OK, these are my thoughts on the HD brand.
Nouveau is a well respected company and I suspect that their training is very good.
I think the HD brows would do very well in a smart, funky urban salon. I live in deepest, darkest Hampshire with a client base of 35+ yummy mummies who spend a lot of time in the local coffee shop, playing tennis or doing Pilates, as far as I can make out! They have little or no interest in what the latest WAG trend is, so would stare blankly at me if I said I'm doing HD brows now.
My average takings in the salon per day are about £500 (that's revenue, not profit, before your jaw hits the floor!). Therefore I would lose about a grand in lost revenue, plus the cost of the training which I think is about 700 notes plus VAT, and then the travel expense up to Milton Keynes.
I think it's shameful that Nouveau want to charge its HD therapists for use of the logo etc (if they still are, or if they're reading this, have you never heard of "contribution" in a marketing sense?)
I understand that there are 7 steps to the process. When a client asks for a brow shape with me they get the following steps.
Consultation - what do they want, what I can achieve with what they've got already, manage their expectations.
Analysis - look at their face shape, age, colouring, state of brow
Threading/waxing and tweezing - to create the best shape possible
Trimming - I do mention very briefly that I might use scissors on their brow, but it generally scares them senseless if they think someone's going to snip off their brows!
I also explain that sometimes their brows are going to look less groomed than they would like until hairs have grown back if they've been badly shaped in the past. I implore them to not fiddle with them and then rebook them for 4 weeks.
If they want a brow makeover I do all the above and use tint (after doing a tint test for every new client, or if they've not had it done with me for over 6 months)
I use a lot of brown tint, and add varying amounts of black tint depending on the colouring. Even my really dark haired clients don't get full on black tint - it's just too "flat"
For homecare I might suggest a brow pencil (Sisley make, in my opinion, the very best ones. Obviously I can't sell them a Sisley pencil, and my clients love the fact that I'm happy to recommend external brands), or Blinc Brow Mousse.
Apart from the brands involved what I'd like to know is how does what I offer differ from what HD Brows offer? I've not been on the HD training so I might be missing some amazing techniques, but I'd have to do a heck of a lot of HD brows to recoup my investment, and with my client base it would take a lot of time.
I've seen some truly shockingly badly shaped brows in the past so I do think there is a need for some therapists to do some extra, specialised training, and as mentioned before, in upmarket, trendy, urban salons where the client base is influenced by the likes of Atomic Kitten and Jordan, I have absolutely no doubt that it would fly.
My biggest gripe with the HD brow debate is that it has been touted on here as the ONLY way to do brows properly. Er, no.
