UK households with hairdryers face £18.12 charges from July 1 | Personal Finance | Finance
Under the incoming price cap, hairdryers could cost some households in the UK around £18 over 12 months, according to calculations by The Express. In late May, the energy regulator Ofgem announced that the energy price cap would rise by 13% for the period from Monday, July 1 to September 30, 2026.
The cap refers to the default tariff applied when a customer isn’t on a fixed-rate tariff. Set by Ofgem, it establishes a maximum rate per unit and a standing charge that can be billed to customers for their energy use (both electricity and gas). Ofgem said the increase is a “result of higher wholesale gas prices, caused by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East“. The increase factored into the cap is largely due to the surging price of gas, but electricity has jumped by around 5% too.
The change means that from July 1, people in England, Wales, and Scotland on a standard variable tariff, and who pay for their electricity via Direct Debit, will pay 26.11p per kilowatt hour (kWh) on average, putting it markedly higher than the current April price cap (24.67p per kWh).
It means your electricity bills may well be higher from next month, and many Brits may be looking into the costs of individual appliances to see if there are any savings to be made.
Hairdryers are an appliance you may not factor into your overall living costs, and while they don’t consume masses of electricity, they do add to your costs over time if used regularly.
Hairdressing education and haircare firm Sam Villa offered guidance on caring for hair between treatments in a blog post in 2024.
The tutorial advises that for short hair, a quick blow dry should only be between five and 15 minutes, while longer, thicker hair can take between 20 and 45 minutes. The website recommends blow-drying every three to five days to prevent your hair from drying out.
Though habits will vary greatly, if we take a rough baseline of 20 minutes per blow dry twice a week, we can calculate how that translates into costs over time using Citizens Advice’s electricity cost calculator.
The tool lets you choose from a selection of appliances and calculate how they add up by entering usage and the price cap you’re using.
The organisation uses a default figure for the amount of electricity a range of appliances use.
If we take that 40 minutes per week of hairdryer use as a hypothetical example, it would work out to around 33p per week, and £1.43 per month (roughly £17.16 when the cost is projected over 12 months).
Under the July cap, that level of usage would rise to around 35p per week or £1.51 per month. This works out to approximately £18.12 over 12 months.
However, the costs will obviously vary greatly depending on use, and while the estimate gives you an illustrative sense of the costs the cap represents over a longer period, the maximum limit on unit rates and standard charges is reviewed by the regulator every three months and doesn’t remain in place for a full year.
You also have to take into account the daily standing charge for electricity when calculating your overall electricity costs. The flat fee, covering all the electricity you’re using, will decrease slightly to 57.19p per day from July 1.
Households can protect themselves from price cap hikes by getting on a fixed-rate deal that can shield them from global shocks over a set period.
