After a trip to the hair stylist, the new haircut you received may need a bit of help.
Since hair is susceptible to the effects of gravity, it needs a bit of chemical assistance to remain in perfect form.
The best way to maintain your hair throughout the day is with hairspray.
Hairspray locks your hair in place, so it continues to look great all day long.
However, you may have noticed that the price of hairspray has increased over the years.
Why Is Hairspray So Expensive? (10 Reasons)
The average price of hairspray is around $7.
However, you can also find some cans of hairspray for around $20 and more.
Certain factors like promised features, natural ingredients, and perceived value can make hairspray expensive.
Let’s look at these factors in more detail.
1. Anti-Humidity Benefits
Hairspray has quite a few uses.
One of the most popular benefits of hairspray is its ability to fight humidity’s effect on hair.
Anyone who has dealt with humidity knows how much of a bother it can be to your hair.
It adds moisture to your hair which can make it frizzy.
Humidity can ruin your hairstyle.
It can also increase how much you sweat which also impacts your hair.
The sweat on your scalp can remove low-quality hairspray and gel and make your hair limp.
As a result, some hairspray manufacturers have invested a lot of money into creating a formula that fights against humidity.
It works to keep your hair styled without leaving it frizzy.
Since this isn’t easy to do, these hairspray manufacturers put a pretty high price tag on their sprays.
It’s also a heavily desired feature.
Some people are more willing to pay a higher price for a can of hairspray if it’s effective at controlling humidity’s effect on hair.
Hairspray is expensive if it offers anti-humidity benefits.
2. Anti-Sheen Benefits
A problem that some hairspray products have is that they can leave a sheen on your hair.
After using a certain type of hairspray, you may notice that your hair looks shiny or even greasy.
That isn’t always a desired look.
Most people like their hair to look natural despite using products in it.
Low-quality hairsprays tend to leave this sheen.
As such, if you want anti-sheen benefits, then you’re going to have to buy a more expensive can of hairspray.
That’s because it’s cheaper for hairspray manufacturers to stick to basic ingredients.
The problem with those basic ingredients is that they can leave a sheen on your hair.
If you want to avoid sheen, you’ll want to use a hairspray made by a company that invests in better quality ingredients.
The problem with those ingredients is that it costs the hairspray company more money to make their hairspray with those ingredients.
As a result, they have to sell their cans of hairspray at higher prices to offset the costs.
Some people may believe that the price is worth it.
If it keeps their hair from looking greasy or shiny, then they might not mind paying a more expensive price.
Others may not see a lot of value in it, and the price may seem too high to them.
Either way, hairspray is expensive if it offers anti-sheen benefits.
3. Luxury Packaging
Another big feature of some hairspray bottles is that some manufacturers use luxury packaging.
Hairspray manufacturers are part of the beauty industry.
People don’t need hairspray to live.
It’s just a non-essential cosmetic that can help people keep their hair looking great.
After all, if you go through all the effort to style your hair a certain way, then you want that style to last as long as possible.
Hairspray can help with that.
However, some hairspray companies take their packaging to the next level.
They’ll bring in well-known designers to either design the bottle’s box packaging or the can itself.
Others will fill their packages with bonus products like combs or soap.
The more expensive the hairspray is, the more luxurious the packaging tends to be.
That’s because some hairspray companies are trying to offer an experience on top of just selling their product.
Since it costs them more money to provide that experience to you, you end up paying a higher price for your hairspray.
Hairspray is expensive when it is packaged luxuriously.
4. Natural Ingredients
Some hairspray companies have stepped away from using synthetic ingredients.
That’s because some ingredients, like ethanol, can dry out your hair and damage it.
While you won’t kill your hair with a single use every few days, if you use a lot of hairspray throughout the day, then there’s a chance that you might accelerate some problems.
Hairspray which uses synthetic ingredients tends to dry out your hair and strip it of its natural oils.
This is a problem because your hair needs those oils to stay healthy.
They nourish your hair follicles.
If you’re not taking care of your hair by moisturizing and conditioning it, then you could end up with unhealthy hair.
To avoid that, some hairspray companies have replaced synthetic ingredients with natural ingredients.
They’ll use natural ingredients because they tend to be healthier than synthetic ingredients.
They don’t strip away oils in your hair.
If anything, some nurture the production of oil.
The problem with natural ingredients is that they’re more expensive to source.
Since some hairspray companies try to be as sustainable as possible, it means they take on large costs.
To cover those costs, they put high prices on their hairspray cans.
Hairspray is expensive when it uses natural ingredients.
5. Some Promote Health Benefits
There are also some hairspray products that actually work to help make your hair healthier.
Many hairspray products that use natural ingredients, for example, also tend to promote some sort of health benefit.
Some companies might market their hairspray as one that moisturizes your hair, for example, to keep it healthy and looking great.
Others might promise the ability to thicken your hair or give it more volume.
Someone who has thin hair might find a hairspray that adds volume to be worth the higher price.
Others might not.
Some hairspray companies will add certain vitamins to their formulas.
They might put in vitamin E, C, or even A to help keep your hair healthy.
Since it’s an additional step and expense for them, they tend to sell their hairspray cans at higher prices.
There’s also the perception that it’s a healthier product.
Whenever something is healthy or healthier than alternatives, it tends to come at a higher price.
That’s because the majority of people expect healthier products to simply be more expensive.
Hairspray is expensive when it contains additional health benefits.
6. Not Much Difference Between Cheap And Expensive Brands
If you’re new to the hairspray world, then it may not seem like there’s much of a difference between cheap hairsprays and expensive hairsprays.
This can also make expensive hairsprays seem even pricier.
If the perceived value of an expensive hairspray isn’t much more than a cheap hairspray, then it’s going to seem very expensive.
However, it’s worth examining the ingredients in both bottles.
In some cases, the expensive hairspray is actually quite different than the cheaper brand of hairspray.
In other cases, a fancier-looking bottle may be all that differentiates the expensive spray from the cheap one.
Some hairspray cans are expensive even though they’re really not any different from cheap hairspray brands despite the increased price.
7. Research And Development Costs
One of the ways that expensive hairspray brands make their hairsprays competitive with other brands is through research and development.
The beauty industry is fiercely competitive.
Every brand is looking to attract new customers to its products.
There are only so many differentiating features, like fragrance, that a brand can offer, so they have to look at other benefits or features that their hairspray has that others may not.
By solving a problem that many customers have, they can attract those who suffer from that problem.
For example, some customers may be looking for a hairspray that is long-lasting.
They don’t have the time to reapply hairspray throughout the day.
A brand might recognize this opportunity, then invest in research and development to make a product that solves that problem.
When it’s ready, they can release the product and potentially acquire a large customer base.
To make money, however, they have to spend money.
Their research and development teams need ingredients and time to come up with a new product that solves the problem.
They might go through a few different prototypes before finding one that works.
That costs a lot of money.
To make up for those costs, hairspray brands need to sell their products at higher prices.
Hairspray is expensive when companies invest a lot of money into their research and development teams.
8. High Demand
Hairspray wouldn’t be quite as expensive as it is if there wasn’t as much demand for it.
However, there is a lot of demand for hairspray.
Hairspray is one of the most effective means of controlling your hair.
Both men and women use it to keep their styled hair in place.
Without hairspray, you’re in danger of having your hair fall flat during the day.
It might even become frizzy or look limp.
People who care about their appearance tend to rely heavily on hairspray.
Celebrities, for example, use hairspray when walking the red carpet or during promotional photoshoots.
They need to look their best, so they use hairspray to ensure their hairstyles remain in place.
The same goes for rich and famous business executives.
If executives want to look their best as the face of their company, then they’ll use hairspray to ensure their hairstyle remains perfect.
Even everyday people who want to put their best foot forward will use hairspray.
Since it’s in such high demand, hairspray is expensive.
9. Celebrity Endorsements
Because the world of beauty is highly competitive, a lot of companies will work with celebrities.
Hairspray brands are no different.
They’ll often partner with a makeup studio that takes care of certain celebrities.
They can then use that celebrity to endorse their product.
Fans of that celebrity may be more likely to buy their products since they want to enjoy the same results that the celebrity does.
A lot of fans want to emulate their favorite celebrities.
To do so, they’ll buy the same clothes, eat the same food, and try out the same beauty products.
Celebrity endorsements don’t always come cheap, however.
If a hairspray brand has an expensive celebrity endorsement, then its products may be priced high to offset that cost.
Having a celebrity endorse their brand also tends to give them some legitimacy.
They’re able to ask higher prices for their products because they’re tied to a celebrity.
Hairspray is expensive when it’s endorsed by a celebrity.
10. Inflation
There’s no question that inflation has also impacted the price of hairspray.
No matter if it’s synthetic hairspray or natural hairspray, the cost of ingredients has increased.
Since it’s more expensive for hairspray brands to buy the ingredients they need to make their products, they have to sell at higher prices, too.
That also means that labor costs, advertising costs, and even energy costs are higher.
To offset them, the brands sell their products at high prices.
Hairspray is expensive because of inflation.
Conclusion
Hairspray is a useful beauty product that some people can’t live without.
However, certain costs related to the production and selling of hairspray can make it quite expensive.
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