As a hairdresser, you not only play an important role helping your customers look their best, you also provide a safe and relaxing place for them in your salon and contribute to your local economy. The hairdressing sector employs over a million people and counts an estimated 400 000 salons in the EU, so competition can be fierce. How does the EU help hairdressers to thrive?

As a small company, you can apply for EU loans and help to do business in the European market. The Enterprise Europe Network makes it easier to find new business partners. Moreover, EU law allows EU countries to apply reduced value added tax (VAT) rates to services, including hairdressing. This reduction can help increase your profit margins.

The EU also wants to protect you from potentially harmful chemicals at work. According to the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA), exposure to chemicals and the nature of hairdressing work in general can lead to skin and respiratory diseases, chronic pain, physical injuries and even cancer. The EU funded two projects focused on researching and preventing occupational skin diseases in the hairdressing sector: SafeHair 1.0 (2010) and SafeHair 2.0 (2011). An increasing number of EU occupational safety and health rules are designed to protect everyone, including hairdressers, from exposure to dangerous substances and other health threats at work. You can check your own workplace using the dangerous substances e‑tool created for the 2018-2019 EU Healthy Workplaces campaign.