Building clientele, hairstylist struggling starting out?

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FaerieQueene

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Jun 6, 2020
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Location
Houston, Texas, USA
Hello everyone. I am a Texas State Licensed Cosmetologist since June 2018 and I am glad to have discovered this discussion forum.

• How can I build my clientele?
• How can I stay in practice and grow my talent besides the obvious practicing on a mannequin? (Most people I know are super busy and don’t have time to volunteer for an affordable/cheap hair service)
• The honest truth is so far I’ve been let go from every salon job I’ve had. The first few positions were at franchise chains that offer affordable/cheap haircuts, each time the franchise chain would promise to train me their way for 12 weeks, and it would usually end up being about 2 weeks. They would let me go weeks later after that saying I’m not up to par to perform a fast haircut (10-20 minutes) (a la someone with 10+ years experience who can).
• I came so close recently to a salon apprenticeship, I was hired 2 weeks ago as a Shampoo Tech/Assistant at a high-end salon. I was supposed to start training the Aveda way with them this coming Monday in 2 days. Yesterday the salon manager (not a stylist) let me go saying 1 customer complained about the way I washed their hair.

• I definitely have perseverance, exam conductors were very strict at state board, it took me 3 tries to get my cosmetology license back in early 2018.....

Where do I go from here?
 
I’m sorry you’re having a hard time finding a good salon willing to train you up. 5

Firstly, you really can’t do a good quality methodical haircut in 10-20 minutes, unless it’s a clipper cut or something extremely basic.
Those places take shortcuts and point cut the entire hairstyle which means it will grow out much faster and the client will need it cutting again a lot sooner. I wouldn’t want to work in the kind of salon that values quantity over quality.

In the aveda salon, I’d have expected a decent manager to find out what the client was unhappy about regarding the shampoo service and to work with you to improve your technique. Who was supposed to be responsible for supervising your ongoing training, if it wasn’t the manager?

I live in Ireland so I know about hairdressing training in the U.K. and in Ireland but I’m not familiar with your training system in the US so I’m wondering if your cosmetology training is roughly equivalent to our level 2 courses?

Here, after you’d completed the basic level 2 course, you’d be classed as qualified, but you’d not be ready to work a busy column on the salon floor and you’d need to gain a lot more experience as the level 2 course only teaches the minimum in terms of cutting and colour. I’d advise a newly qualified hairdresser to continue their training and enrol on the level 3 advanced hairdressing course if they’re not being trained by their salon and possibly sign up for additional courses in advanced colour correction and occasion hairstyling, which includes advanced techniques for bridal and Prom hair styling.

I would recommend you look for some good online training in the meantime, freesaloneducation.com is very good and I highly recommend myhairdressers.com for excellent detailed training that you have to pay for. You might only need to pay for one or two months if you sit and watch a lot of their videos and practice on a head block. They take you through every cut and colour step by step.

I’d generally steer clear of YouTube videos as many of them are awful hairdressers with big ego’s and little talent.

I wish you luck and don’t forget that we’re 6 hours ahead of you time wise, so I hope you check back here later. It’s currently 9.15am here and 3.15am where you are. :)
 

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