Price of Beauty

In this article from Black Voices, the writer highlights 3 experiences and the difficulty she had with trying to get her natural hair done at an affordable price.  She refers to it as the Natural Hair Tax which basically means that often, those living the natural life often pay an arm and a leg for any hairstyle done professionally that doesn't require the hair to be cooked.

To be fair to the stylists, it does require additional effort and time to style natural hair.  If it takes them 3 hours to twist natural hair, why is it not expected that they will charge you at least 2x as much as a style that only takes them 1.5 hours? I've sat in the shop and had to wait for the natural girl to finish getting her hair twisted.  Though natural myself, I was still salty as I was in there to get my birthday press and sitting in the salon longer than anticipated was not conducive to my other birthday pampering plans.  Not only did that experience and extra 1.5 hours of my life that I can't get back  remind me of how I hate going to salons now, it made me realize that for any 'natural' style that doesn't require heat...I won't waste my time or money going to the salon.  I'm sure there will come a point in time where I will want to have someone else do all the work, but for now, I enjoy being a DIY-er.  May not always save me time, but it saves me $.  If I don't like it, I can switch it up the next day without worrying about how much money I'm wasting.

How much are you willing to spend to maintain your natural fierceness?  If you frequent a salon for natural styles, is it because you've tried and failed to create these styles yourself or is there another reason?