(cosmotoligist only) How much money do you make ?

Question

I started cosmotoligy school a few months ago and i was wandering how much i would be able to make when i graduate..

Answer 1

This is an answer that cannot be quantified, but I can give you some ideas.
Salons pay in different ways from each other. One type pays on percentage, say 50 to 60% of the total amount you collect each week. So working longer hours, selling larger cost services, such as coloring or hair weaving, and eventually raising your prices will influence how much you can make.
Another way is to pay an "assistant" hairdresser a flat hourly wage. If it's not important to you to begin styling your own clientele right away, you can be an assistant to some very good hairdressers (in major citites like LA, NY, SFO, etc.) and wind up making pretty good money after you are "on your own," in their salon. These will be the avant garde salons.
There are some salon chains that only pay per hour, and not much, I can tell you. They have their own "gimic" like salons that only do haircuts, or that cater to older clientele and one person does only shampooing, another does only cutting, another does just perms, etc. There is no creativity here. This is the assembly-line version of hairdressing, and the lowest paid.
Next is the station rental. That means you pay a salon that has the room for you a flat fee to work there. You must make enough to pay the rental fee, anything over that is yours. How much you make in this situation depends on how many of your friends you can get to come in to have you do their hair, how much you spend on advertising, and how good you are. When you have all your appointment times filled up for each week, you have what is called a "full clientele," or a "complete clientele." You usually need to have a full clientele to make enough money to keep more than you are spending. Raising your prices will be necessary to make more money once you have a full clientele.
Of course, you can own your own salon, too. This is just a bigger version of renting a station in someone else's salon. Now you can make more money, by having more hairdressers work for you, but you also have more costs because you have to buy your own products, equipment, advertising (crucial to getting off the ground!) and utilities.
As you can see, there are a lot of variables in how to make money in cosmetology. I haven't touched on if you live in a tiny rural area, a town, or a large metropolitan area. Your own goals have influence here, too. Do you want to raise a family, and be home with them most of the time? Do you want to be a big-name hairdresser in a big city? What is your ambition? Do you need to make $100,000 a year? (switch to computers or acting,) Or do you only need enough money to live on? Do you have a partner who will support your goals? There are lots more questions you can look at for this.
If you want the $100,000, you have to work hard, start your own salon in a big city, and be very good. Will it work for you to just scrape by with $15,000 a year -choose a small salon, and enjoy doing hair for itself, not the money.

Answer 2

In the salon that I work in I get an hourly wage of 15.00 hr plus I get a 30% comission on what ever kind of service they get plus if they buy any shampoo or conditioner I get a % on that. Plus it all depends on what kind of salon you work at, I work at busy high end salon.

Answer 3

Well I'm only 15, but my dad is a doctor here in Ireland and he makes over $250,000 per year. Not bad?!

Answer 4

my woman is liscensed and only makes 10-20k a year, but thats with a lot of part time.

Answer 5

NOT enuf to stay in the business unless I open my own salon.

Answer 6

$25,000 - $35,000/year