Great questions! I’ll answer these the best that I can!

1. How long did it take for you to start a career? 

My situation is not the common one. I started my career as a hair “artist” before school. I paid attention to what my stylist was doing, I asked questions, I did a lot of research on the internet and I dared to try everything myself. I did funky cuts and colors on my own hair and soon my friends took notice. I then did their hair, their friends, my family, their friends and it took off…before I even knew how to even wrap a perm. The mistakes I made on my own hair and then learning how to fix it on my own was the best education I could have received…so the day I got my license, I was on the salon floor making money. 

2. What are the worst parts of the job?

DRAMA. Seriously, finding a chill salon with an owner who is understanding and willing to educate you is worth it’s weight in gold! The attitudes start and end with the boss. This is also extremely hard to find it seems…so you either have to keep up with the Jones or fly out on your own.

3. How much do  you say you make? 

This depends mostly on location and how the salon is ran. My first two years was in a salon that was located in a busy area with high end clients. I specialized in color and Keratin treatments…so my average ticket was $200. When the clients tipped accordingly, it was even better. However, I was only 44% commission, so I wasn’t doing terribly, but if I would have stuck around, I could have easily been making at least 20-30k within a few years. 

But then I moved across state, lost all of my clients, entered into a trendy salon downtown with terrible management and after working 40 hrs/week for 6 months, my gross pay was only $1000…for those 6 months! Which is bullshit, so I walked and never looked back.

I wont say what I am making now…but I can promise you it’s nothing like I could have been making on the other side of the state. I’m lucky to have my husband to help me out while I build my business back up.

4. Is it salary or commission? 

Salary in this industry is pretty much unheard of. In a corporate setting, you may make wage vs. commission…which means a lower commission and if that isn’t made, you’ll at least make minimum wage for the hours worked. Independent salons, however, are commission OR chair rental. With commission, they will take somewhere around half your earnings, but with that, they should offer education, promotion, insurance, include all product and salon essentials (besides your shears/tools) and just take a small portion out for color expenses  They also control your schedule. In chair rental, you provide color, insurance, all tools, sometimes product, and you pay a certain amount weekly to your landlord…and you don’t have a boss. You keep the rest of your earnings and taxes will now become a bitch. But that’s that!

5. Can you live comfortable with your earnings?

It most definitely helps to have extra support in the first few years of your career. If someone told me this in the first place, I would have lived with my parents while attending school and in the first few years of my career… because it’s not easy. But if you are passionate and you don’t put up with bullshit…if you dont cheapen your skills, you can do really well! You just have to want to do it. 

6. Best part of the job?

The smile on the client’s face when you have exceeded their  expectations…knowing that you just turned their day, their week, their month around just by making them feel good about themselves. The little things…the way they say they wish they could take you with them to blow dry their hair every morning or shampoo their scalp every night. When they come back and say “do exactly what you did last time” you know that you have done something really special for them.

7. Did you go to college too? Before or after?

I did! I went to four years at a university and didn’t finish… because the education was pertinent but the degree itself didn’t matter to me. I am also a musician and it got to a point where focusing on school was actually getting in the way of me living out my dreams, so I dropped out and THEN went to cosmetology school. I don’t regret a thing.

8. How long did beauty school take? 

Full-time, you can finish in about 11 months here in Michigan. It took me 12 exactly because I skipped a little (michigan summers are too beautiful to be in school all day, every day!). Part-time will take you about two years. I recommend going full-time if possible. Get in and get out…because it can be draining!

To quitting the hair world forever, packing my shears in a box
And throwing up two middle fingers to a career I chose just to pacify my hopes and dreams for a career too uncertain for me to build enough courage to dive into.

I’m about to walk this plank and toss my cosmetology license away and just.play.music.

You know…the line is difficult to decipher when it comes to artistry and consumerism. I really think that most cosmetologists are drawn initially into the industry by the sparkly creativeness that we are shown in the books, magazines and archives. The commercialism makes everything look so pretty and to recreate that and make someone feel absolutely beautiful seems like a dream! And it is…call me jaded, but the reality is a far cry from the flashy hair shows and the bigger than life, revolutionary hair products. In so many salons, politics reign supreme while jealousy and shit talking are the assistants. It’s hard to swallow…especially when you love the art so much.

I’m not a cosmetologist. I am an artist who happened to be quick to pick up on technique.

I’m not a hairstylist, I am just an artist who seemed to have a knack for detail and color.

I am not a beautician, I am a girl who happened to love the art of beauty products and the mystery of re-creation.

I am not a beauty adviser, I am a typical woman who has read many tips and tricks and when asked, will share what I’ve learned.

The rest, I don’t give a shit about. I don’t care to up-sell mass consumerism. I am the sales person who tells you not to buy. I am the consumer who hardly consumes and lets the mask of retail therapy slip off my face when I’m working. I’m not good at lying. My bullshitting skills have lessened with age. The more I learn how to pick up on bullshit, the more I rebel against it. I don’t have enough energy to build client relationships in order to take their money. I don’t give a shit.

No, I don’t think you need to color your hair every three weeks. If you want to, be my guest, but your five silver hairs aren’t going to be that fucking noticeable. Nobody cares. No, you don’t need to spend $30 on shampoo to increase hair growth. It won’t. That $20 lipstick is packed with emollients, buy it! No, don’t. Your lips are dehydrated and that lipstick will not fix or protect them. You’re addicted to chapstick. Drink some fucking water. Your hair is dry? You need a smoothing serum? You need a conditioning treatment? Here is a secret: stop shampooing it with that shampoo that cost you as much as a weeks worth of groceries. Stop coloring it and depleting it of protein and elasticity. Stop using a flat iron. Stop using a blowdryer. Or do all of these, but don’t expect a product to fix you. We mark them up 100% from what we buy it for, and those beauty supplies mark it up 100% from what they buy it for.

I can’t ask someone to keep coming to me to get their hair done unless they truly love my technique, my style and my honesty. If they want to dish out the money, great. It cost me $14,000 to go to cosmetology school and a few thousand more in further education, tools and products in the last four years alone. It also cost me one hell of a year in school, another year working for free outside of school to learn what school did not teach me, and years outside of those perfecting my craft. So yes, I value my skill. I value my license. I don’t value the clients who don’t value me. I also don’t value management who do not value me.

I have to spend so much time building my clientele. I can’t move away after I have because then, after years of slave labor and little money, I have to start back at square one. Even when I do have a full clientele, work is not stable or guaranteed. People can leave and people will cancel. People will move on to the better (see: cheaper) deal, because most people do not value your work as much as you do. And when I go on tour with the band? People will wait for me to return to get their hair done, right? Wrong. No one cares that much.

Nor do I. I work in an industry that is based solely on vanity. Vanity that doesn’t actually warrant self-fulfillment but instead pleases a stereotype. An industry that caters to societies ridiculous standards in beauty. In every salon I’ve worked at, I’ve seen the majority of clients come to receive long layers, highlights, fake claws and grey coverage. This is not creative. This is robotic labor to give women what they think they want-a falsified sense of beauty that only lasts a few weeks at best.

I have a handful of clients who are the exception. They think outside of the box or ask me to do it for them if they can’t seem to find a way to break down the wall. These clients are the only reason I am still in this business. These clients make my job fun and slightly rewarding, but these clients are, unfortunately, not the rule. 

So I am bitter and bruised. The anxiety in the salon has greatly effected my attitude towards the industry because stylist aren’t holding up as well as they used to be with a strong economy. The stylist who are managing to support themselves have lost control of their sanity. They eat, breathe, dream and speak salon and no one seems to enjoy it; not any salon I’ve worked in.

I was very wrong when I thought that I fit into this industry. I thought doing hair would be a great creative outlet for me, but it’s far from. Another form of consumerism that instead of creating joy, instills fake confidence. I don’t think I can do this anymore.

And fuck, if I have to fake it, I might as well get paid for it.