How did you get into beauty?

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friendlybyrd

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Jan 4, 2019
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Hi everyone! I just joined! :)

Wondering how people got into doing what they're doing with beauty, nails, hair, etc...?
 
Welcome! I went to college from school to train as a beauty therapist as a ‘back up’ as I wanted to be a make up artist. I trained as a make up artist and worked on a couple of films and HATED it. I missed my salon work so off I went back to work in a salon. 18 years later I’m still in salon work specializing in skincare and making plans to open my own studio. :) so clearly my ‘back up’ career was a good choice!
 
By accident ! Did a nail course just to do my own nails around my babies 20 years ago, friends kept asking for me to do there’s so I started doing a little mobile, hated it! Then a friend was doing mobile and hated that too so we opened a little room doing nails and I enrolled on a eve beauty course ,, years later we now have our own salon with hairdressers etc
 
Hi everyone! I just joined! :)

Wondering how people got into doing what they're doing with beauty, nails, hair, etc...?

When I was 19 I did my boyfriends mums eyebrows and my nans chin hair. Then most of the family and painting toes. Never for money or a business just in the moment. I did quite a lot of beauty stuff on myself and they said once ‘I don’t know why you don’t do this as a job.’

I didn’t think much of it until years later, I wanted to go to college. I desperately wanted to do beauty but the tutor said I didn’t have the maths for it. I ended up doing business (and finance and accounts!!!) I was a mature student at 21 so had to pay so they never said actually I could have done whatever I wanted.

I did the business and got a job in recruitment. I met someone that had a tanning business on the side early on. I’d forgotten about it and her but eventually did a tanning course after I saw an advert. She was first to email me and had the right arse for ‘copying’ her.

I worked 7am-11pm recruiting and tanned my temps after I finished and on weekends. Nuts! Took more courses and got a part time job so I could do more beauty, then as I got busy dropped more hours until I went full time self employed in 2015.

I just finished level 3 a&p and body massage and am very happy.

Can’t help but think it would have been easier if the tutor didn’t brush me off and I’d pushed more to do the beauty level 3 when I was younger (she was even the tutor where I trained for all my short courses!), but Id never have the real experience I do now and would probably be in a salon, with no other job experience, no idea about business or accounting, recruiting or marketing.

Everything works out in the end!
 
I did an apprenticeship in hairdressing after leaving school but found salon life very bitchy so gave it up. I really wanted to re-train in beauty but my dad said it was a dead end job and I should have stuck with hairdressing!

Years later, a year after I got married I enrolled at night school to do Level 2 Beauty therapy over 2 years, I then trained separately in nail extensions. I set up a little salon in our house and also offered mobile nail extensions, which I did evenings and weekends as I couldn't afford to give up my full time job.
When I became pregnant I was too ill to work at all, either in my full time job or doing beauty and nail treatments. I tried to build my business up again after my daughter was born but it didn't work out.
A few years later I decided to try again and did a few refresher courses and a spray tan course, but didn't have a suitable space at home to use and didn't want to go mobile again and certainly wouldn't have had the confidence to apply for a job in a salon so it never really took off, I just did the odd set of nails or tan for friends and family.

Then a couple of life-changing events made me stop and re-evaluate my life. I hated my job and still kept wondering "what if" about the career I'd never quite managed to have in the beauty and nail industry. I took a gamble, reduced my working hours and enrolled on a level 3 beauty therapy vtct course at college that also included nail enhancements. I loved every minute of it and I set up a little room at home practising whenever I could on friends and family and then through word of mouth. I then took a big risk and took voluntary redundancy from my job and have been working for myself for the past 16 months. We have converted our double garage and workshop into a salon with a nail room, 2 treatment rooms, spray tan room and shower room. (My daughter has one of the treatment rooms).
I am taking things at my own pace and continuing to research and learn all the time, but I absolutely love what I do and wish I'd had the courage to really go for it years ago!
 

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