Career
Prints and Bling
Help protect your clients and yourself from breathing in hundreds of toxic chemicals used during specialized treatments with a Fashion Face Mask. These medical masks boast stylish designs, shielding you and your clients from fumes, fine particles and miscellaneous chemicals derived from nail polishes, hardeners, glue, coloring and straightening agents. Visit slingcouture.com.
Spa Safety and Sanitation
Promises of herbal-infused tea, fuzzy slippers and comfy robes may appeal to the spa’s target demographic, but sanitation and client safety should be first on our list of priorities. When spa or salon services go bad, we can find ourselves in a not-so-happy place. To minimize liability and maximize client satisfaction, here are four things we can do:
How To Talk About Prebooking
You might not be aware of the value of prebooking. “It is proven statistically that if you get your guests to prebook every five weeks, you will see them at least two times more per year, increasing your revenue,” says Global Keratin’s Benedetto. “Times that by 40 services per week two more times a year, and the added revenue is extremely lucrative.” Not only that, but prebooking means more consistency in your schedule, making it easier to plan your week and reduce scrambling to fill last-minute gaps.
How To Talk About Other Services You Offer
It’s never too early to bring up additional treatments and products that you or your salon can provide. But target your conversation to each individual client, recommends Dodge of Caruh Salon Spa. “At the consultation, take into account the whole person and her entire look,” she says. Don’t just phone in a lackluster sales pitch. Remember, it’s your professional duty to help everyone who sits in your chair look their best. “At our salon, we don’t consider our job complete until we offer all the services that would enhance a client’s look,” says Dodge. “It’s a habit for us.”
How To Talk About Breaking Up
Hesitant to broach sensitive subjects with your clients? Never feel tongue-tied again! Use expert tips from our comprehensive guide to talk to clients with professional confidence. First, it’s crucial to always give a client the benefit of the doubt. When someone is unhappy with the work you’ve done—as will inevitably happen at some point during your career—avoid making split-second judgments or pointing fingers. Even if you’re sure the client is just impossible to please, attempting to understand how they’re feeling, and why, is the first step toward conflict resolution.
How To Talk About Referrals
It’s a problem that’s not unique to new stylists: “All salons lose guests to attrition,” declares John Benedetto, education director for Global Keratin Hair Taming System. “Without new guests, there can be a significant drop in revenue.” And, as any beauty professional knows, it’s much easier to continuously attract referral guests through satisfied customers than to scramble for a new brand-new clientele after your base has already dwindled. For that reason, innovative salon teams are working together to encourage a steady word-of-mouth buzz.
How To Talk About Updating Their Style
Hesitant to broach sensitive subjects with your clients? Never feel tongue-tied again! Use expert tips from our comprehensive guide to talk to clients with professional confidence. Most clients will tell you directly their hair concerns—whether she is bored with her cut, tired of fighting the frizz or facing thinning strands, says Joe Santy, a hair professional for 35 years and vice president of education for Dennis Bernard Inc. The best approach for all your clients is to jump-start the conversation during the consultation.
Pivot Point to Offer Full Scholarship to Contest Winner
Pivot Point International and its three Chicago-area academies are on the lookout for new, creative talent to begin cosmetology classes in February, March or April 2011.
Patrick Mathes: My First Chair
Growing up in Carmel, Indiana, Patrick Mathes was interested in Barbie dolls, playing “house” or “nail salon” with girls from class or the neighborhood, rather than playing with his two brothers. “Up until sophomore year, I never really cared about school,” he says. “I threw away freshman year and just goofed off.” It wasn’t until Mathes’ mom insisted he get a job that his outlook on life changed. Mathes searched and searched for a good fit—trying desperately to find a job he actually enjoyed. Finally, when he got a job answering phones for his mother’s stylist at a little salon called Bekah’s, he knew he had found his passion.
Kim Kimble: My First Chair
The first salon Kimble worked in was as a shampoo girl, rinsing manes at her mother’s Trina’s Beauty Supply and Salon, in midtown Los Angeles. As she grew older, she started cutting and styling at Black Hair and More, and Radiantly Raw Barber and Hair Salon, both in Los Angeles.
Sherri Jessee: My First Chair
It began in mountainous Bristol, Virginia, where Sherri Jessee grew up. “I was eleven years old when I started cutting my own hair—I really wanted to have Farrah Fawcett’s feathered hair and going to the salon was just something we didn’t do back then,” Jessee says. “So, I cut off an inch at a time, hoping my parents wouldn’t notice, and slowly began cutting in the layers.” Around the same time, after a “traumatizing” trip to the barbershop with her father, Jessee became the personal stylist for her younger sister, Karen (who now works with her as her salon manager).
Michael Shaun Corby: My First Chair
As a renowned international platform artist, styling and cutting genius and Hollywood insider, Michael Shaun Corby raises the bar on innovation daily at Alterna Professional Haircare, where he is the Global Creative Director. Prior to joining Alterna, Corby has created fabulous hair that has graced TV, chart-topping music videos, and A-list films. Corby trained under top stylists José Eber and Umberto of Beverly Hills, learning the techniques he would later take to the next level and offer to Alterna salons around the world through his state-of-the-art educational programs.
Faatemah Ampey: My First Chair
Whether she’s behind the scenes at a runway show, in front of the camera on Shear Genius 3 or behind the chair doing freelance editorial hair, Faatemah Ampey has star power. Although she was born in Greenville, Mississppi, Ampey calls Minnesota home. Her parents moved the family to Minnesota at the age of five where, growing up, she always imagined she’d become a doctor or writer. Yet, her mother saw something different in Ampey, even at an early age she expressed an interest in art, writing and self expression.
Beth Minardi: My First Chair
As a beginner in the industry, no doubt you’ve experienced a time where you felt unsure of yourself, uncertain of your talent and capabilities in the salon—what if I’m not good enough? What if I mess up? What if they leave unhappy? The truth is, every successful stylist has experienced the fear, the uncertainty and the anxiety. Even the most successful stylists had challenges in cosmetology school, felt the anxiety of servicing their first client, and felt the fear when applying for their first salon job. But they persevered through the challenges. As we often hear, ‘Success is a journey, not a destination’—this expression holds true as we talk to some the industry’s finest about their challenges, their successes and their first salon jobs.
Passport to Pakistan
Across the globe beauty is defined differently by various cultures How beauty is taught in international cosmetology schools is very different as well! We talk to Sana Verho, business development manager for Pivot Point Pakistan, about what it’s like to be a beauty school student in a country bordered by China, India and Afghanistan.
Beauty Changes Lives
The American Association of Cosmetology Schools (AACS) is a network of more than 900 schools dedicated to providing excellence in beauty education, and to champion a message of “Beauty Changes Lives.” Discover how beauty changed the lives of Gill-Tech Academy of Hair Design owner Sheryl Bruemmer, school director Sandra Wagner and a young woman from Ukraine, and how their Dream Project is helping to change the lives of others.
Rising Stars 2011 Photo Makeover Competition
Cosmetologists Chicago (CC) and its more than 8,000 salon professional members, enthusiastically invites all cosmetology students to participate in Rising Stars 2011 Hair, Make-up and Fashion Photo Competition JUST FOR STUDENTS!