How to say to have something done in Spanish - mainly beauty and body contexts

Learn how to say to have something done in Spanish

The English expression "to have something done", often used in beauty/hygiene contexts, e.g., "I had my nails done" or "I had my hair cut", cannot be translated directly into Spanish:

To express that someone has done it for you, Spanish uses a different expression which you may initially understand as suggesting that you have done it yourself, (despite this not being the case).

This happens with verbs and expressions that are related to the body and are referring to beauty or hygiene treatments; for example:

• cortarse el pelo (to have your hair cut)
• depilarse (to remove hair)
• hacerse la cera (to wax)
• hacerse la manicura (to have your nails done)
• hacerse la pedicura (to get a pedicure)
• teñirse el pelo (to have your hair dyed)
• ponerse unas mechas (to get highlights in your hair)
• quitarse las canas (to get your grey hair dyed)
• hacerse una limpieza de cutis (to get a facial)

All these expressions use reflexive pronouns.

Here are some examples:

In all these examples we can assume that the person performing the action is not the subject of the sentence, but rather a professional, a person paid for their service. 

Using the reflexive form and conjugating the verb this way could lead us to believe that the person is doing it themselves, and while this could be the case, most of the time we are referring to having something done by a third party.

We could actually conjugate the verb in the 3rd person plural (they) and use an impersonal construction; in this case it would be absolutely clear that "they" did it for you, and not that you did it yourself. However, the most common construction is the reflexive one.

Similar context

There are similar expressions that, although not related to beauty, are still referring to the body, and these use this same reflexive structure, making one think that the action might be performed by the subject, though this is clearly not the case. For example:

Other contexts

As stated previously, this is mostly used in these specific contexts.

There could also be other contexts, although not using the reflexive form. For example, if we ask someone if his car has been repaired, we could say:

The speaker is asking if the person (himself) has repaired the car, but what he actually means is if that person had it repaired by a mechanic.

The owner of the car could reply:

Again, it sounds as if he did everything himself (he arreglado/he hecho) but what he means is that someone did it for him.

To see other possible structures used for "to have something done" see:

• Using hacer/mandar + infinitive in Spanish for "to have something done"
• How to say to have something done with a sentence using the verb in the 3rd person plural