Over the last 30 years I have watched education in the beauty industry decline appallingly. 30 years ago a full time course meant Monday to Friday 9.30 am - 5.00 pm with one evening per week in the college salon. You attended for 3 years and were educated to a standard where you were able to step in to any spa across the world. Anatomy and physiology was thorough and detailed and your treatment timings were up to industry standard before you could even be passed for assessment. You left qualified in manicures, pedicures, facials, lash treatments, electrical facials, body electricals, body treatments, aromatherapy, reflexology, electrolysis, Swedish and remedial massage, Indian head massage, dietetics and nutrition, postural diagnosis, hairdressing, make-up (which included media, commercial and morticians!) with sauna, Jacuzzi and infra-red endorsements. After this you were informed you would start at the bottom of the industry and work your way up. Education standards were exceptionally high, as they were throughout. Uniform inspections every morning, nails had to be short, hair up and off your collar, make-up perfectly applied, no runs in stockings, salon shoes clean and polished, and white uniforms spotlessly clean.
Whilst I understand that list may be a little much for some to palate the ethos was that you should be a well rounded therapist able to step in to any environment.
I have tried to be more accommodating when recruiting, for example when interviewing level 2 students for a trainee role while they complete their level 3, I ask them to name all the superficial muscles of the face, in the last five years not one candidate has been able to do this, most have not been able to name even one. I always have optimism and ask for the bones of the skull, lower arm and hand, and lower leg and foot...... nothing. When asked if their anatomy exam was done on a computer with multiple choice questions? the answer is always yes. All this does is is teach you to guess well, this form of examination is letting our students down horrifically and it's bloody lazy. When it comes to trade testing not one candidate has been able to successfully remove dead cuticle from the nail plate, they have never been shown how to handle a cuticle knife correctly, they are amazed when I teach them how to do this! Level two therapists are told at college that they can expect £10 per hour basic salary, which would put them on £15 per hour with bonuses and when I inform them that I can only pay minimum wage until they are able to perform their treatments on time and to the same standard as everyone else in the salon they are quite shocked as they have been told in college that they can earn £9.50 per hour straight away.
When interviewing newly qualified level 3 candidates I find that same standard, my rule is if you can't name it, you can't touch it. I ask candidates to name the superficial muscles of the back and various muscles around the body, again, in the last five years, nothing but startled faces and stuttered replies. The Swedish massage routine that is currently being taught is truly horrific, a series of half arsed effleurage strokes with clearly no underpinning knowledge of musculature and how to effect change in the body. This change in massage happened about 20 years ago, I noticed a sudden and dramatic change when I was a spa director in central London, I always carried out the trade test for applicants and suddenly massage become a pathetic, light stroking of the skin. I have never to this day understood what happened.
Colleges are currently letting students down horrendously, standards are appallingly low. Had I known how sub-standard the beauty syllabus was I would have opened a college before opening my salon. It takes me a year to train new therapists, they are so shocked at how salon life differs so drastically from their college experience, they always report how under prepared and under educated they feel and I really feel for them, spending all that time and money to come out knowing so little. I've had students tell me that teachers have informed them that they don't really like electrical treatments, so the students have had a fundamental lack of knowledge about electricity, the efficacy of electrical treatments and no underpinning knowledge to successfully communicate to the client exactly what it does. When I start teaching my therapists about electricity we start with Scribonius Largus - the Roman Physician and his use of torpedo fish through Faraday, Galvani and Tesla, to the history and development of the current and effects of each machine. We don't start and end with "it plumps the skin and gets rid of toxins," or any other vacuous, easy statement one wishes to insert. It does help that I have a huge passion for electrotherapy and have taught across the UK and Europe.
I am bloody angry, I'm tired and exhausted and I'm fed up of the amount of time and money it costs me to train new therapists. I just want them to come out of college and be ready to work, so I can add in the next level of their training instead of the basics that they should be leaving college with.
Sorry for the huge rant, but I really am at my wits end on this subject and beginning to regret starting my salon, I had planned to have three by this point but I can only just about staff one.
