Hairdresser uniform, aprons and protective gear

A day on the salon floor is spent around colour, bleach and dust, and some of what keeps it off your skin and your clothes you pay for yourself. The gloves you pull on for a tint, the apron that takes the splash instead of your top: those come back to you at tax time. The plain black outfit the salon asks everyone to wear does not, and neither, for most stylists, do the closed shoes you stand in all day. This chapter sorts the wardrobe into what the ATO will let you claim and what it will not, because the two look alike and the line between them is where returns go wrong. The rule sitting under all of it holds steady. You paid for it, you were not reimbursed, and it either protects you from a genuine risk or genuinely marks you as staff.

Protective gear you buy yourself

Where an item guards you against a real and likely risk of injury or illness at work, the ATO treats it as a protective item rather than clothing, and you can claim it whether or not you wear a uniform. The single condition is that the money was yours and no one paid it back. Gear the salon hands out or reimburses you for cost you nothing, so there is nothing to claim on it.

• Gloves worn while you work with hair colour, so the dye and developer stay off your hands.
• An apron or smock that takes the bleach and colour instead of you and the clothes underneath.
• Dust masks for the acrylic and filing dust of nail work.
• Protective or anti-glare glasses where the task carries a genuine risk to your eyes.

The purchase is only the start of it. Buying, repairing, replacing and cleaning a protective item all come back to you, so the box of gloves you get through every few weeks is a live deduction, not a one-off. The ATO's own worked example is Thomas the colourist, who claims both the cost of his apron and the cost of laundering it, precisely because it shields him from the products he works with all day.

The conventional-clothing catch, and the shoes that surprise people

This is where a solid claim quietly comes apart. Plain everyday clothing is not deductible, and a salon dress code does not change that, however firmly it is enforced. Black pants or a black skirt, jeans, plain shirts and socks are conventional clothing, so they stay off your return even when you keep them only for work and would never choose them otherwise.

Footwear is the part worth reading twice. You are on your feet from the first client to the last, so it feels obvious that the shoes should count, and for a hairdresser they generally do not. The ATO treats plain closed shoes as conventional, and that includes the plain non-slip shoes many stylists buy for grip on a wet floor, so an employed hairdresser usually cannot claim them at all. The narrow door that stays open is footwear with genuine protective features answering a real risk in your work. That is a specific, word-carefully case rather than the everyday pair, and if you are not sure yours clears it, it almost certainly does not.

The uniform that does count, and its laundry

Clothing does become deductible when it stops being ordinary. A compulsory uniform that is strictly enforced and carries the salon's logo or name, or a registered non-compulsory uniform, is claimable to buy, and so is laundering it. The catch is that you can only claim what you actually paid for. The ATO's example is Mike the barber: his employer supplies the logo shirts, so he cannot claim the shirts themselves, but he can claim the cost of washing them. His black pants and shoes are conventional clothing, and those stay off his return.

• $1 a load where the wash is only your work uniform and protective clothing.
• 50c a load where it goes in with your personal washing, which is the ATO's Helana example, laundering her deductible tunic alongside plain black clothes.
• The $150 line. A laundry claim of $150 or less needs no written evidence, but you still have to show how you reached it, so your loads a week times the weeks you worked is what stands behind the figure.
• Dry-cleaning and repairs at what they actually cost, on the receipts.

The limit follows straight from the section above. You cannot claim laundering the plain black clothes that were never deductible in the first place, no matter how much colour they pick up over a week.

The records behind it

Every claim here rests on the record that backs it, and this category is built from small, regular buys that go missing first: the chemist docket for the gloves, the receipt for the apron, the basis you used to reach the laundry figure. Piecing a year of that back together in July is how honest deductions quietly fall off a return. Keep the receipts for the protective gear and the uniform, and a running note of your weekly laundry loads so the number has something solid under it. The ATO's free myDeductions app will hold the basics if you stay disciplined with it.

The bottom line

Split your salon wardrobe into what protects you or carries the logo, and what is simply the outfit you turn up in. The gloves, the apron, the dust mask and the safety glasses come back to you, and so does buying a genuine logo uniform and washing whatever qualifies. The black pants, the plain shirt and the ordinary closed shoes do not, even the non-slip ones you bought for standing all day, and neither does laundering them. Get that split right, take off anything the salon supplied or paid back, keep the receipts and the laundry count, and your claim lands on what the work honestly costs you and nothing it does not.

General information only, not tax advice. Check the ATO or a registered tax agent for your situation.