Where men's grooming is heading in the UAE, 2026.
It is easy to talk about men's grooming as if nothing has changed since the 1980s — a chair, a clipper, a mirror, a tip. The chair is still there. Almost everything else has moved. Here is the state of the industry as we see it from inside ten branches, on the eve of summer 2026.
1. Men no longer come in just for haircuts
Men's grooming has changed significantly over the last decade. The average man's salon visit was once 25 minutes for a cut. Today, across our branches, it is closer to 45 — and roughly half of that time is spent on something other than scissors and clippers. Facials, beard masks, oil head massage, eyebrow shaping, hand grooming. Five years ago we tracked these as add-ons. Today, on most weekends, they are the main reason a man is in the chair.
The number that surprised us most: facial bookings at Kanaan have grown 4× since 2021. Massage bookings have nearly tripled. Haircut volume is up too, but it is no longer the dominant share.
2. Barber and spa are the same building now
Twenty years ago a barber was on a side street and a spa was inside a hotel. The two had little to do with each other. The first wave that changed this was Western — "man caves" and lounge-style barbers in London and New York. The second wave is here: the GCC version, where a man can have his beard shaped, a Moroccan bath, a facial, and walk out with a manicure, in one visit, under one roof, in 90 minutes.
This is the model Kanaan was built on. We didn't invent it — but we did make a deliberate call early to keep both disciplines under the same brand standard, instead of running the spa as a separate revenue line. Six years on, it's the format the rest of the market is moving toward.
3. WhatsApp has replaced the phone
If you had asked us in 2019, the channel mix was roughly 50% walk-in, 35% phone call, 10% Instagram DM, 5% online form. In 2026, more than half of all confirmed appointments at Kanaan come through WhatsApp. The phone still rings — especially for older customers and for VIP Muroor — but the day-to-day is messaging.
Same-day booking still dominates. About 60% of all bookings happen for the same day or next-day. This has consequences for how a salon operates: holding chairs in reserve for walk-ins is no longer the model, but neither is requiring 7-day advance notice. The new normal is honest visibility into the day, updated in real time.
4. Price compression at the top, premium in the middle
This one is less obvious. Five years ago, the highest end of the market (luxury hotel spas, signature treatments) was the only place men could get a fully attentive grooming experience. The price floor for a serious facial was upwards of 500 AED.
Today the highest end has compressed — hotel spas are no longer charging hotel-spa prices, partly because their clientele moved. At the same time, the middle of the market has gone up. A 60-minute facial at Kanaan is 150 AED, with the same products, materials and time as what cost 400 AED in 2019. The middle has eaten the top.
5. Where it is going next
Three things we expect to see by end of 2027:
- Subscription — monthly packages that bundle haircut, beard, and one spa service for a fixed fee. Already common in fitness; unfamiliar in grooming. We are piloting one.
- Dedicated practitioner — the same barber for every visit, with a profile, your hair history, your preferred clipper number. The hairdresser side has done this for years. Men's side is catching up.
- Longer service times — the 25-minute cut is dying. 45 minutes is the new baseline, 60 increasingly normal.
What stays the same
Across all of it: craft. The reason a man comes back is not the WhatsApp chat or the loyalty programme. It is that the cut sits right in week two, that the beard line is clean, that the steam was hot, that the towel was warm, that someone took the time. Five years from now the technology will be different. The standard cannot move.
Reading is good. The chair is better.
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