 Hello, beautiful. As you may know, I have been a hairstyles for many years. Actually, I think almost 10 years now, and that's like not including the times I did hair without having a license. That's a lot of years, as a hairstylist. Over my time as a hairstylist, I've learned a lot about this industry and I wanna share it with you today with a one-on-one sit down. We're gonna decide if you should become a hairstylist or if it's just not the right career path for you. I'm gonna share with you all my pros and cons and then I'll share with you my pro tips to becoming the best hairstyles you can possibly be and what you should do and what you should look out for when starting your career as a hairstylist. Let's start off with the good, with the positive, with the great. Working with the public can be fun. It's honestly so cool to like go to work and basically have a bunch of your sort of friends that are actually your clients come into your chair, tell you about their life. It's honestly really fun to get to know your clients and become good friends with them and it's so cool that you basically get to hang out with people for a living. When you build that solid clientele, that is what it feels like. It feels like you're hanging out with friends and it's dope. And when you have a full book of clients you love for the day, the day goes by so quickly. It just feels like you're having fun all day. It's always those days where you have a full book of like friend clients we'll call them for today where you end the day and you're like, I cannot believe I got paid to do that. Like this is amazing and this is a lot of fun and I love my job. Next, you get to make people feel beautiful for a living. I think clients cry because they feel so beautiful and they never felt like that before. First of all, it makes me so happy that they feel so good. And second of all, I love the idea that you can make somebody more beautiful with their hair. If I can change the way somebody feels and the way they look, it really does help them like get that job they've always wanted or just feel confident enough to walk down the street with their head held high. It is powerful. Okay, next, being a hairstylist is super creative. Being creative is a huge thing when it comes to being a hairstylist. It is a very, very creative job. I like to think of hair cutting as like doing architecture. Like really creative architecture where like doing hair color is extremely creative painting and styling hair is like sculpting. And so when you combine all those things together, you set the most fulfilling creative job ever. It is so much fun to be able to create a piece of art that is wearable for somebody to walk around and show it off and feel excited as you are creating the look as they are wearing the look. Like it is really cool. Next, there are so many different ways you can grow in this career. Just because you're a hairstylist doesn't mean you have to work at a salon. You can be a salon owner, session stylist that goes to shoots and does models hair all day. You can be a colorist. You can be a hair cutter. You can be an educator. You can become a brand ambassador where you travel and you teach people how to use certain brands products. Like there's so many different things you can do under this one roof of being a hairstylist which is great for somebody like me who gets really bored really easily. There's just endless possibilities. Next, you get to decide how much money you want to make. Yes, you heard me right. If you wanna make $10 a day, you can. If you wanna make $20,000 a day, you can. I mean, you can really make as much money as you desire. It's really all about what you put into it. You will get out of it, okay? So if you want to make a lot of money in this career, you can. There is so much damn money to be made within the world of beauty. Not that it's easy to do, but it can be done. Next, we should talk about just the atmosphere of the salon. You get to meet so many amazing creative people that are just like you. It can be a really fun place to work because most hairstylists are very unconventional people. They are artistic people. They are very outgoing people. So it just creates this atmosphere where you're just like best friends with everybody. You have a lot of commonalities that make you end up being friendly even outside of work. Like I know there's some jobs where you go to work, you do your desk job and you go home and you never hang out with people from work. Like that is not how salons are. At least from my experience. We would all get drinks after work. We would all hang out in the back rooms. It was just such like a community of hairstylists and you really wanted to be around those people because they have a lot of similar interests to you. And it was a lot of fun. Next, you get to get a lot of exercise in. You are on your feet for many, many, many, many, many, many hours. If you like being active and you don't like sitting at a desk, you don't like just staring at a wall all day or a laptop screen, this would be good for you. This is an ADHD proof job. If you have to be stimulated all the time, this is it. You are constantly on the move. You are constantly doing a million things. You never stop. You are getting so many steps in, which I actually really like because I love being on my feet and I love a good walk around, you know. And one of my last pros is that this is a cash heavy job. You are gonna get a lot of cash, which is great. Cash is always nice. You know, you can do what you want with your money. It's always nice getting that big bundle of cash going home. You know, tips are nice. There's nothing more satisfying than opening a bunch of envelopes up and just being like, fuck I'm a baller. I had to add that in there. So I'm sure I hyped up all of you guys at this point and you're like, that bread. I wanna become my own sales now. Like you've convinced me. Well, hold the fuck on. There are cons lists we are going to get to right now. We'll start off with one that I just mentioned as a pro but reverse it into a con. You're on your feet 24 seven does get very tiring. And if you are not into that, you do not wanna be the most active mother in this planet. Don't be a stylist. It is manual labor. Your back will hurt, your arms will hurt, your legs will hurt, your feet will hurt. You will wanna go home and just vegetate after every work day. All right, but you'll definitely get your steps in. Some of these are also just smaller things that I personally experienced. You don't get to eat often. When I was working at salon where I had just like way too many clients, there was no time to eat. If you wanted to eat, you would have to like sneak away from a client in the middle of like a foil and go and stuff your face with a banana. I would take anything. Like a lot of hairstyles would not eat during the day and just drink coffee. It would be like 10 to 12 hour days where people would just drink coffee and will not eat the entire day until they got home. It was always like breakfast before your clients and then you would go home and eat. Like that was it. Next, it takes a long time to start making money. I had a boss one time always say, this is not a get rich quick scheme. You don't get rich quick. It takes a long time. Typically you have to go to school. You learn for many years as an apprentice. Sometimes like up to three, four, five years even. I've seen people do five years of apprenticeship and then you get on the floor and then you have another like two years, three years depending on how busy the salon is until you build a full clientele. And then if you decide to switch salons in the middle of that, you're back at square one. So sometimes it can take a really long time to build a clientele, to make money, to figure out what you're good at. I mean, everybody's path is different but I have pretty much never seen anybody just go to school and like immediately start making a lot of money. It doesn't usually work like that. Next, working in salon can be very high school like. I don't know if this is everywhere in the world but definitely in New York City and in Massachusetts where I'm from. Every salon I worked at had a lot of drama and that was just the name of the game. People were hooking up with different people. People would just decide they don't like you one day or you would, as an assistant, like you would mess up something and then the stylist would hate you the rest of the month. There was always just drama. It was a little nasty sometimes. You put a bunch of like beautiful people who love the beauty industry. You often get some people who are very catty. That's the truth. You have the option to not get involved with it but from my experience, it's very hard not to get involved. Next one is sort of a con, sort of a pro. We'll just like leave it in no man's land. You have to go to school. A lot of people think you can just like be a hairstylist but to work in salon, you do have to be a licensed hairstylist. You have to go to school. I think the least amount of time it takes is like a school year. So about eight months or so in New York and Massachusetts, every state is different. Some are much longer. Some take over a year to complete the school. Some take I think even two years to complete. It all depends on how fast you do it as well. You have the option to go to school for a full day or for half days or for night school. There's all sorts of different programs. So just look up what there is to offer near you and go from there. But for me, I just felt like it was just a lot of school. Like I already knew so much before I went into school and I just wanted to be done with it so bad and like get on with the show. So next, working with the public can be brutal. As much as it's great, you can have those clients who are awful to you who treat you like shit but still keep coming back to you and you're like, why do you come to me? I don't like you. We have no chemistry. At this point, should I just like mess up her hair so she stops coming to me kind of moment? Never did that. But there's definitely been times where I'm like, how can I make this woman go away? Like get out of my chair. It's tough sometimes. You have to really just like remember that it's your job and not. Everything about your job is gonna be great and you just have to suck it up and deal with the people who suck. In the beginning of your career on the floor as a hairstylist, you get whatever is given to you. You don't get people who necessarily like you. That happens down the line when you build a clientele, you end up with a lot of people who you like, you're comfortable with, they like you back and it becomes much easier. But in the beginning, you get a lot of random people, a lot of walk-ins, a lot of people who don't tip, a lot of people who are just plain rude, a lot of people who you'll do amazing hair on and they'll be like, this looks awful. There are people who just do not care about your feelings at all. I've had clients call me stupid. I've had clients walk out. I've had people get mad at me for various reasons. I've told people I can't do their hair because their hair is too compromised and they're like, they demand that I do it. I've actually had a woman write a bad review about me because I refused to wear hair because it was so damaged. I've experienced everything at this point in this career and yeah, with the good comes the bad and you get a lot of great people that come to you and you get a lot of awful mad people who just hate their lives and that's the reality of working with the public. This is another personal one for me. You aren't always going to feel satisfied with your work. Sometimes there's time constraints that you have to work through. There are certain things that end up happening with hair color that are just unpredictable sometimes and unfortunately you have to sometimes just confront your client and be like, because of the time constraints, because of these certain factors, we're just not gonna get the end result that we thought we were today. You definitely have to do a good job at warning them before you start but overall sometimes shit stuff just happens when it comes to hair color and you're just not left with a great feeling and I know for me, I love to make people feel beautiful and when I can't, when I feel like I've failed at that, it's a really, really, really depressing feeling. This one sucks, okay? And this is just the truth. When you tell people you're a hairstylist, they don't take you seriously. You could be like, I'm a lawyer or like I'm a doctor or like I'm a photographer. When you say you're a hairstylist, people are like, oh, cute. So there's a horrible stigma around being a hairstylist and if you really care about that, then maybe this isn't the right path for you because people are gonna think, you know, your career isn't real. Some people think this career is only for high school dropouts and people who just didn't wanna go to college and people had nothing better to do with their lives. You know, there is that stigma and I think at one point that might have been the thing but at this point in this hair styling world, that is just not the case anymore. So many of us are extremely talented and take this job very seriously and make a whole lot of money doing it. So those are my cons but if you made it this far and you still feel like you wanna be a hairstylist, then I have some insider tips for you to share. Okay, so you are dumb at school, you are ready to get a job. You're gonna wanna spend a lot of time looking into the salons you're applying to. If you have the opportunity to, right? I know some small towns only have one salon, two salons. I know that not every lives in a big city but if you have the opportunity to apply to multiple different salons to get a job and apprentice somebody, please do your research. I ended up at so many awful places with awful bosses because I didn't do my research and I just like took the job. I just thought like, oh, this is a beautiful salon. Like I want to work here but I didn't do my research. Like I didn't really understand what was going on. Really take your interviews seriously, ask them how their experience has been working there. You can see on their face if they actually like it or not. I worked at so many places where I once I was hired I got all the tea, everybody hated their job, everybody hated their boss and I was like, why the fuck did I get a job here? So do your research. Next, don't go in debt over school. If you cannot afford a school that is extremely expensive, do not go to one. Most of the time you're not going to learn anything different. The education comes after school. Your apprenticeship is so important. So don't go into debt over school. I went to a school that was just local in my town. I did not pay a lot at all. I paid like a fifth of what people paid for other schools. Just do your research and get a great education and don't break the bank. Next, you're going to definitely want to invest in your learning after school. Please take advantage of the classes that salons provide. You know, usually they're free. Usually your boss wants you to attend classes if you're at a good salon. And if they don't, then you should move the fuck on because if they're not trying to get you more education, they don't want you to grow as a stylist. That is not the right place for you. Continue to learn and continue to grow your knowledge about hair constantly or you will fall behind. There's always more to learn. There's so much to know about hair. Next, you're going to want to take breaks. If you were financially stable just enough to take a vacation during this time of like being an apprentice and building your career and also just during your career, please do. I've been burnt out so many times because of my lack of vacations. I don't do well at taking vacations. I tend to just work myself to death. But don't do that because you will start hating hair and you will start not wanting to touch hair anymore. So take time for yourself. This is a tough career, but it is very rewarding. And if you do not take breaks, you will not feel that rewarding part as much. My next point, and listen clearly, quit if your boss is an asshole. As funny as this sounds, this might be my most important tip of the night. I've had so many times where I put up with just jerks. If you get a bad feeling, if you get an icky feeling within the first month of working there and you're like, oh my God, this person is awful, fucking quit. It is not worth being mentally tortured. I definitely let it go for too long and I ended up quitting all the toxic places and I was just so much happier after. So just be careful. I know sometimes it's not that easy to just quit and it's not that easy. You want to get your education in and sometimes the really good salons have the shit bosses. And that's just how life is. Do what you can, but don't let them walk all over you. It's not worth it. Next, if you aren't feeling fulfilled at the salon you're at, move on. If you feel like you have no chance of moving up from assistant to hairstylist on the floor, quit. If you feel like they aren't giving you education as an apprentice, quit. If you feel like there's nobody at that salon that you aspire to be like, quit. When you are applying, you should know how they plan to educate you during your apprenticeship. For me, I would get like a book where I'd have to check off like every single different kind of color application. I'd have to do so many different models a week. There was a huge education program at the salon that I was at during my apprenticeship and it was great. We learned a lot. They really cared about you learning and I recommend you guys find a salon like that as well. Next, do not feel like you can only work in a salon. I do recommend like doing an apprenticeship at a salon because like you're just never gonna see as much hair as you do than within a salon in one day. It's a really easy way to just get your hands on so many different heads in one day. Otherwise, it's not gonna be very easy for you to like branch out and become like an assistant for a celebrity hairstylist or become an assistant for a session stylist if you don't have that salon experience. Everybody's gonna want this salon experience so you pretty much need to start there. If anything, you need to get that experience and before you then go into different career paths within this industry but it is possible to not ever work in a salon again. I have hairstylist friends who only do house calls and session styling and celebrity styling. So if that is what you want, you do have to start in a salon typically but you can move past the salon at some point. My next tip is working in a big city is super fulfilling but don't do it unless you are willing to put your all into it. Unless you are willing to just be a hairstylist 24 seven, do whatever it takes because say for New York City or LA if you wanna make it big in these cities you have to grind. There are so many people who move here trying to be a well-known hairstylist and everybody will push you out of the way to get there. You need to eat, sleep and breathe hair. Just be aware of that if you decide to do this as your career and you wanna move to New York City or LA and pursue it and make a big name for yourself. Be ready to put in the effort and the work and have a good work ethic and drive and be really passionate because that'll get you through it. And lastly, my biggest tip of all, once you become a stylist on the floor, post your work on social media. You will never build your clientele these days without doing that. People wanna go to people who post their work on social media. Post videos, tutorials, post before and afters, post everything you possibly can. Post just like your hair education, what you know, your knowledge, anything like that on social media and the clients will flock to you. If you wanna build that clientele, you gotta be posting. That's my biggest tip. So, I know that was a lot of information but I really hope that helps you decide if you want to be a hairstylist or not. I've been in this career for about 10 years and I love it. There's something about hair that just excites me to this day. I'm just happy I found my calling so early in life and I hope you, if you decide to be a hairstylist, love it as much as I do. And that is all for today, guys. Thank you for hanging out with me. If you'd like to follow me anywhere else, you can do so with my links right here. These are all my ads. This is X-Mondo's and this is my Instagram handle. And you can also check out my hair care and my hair color line linked right down below or go to xmodohair.com to check out what we have to offer. And that is all for today, guys. Thank you so much for watching and don't forget to live your extra life. And I'll see you next time. Bye.