Michelle LaValley. “They’re cutting back in other areas as well, so it’s not just us,” said the salon owner, who has 28 years in the business. The wider pullback in spending seems to go beyond the general grumpiness that accompanied the so-called vibecession that started years ago when inflation rose, interest rates spiked and yet the US kept growing.
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