Becoming an Educator in the Beauty Industry

Starting a career in the beauty industry and building your own business is not an easy task. You understand that it takes endless hours of training and practice to perfect your skills. However, once you grow your portfolio and have a strong grasp of your practice, you can look into ways to advance your career and give back to the community. Becoming an educator is one way to do that.

When becoming an educator, you will have options to be associated with a beauty school, for brands, or become an independent educator. This article will be focused on becoming an independent educator, which is most common within the eyelash and permanent makeup community.

Before starting your own training courses, you should already be certified and well-versed in your practice. If you don’t have the portfolio to back up your work, it will be difficult to sell your training courses. Becoming an educator will also come with responsibilities, such as:

• Building a detailed training course that will cover everything they will need to know
• Being knowledgeable. Students will go to you with questions and you will need to be able to answer them thoroughly
• Be accountable for the students and their craft
• Be able to mentor students on a long-term basis

If you’re ready for a challenge and you want to make a difference in the beauty industry, then you might be fit to be an educator.

Benefits of Becoming a Beauty Educator

Build Credibility and Trust

Becoming an educator allows you to build credibility and stand out from your competitors. It allows you to better position yourself in the industry as a market leader. This is especially appealing for potential clients looking for a service provider.

Clients will feel a greater sense of trust with your skills and experience as an educator. This is because you already have years of experience and knowledge under your belt⁠—enough to teach and mentor students.

Extra Source of Income

You can substantially earn a higher income by becoming an educator. By offering courses, you will be running as both business-to-consumer and business-to-business model. You will be expanding your clientele beyond those looking to get services done. It will now cover those looking to gain training and start businesses of their own.

You can price your training sessions according to the type, size, and duration of the class. The structure of your classes can be:

• Private 1-on-1
• Semi-private small groups
• Online

To determine how much you could make, take this for example. Let’s say you are training a group of 4 students for 4 days, at $3500 per student. That’s a total of $14,000 earned within less than a week.

When you’re first starting, offer a lower price for your first few students to build up your classes. As you build out your training academy and the demand grows, you will be able to increase your pricing accordingly.

Lead by Example

The beauty of becoming an educator is the ability to mentor others and lead by example. Imagine being able to teach and influence a fresh group of students new to the beauty industry. You will be able to contribute and give back to the beauty community by building a curriculum that will pave the way for future generations.

This is your chance to point out potential weak parts in the beauty industry and using your training courses to strengthen them. Learn from your own experiences and determine how you can make your training courses even better. Give students reasons to pick your training courses and show how they will be beneficial in the long run.

Building Your Training Course

Pick Your Area of Expertise

Focus on what you’re exceptionally good at and determine if there’s a demand for the service. The spa and beauty salons market is expected to reach $190.81 billion in 2024. This means the industry is on an up-hill growth and there is room for more service providers to grow their beauty businesses.

There has been rapid development specifically in the eyelash and brow sectors of the industry. Nielsen Retail Measurement Services stated the sales of false eyelashes continue to reach new heights, soaring to nearly $270 million. Eyelash treatments and eyebrow products in specific are seeing the fastest growth, up by an impressive 32% and 24% in dollar growth, respectively.

If you are a lash artist and/or permanent makeup artist, then you’re in the right spot to become an educator. You can build courses to cover what you’re great at and use it to supplement the industry growth.

Build Your Curriculum

Start determining what your training curriculum should cover. This will vary between services, though it’s good to cover a wide spectrum of topics. Imagine yourself as a student again to determine what you think will be most valuable. What should students know that will help jumpstart their careers in the beauty industry?

Jennifer from Tuelle Esthetics offers a one-day, 8-hour private 1-on-1 course for classic lash training. Her course is specially designed for individuals new to the industry. The goal of the course is to share as much relatable content as possible, along with tips on how to create gull and fluffy, natural-looking results.

Each student receives a comprehensive written-guide and a kit with the necessary tools to begin. Here are her curriculum and content of her training kit.

Jennifer also gives 100% support until her students are confident and comfortable with their quality of work. They can go in with a second model and practice with further guidance.

Marketing Your Course

The way you market your course will be similar to how you market your services. The only difference is that you’ll be targeting a different audience. There will be some overlap as many beauty professionals start as clients. This means that your current clients may be interested in starting beauty businesses of their own, making them the perfect audience for your courses.

You should be marketing your course on social media and through email marketing to reach both current and potential clients. Find ways to showcase the benefits of your training program and the potential of working in the beauty industry. This includes:

• Posting testimonials from past students
• Your student’s work
• Behind-the-scene photos from your training
• Photo of the material and tools that all students will receive
• Talking about the potential income students can earn

Be friendly and personable with your audience to build a sense of trust. If potential students are going to be paying you a lot of money, they will need to know that they will be in great hands.

Here is an example of how Lash Technician, Alysa Fullona structured her Instagram post to market her courses. She uses comparison to allow potential students to realize the benefits of taking an eyelash course.

She compared the amount she spent on her university degrees versus her eyelash course to emphasis the investment students are making. While the lash course cost her $1400, she was able to recuperate the cost within the first two months of lashing. In return, she works a job filled with passion, flexibility, and control.

Alysa’s Journey to Becoming an Educator

Alysa Fullona is a Registered Nurse turned Lash Technician, Educator, and Owner of Lash Creative. Growing up, her parents embedded in her head that getting a degree with a high-paying job and pension was the key to success and happiness. She worked as a Registered Nurse on a fast-paced surgical inpatient unit for 5 years, working 12-hour shifts rotating between days and nights.

This was not what Alysa had envisioned for her life. Apart from being constantly sleep-deprived, moody, and sick, she was missing out on birthdays, holidays, and precious time that could have been spent with friends and family. It wasn’t until she got her first set of eyelash extensions for her wedding in 2017 when catalyzed her pursuit of being a lash boss.

Alysa stated in this Instagram post that she traded it all for her eyelash business. No more sleeping pills, patients who physically and verbally abused her, or getting sick multiple times a year. “It took 5 years for me to make a change, but I don’t regret it taking as long as it did,” she says. “The thing that counts is that I did it!”.

In less than 2 years of building her beauty business, Alysa was able to surpass her full-time nursing salary and regain balance in her life. “Not only am I passionate about serving my clients, but I’m passionate about empowering women to conquer their fears and being a Lash Educator is just one of the ways I get to do that,” she says. “Through my eyelash extension course, I teach amazing women to start lash businesses of their own. Leaving nursing for the lash industry has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

Alysa and her nursing colleagues talked about leaving their jobs for years, however, no one made a move. They constantly used the fear of change as an excuse to stay in their careers. She says, “I kid you not, getting eyelash extensions was the first step I took that helped me get over the fear of change. Not only did I feel beautiful all the time, but more importantly, it gave me that inner confidence that many of us are missing.” She started to appreciate the change and tell herself that she will be a great lash artist.

The one thing that excites Alysa the most as a Lash Artist and Educator is that there are no limitations to what you can do. “It’s such a new industry that there are roles you can fill that haven’t even been created yet. It’s through these different avenues that we can serve more people and make their lives better,” she says. “What inspires me are the women I get to meet and talk to through social media. Every month, someone reaches out to me and tells me they started a side-hustle, left their jobs, embraced their awesomeness because of the content I create for them.”

“It’s their energy that inspires me to want to do and be more. “

To keep herself motivated, Alysa reads and listens to a ton of podcasts, videos, and audiobooks. Whenever she feels unmotivated, she will search “Oprah motivation” on YouTube and feel pumped. It’s about finding what will inspire and keep you motivated.

Advice for Aspiring Beauty Professionals

We asked Alysa to share advice she would give to someone looking to make a career change and break into the beauty industry.

In Alysa’s words:

Lean, embrace, and step into your fear. It’s the only thing holding you back from the life you want for yourself. Make three columns. In one column, write down everything that you’re afraid of when it comes to making a career change. In the second column, write down the worst thing that could happen to you if you made a career change. In the third column, write everything that could happen to you if you just made the career change anyways.

I’m hoping you’ll see that:

• Your fears are transient. They go away once you’re settled in your new career
• The worst thing that could happen is really not that bad. The worst thing that could happen is that you stay in your current job and be miserable for the rest of your life
• The positive impact created from a career change far outweighs sticking to your current one

Be consistent when learning a new skill, whether it’s lashes, makeup, hair, etc. You need to practice your craft consistently to master it. Be persistent. The only way you fail is if you give up. Be patient. Good things come to those who wait and being a profitable artist is no exception. Love yourself and others. The only way to have long-term success in the industry is if you serve others with love and compassion and to do that, you need to love yourself and know your self-worth first.

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Alysa will continue to inspire new and aspiring beauty professionals looking to enter the industry. To learn more about her beauty business, you can check out Lash Creative on Instagram.

If you are a beauty professional and would like to be featured in future blog posts, let’s connect!