Last month, a salon owner from Texas called me in a panic. She’d bought a “waxing table” from an online auction site for $400, and her first client almost rolled off the thing. The vinyl was peeling after three weeks, the hydraulic lift groaned like a haunted house, and the armrests wobbled. She asked me,

I got a frantic call from a new spa owner in Oregon two months ago. Her “spa bed” — purchased from a liquidation sale — had a broken height adjustment. The bed was stuck at 28 inches, which was perfect for her 5-foot-4 frame, but her new esthetician was 5-foot-11. After two days of working

I remember helping a first-time spa owner in Arizona pick out her first facial bed. She’d found one on a discount site for $600 — looked like a decent electric bed in the photos. When it arrived, the motor sounded like a blender full of marbles, the face hole was positioned for someone 5-foot-2 (she

Let me tell you about a call I got from a salon owner in Florida. She’d bought a “hairdressing wash basin” from an overseas marketplace — the photos showed a sleek, modern bowl with a chrome faucet. When it arrived, the “porcelain” was actually painted plastic, the faucet didn’t fit standard US plumbing threads, and

I walked into a newly opened salon in Denver last week to help them troubleshoot a “water pressure problem.” The owner had bought three “hair salon sinks” from an online auction site — $200 each, brand new, looked great in the listing photos. The problem? The faucets were 4 inches tall. You couldn’t rinse the

Last month, a shop owner in Texas texted me a photo of her new “bargain” shampoo bowl. The basin was mounted on a cheap plastic bracket, the faucet dripped from day one, and the neck rest sat at an angle that made her clients look like they were bracing for a roller coaster. She paid

I remember helping a friend open her second salon in Denver. She bought the cheapest styling stations she could find online—four of them, all laminate, no drawers. Three months in, the laminate started peeling near the edges where clients rested their arms. One drawer broke off its track. And because there was no built-in power

Last month I walked into a two-chair barbershop in Austin that looked great on Instagram. But the stations were a mess—clippers tangled in drawers, no place for the hot towel cabinet, and the barber had to bend sideways every time he reached for his combs. By noon, he told me, his lower back was already

I visited a new barbershop in Austin last month. The owner had spent $30,000 on fit-out, but he placed the barber stations facing the wall. Every barber was working with their back to the other barbers and the customers waiting. The vibe was dead. Nobody talked. It felt like a library. He told me he

A friend of mine opened a barbershop last year. He bought a used salon station from a closing salon. It looked solid, but the drawers were filled with old hair clippings and the laminate top was stained. He spent a whole weekend refinishing it. Then he realized the drawer slides were bent—it cost him $120