"Then how do you explain the fact that high-end salons have a steady
stream of customers, many of them repeat customers?"

For the same reason astrologers and fortune tellers have a steady
stream of customers. High-end folk sell image and hope that the marketing
pitch is really true and all the perceptions the brain can conjure tell
them it is true, as the choir of their peers and the audio mags cheer them
on, just like believers in astrology and esp.