Hello future cosmetologists! I have 8 years experience in the business and I have some very important things there with you that I wish I knew before choosing cosmetology as a career path. I hope this gives you some insight and helps you make a more informed choice if you are considering being a hairdresser or cosmetologist. In this blog I will use the term hairdresser and cosmetologist interchangeably. In general you will go to beauty school and learn “cosmetology“ which includes everything from skin care, nails, sanitation but with a larger focus on hairdressing.

I absolutely love hair coloring and hair cutting! It was a hobby of mine before I ever chose to go to school and learn it so that I could work in the field. However, there are some very disconcerting aspects of salon life. Had I known some of these things going into the field I would have made some wiser decisions with my career choices. Here I will do my best to share with you some of the things that you will not hear in beauty school for what it’s like when you get into a real salon.
DISCLAIMER I am not trying to discourage anyone from making this their career choice, but to enter the profession with both eyes open.

1. Your Work Schedule

In school we were told that we could use our schedules. This is absolutely almost never the case. Starting out working under somebody in a salon, you will probably most likely be given the shifts that nobody else desires, which means weekends and very late nights in the salon. You will also most likely have extra cleaning duties or reception duties. It is not a clock in, and clock out job. You most likely will be working way past your scheduled shift either finishing up a client, or doing cleanup duties after you’ve completed your last client. Example: my first job as a real hairdresser, I was alternating opening and closing shifts, closing as late as 9 PM and having an extra hour of cleanup duties. I often didn’t leave the shop until 10 PM. And some days I had to return at 8:45 in the morning to open at 9 AM sharp. I was also a single mother with three babies during this time which was extremely difficult.

2. Messed Up Sleep Cycle

Due to switching back and forth with late night closures and early morning openings, your circadian rhythm is likely to get extremely messed up. I don’t know about you, but I cannot just get off work and go straight to sleep. I need some mental downtime which either includes going for a walk or watching TV or reading a book before I am able to relax and fall asleep. If you have to open early in the morning this means that you probably will be lacking in much-needed sleep to perform your duties on the job the next day. The stress of dealing with the drama in the salon as well as with the clients is likely to drain you even further. Causing you to feel extremely exhausted almost constantly and living in a constant energy crisis. Daily headaches became the norm for me.

3. Drama, Drama and more Drama!

Cosmo girls are ruthless! You will soon find this out if you stay the course with cosmetology as your career path. Expect to feel like you’re reliving the movie “Mean Girls“ over and over again. Clients equal paycheck, your income depends on the high dollar colors, highlights, and balayage. Because of this naturally, everyone is fighting for these clients, and they do not fight fair. Ashley might pretend to be your best friend at the salon, but secretly she’s learning her weaknesses, so she can later throw you under the bus to your manager. She thinks if she gets you fired, well more clients her way! Especially if you’re really good at your job! You better watch your back! Be prepared to deal with endless gossiping, blackmail, slander, and downright theft! Yes, theft! Combs, brushes, clients you name it if they can take it they will. I was unfortunately very much naïve to all of this so I had to learn the hard way what it was like firsthand to deal with all of these things.

4. The Clients can be Difficult Too

just in case you thought it was enough of a battle dealing with the odd work schedules, lack of sleep and salon drama you also have to deal with the unsatisfied clients. Imagine the scenario, you just spent four hours doing your Finus work, giving her the balayage of her dreams and she’s unhappy. But that’s not even the worst part, she paid you and even tipped you but then call back later and told your boss you destroyed her hair, that she way over paid and you should be fired! (This actually happened to me! Thankfully I had photographic evidence that I had not destroyed her hair! But my spirit was all the same crushed.) some clients cannot decide what they want and once they see that their face doesn’t match the picture of the model that they showed you with the same haircut color and style they absolutely hate it. Other clients are trying to pull the classic restaurant scam “the food I ate made me sick and I want my money back “. They loved it, got it, but now want it free. They will call in crying that the stylist ruined their hair! When the manager offers to redo it they cry and say that that it cannot be redone. It’s too damaged, Too $hort etc. etc. Your manager in order to “save face“ with the salon and keep the reviews positive will refund her all of her money AT YOUR TIME AND EXPENSE! The customer is always right. Over the years I’ve gotten good at taking photos for documentation, but even that doesn’t completely protect you. Like I said even if your manager is on your side she will take the money from your wallet so as to appease the customer goodbye four hours of back and neck breaking work. That time in your life you will never get back.

5. Your Body Will Hate You

maybe you do not realize this but hairdressing is not a lifetime career. Much like being an athlete or model this job has its expiration date. Your neck, back, shoulders, hands, arms, feet and hips will eventually start to betray you. After several years in the business without constant physical therapy and massages you will be in crippling pain very soon, even with no prior injuries or limitations. I now see a physical therapist wants to twice a week to reform my neck and back. My physical therapist has said half of his clients are hairdressers. You may even start to get stooped over and a lump to start forming in the back of your neck. For me the neck pain started to get so bad I started suffering from chronic migraines about a year ago. even with constant chiropractic visits I still could not manage the pain of standing for eight hours a day reaching forward and leaning over the clients heads. My physical therapist even asked me if I would consider a different career for the sake of saving my neck and joints. And I’m in my 30’s! Both girls end up giving up this profession after the decade mark and those who stick with it end up with crippling back and neck disorders and arthritis in the fingers. Not to mention the constant chemical exposure and the damage that does has to your health.

6. Kiss Normal Life Goodbye

When I went to beauty school they sold the job to me just like the army! They said I could make hundreds of thousands of dollars, choose my own schedule, and have my own life! A salon’s busiest hours and days are evenings and weekends. What are you work for someone else or you’re trying to run your own shop or booth rent this is still the reality. Customers come into the salon the hours when they are not at work. This means evenings and weekends for us in the salon world! Now if you have children then you can forget ever spending time with them because the time when they’re off school you will be at work. If you are a single person, dating is nearly impossible as well, with weekends and evenings being taken up with work, it makes it very difficult to find time to date somebody who has a normal work schedule. Imagine this you left the salon at 10 o’clock at night on a Friday night only to open at eight or 9 AM Saturday morning! This makes it impossible to have any sort of normal life routine, especially if your husband and children are on a normal 9 to 5 Monday through Friday routine.

7. You Will Never Feel Appreciated

Be prepared for a little appreciation but always room for improvement. Your employer will likely hold routine meetings criticizing her performance, but rarely giving you praise. Your coworkers will be your competitors and worst enemies and even if you think you know them, watch your back! Your clients won’t be any better they will be there for you if you continue to give them 100% attention but if you have a bad day be prepared to have long-standing clients walk out on you. You will end up under selling yourself and giving discounts and deals only still to have them unsatisfied. I have worked in many different salons in many different cities and it’s always the same this is not just a one experience.

8. You’ll have to be a Therapist

with absolutely no background in psychology whatsoever you will be every clients therapist! I don’t know what it is about hairdressing, but every client tells you the saddest story of their life. Unless you are made of some strong stuff this begins to wear down your own psychology. You will be forced to hear everything in the world, but never allowed to share. The moment you open up to them, they complain to your supervisor that you have too much drama in your life or that you only talk about yourself and therefore unable to give satisfactory work. This begins to take a toll on anyone’s mental health is it is draining over and over again to handle stuff that we are not educated to deal with.

9. You’re Expected to look like a Drag Queen

I mean no disrespect if this is your lifestyle, but for some of us who don’t wear a lot of make up it can be extremely exhausting. Some of us enjoy being a bear faced beauty. I personally have extremely sensitive skin and there’s almost no make up on the face of the earth that doesn’t cause me to have clogged pores and blemishes. Aside from the fact, when I’m not clocking in hours behind the chair I’m a very active person. Running and riding my bike daily, not to mention I live in the south so we sweat. All that make up feels like a candle melting. I like to go into work feeling fresh faced with a little mascara and some lipgloss I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been “told” “ You must enter the workplace with “full face make up“. This by the way is illegal and sexist unless every man in the facility is also forced to wear make up (look into labor laws). Ok that made me giggle a little.

10. Watch Your Words

I love the Lord Jesus Christ, and I love the word of God and I also love sharing with other people not only my experiences but the things that can encourage another on their journey. But I’ve also found out that doing so behind the chair can cause a lot of ruffled feathers. Even if the customer fully enjoys the conversation, a coworker another customer, or your employer might find these things offensive. To me it is very sad that what can bring joy and hope to somebody can be offensive to another, but that said you’re not free to say whatever you want either religiously or politically behind the chair.

OK, so by now you might be saying do you have anything good to say about being a cosmetologist? Actually I do you can make fast money, the tips are amazing, and you can get by with working less than a 40 hour work week and making more than most men! Like I said, I’ve been doing this job for eight years I know the good and I know the bed and I know the extremely ugly side of beauty. If you’re interested in being a hairdresser you’ve probably talk to people who have given you the positives of this field and they are worth mentioning, but you may not have heard the challenges that you will have to face in this career. But, if you would love coloring, cutting, and styling hair. If you thoroughly enjoy being behind the chair and making the clients feeling like the best version of them self, creating beautiful masterpieces on the canvas of the human head! Then please go into beauty school sign up today! It can be a very rewarding profession with instant gratification. I want to also share that sometimes after a service a client will even hug me, in tears because they are so happy with how they feel with their new hair. If this is what you want to do do not let this article sway you, but make sure that you think sharp and make sound judgments I wish you all the best.
Good luck and God bless in your adventures!!!