Beauty and Personal Care

How much do you care about how you look? If you are a social person, chances are you spend some time applying makeup, tanning, and moisturizing before going out to meet your friends. The skin is the body’s biggest skin, and it’s probably the part of your body you take care of the most. The skin is a sensitive part of your body though and requires the care of trained and qualified specialists. If you love to treat other people’s skins and nails, pursuing training in beauty and personal care will help you achieve your dream.

What is Beauty and Personal Care?

Beauty and personal care is an art field that addresses the looks and health of someone’s hair, nails, and skin. This field of beauty and personal care encompasses a wide range of careers such as stylists, barbers, manicurists, pedicurists, makeup artists, and education. Expert beauty and personal care experts can also join beauty product’s firms to help in the manufacture and design of beauty products.

Why Should You Study Beauty and personal care?

A course or degree program in cosmetic science can open more career paths than you may think. At the basic level of the field, you are trained to take care of people’s hair, skin, and nails. You become a problem solver for hundreds of people you treat every month. Besides the obvious career path, there are other reasons to become a specialist in beauty science.

1. Become your own boss

Half the people with backgrounds in beauty and personal care training end up becoming their own bosses within the first few years after graduation. The capital required for one to transit from being employed to becoming an own boss is relatively affordable and you could become your own boss easily.

2. Wide area of Specialization

Not everyone who graduates with a cosmetic science degree ends up working in a salon. There are several areas within the field to specialize in. Some graduates become makeup artists in the film industry. Some join research institutes to further the field while others become teachers. However, most people still work in the beauty industry as hair stylists, manicure specialists, skin care experts or even massage technicians with additional training.

3. Become a Creative problem solver

One of the best aspects of this field is that you are allowed to use your creativity to solve people’s problems. You are not only trained to help clients look good, but you get the chance to decide how good they actually look. Most treats in the beauty industry are challenges that you can approach in your unique way as long as the client loves what you tell them.

4. Decent Pay

Although this depends on the services you offer, your job location and other factors, the pay in the beauty and personal care industry is decent. Where employed, you are still entitled to tips and commissions from the products you sell. If you become outstanding at what you do, you will probably become employed by high-end salons where you earn equal or higher salaries than most of the top jobs. However, the highest paid technicians in the industry are self-employed people.

5. You Become an Expert in beauty trends

If you plan to join a beauty academy because of your love for the industry, you will enjoy every aspect of your profession. As an esthetician, you will often be among the first people to learn about new products, equipment, and tools to better the looks of your clients and yourself. You become an expert in all matters to do with beauty and personal care. You become the ‘go-to person’ whenever anyone needs to learn of the new trends, beauty products, and tools to use in the industry. This, in turn, increases the demand for your services and mostly also your income.

6. Flexible working schedules

The work schedule for estheticians is quite flexible, especially for the self-employed individuals. Clients want to be treated at different times of the day, which allows you to manage your time properly for flexible working hours. If you wish, you could only concentrate on handling clients in the evenings while you can spend your days handling other jobs.

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What Skills do you need?

As a cosmetic scientist, you will be responsible for helping clients find their best looks. That means you will not only be good at your job, but you must also be professional. You must also possess the following skills if you wish to become the best in the industry:

• Friendliness-Being friendly is a must-have skill for beauty and personal care specialists. You will meet all sorts of clients in your line of work, and most of them will expect you to be friendly and approachable.
  
  
• Stamina-Employers are constantly looking for beauty technicians with great stamina. This is especially true for busy salons where you may have inflexible working hours or too many clients at a go. Along with stamina is a passion for your job so that you can work happily and offer satisfactory services to your clients.
  
  
• Management Skills-To effectively transit from being an employee who works on minimum wage to a self-employed boss, you must have management skills. Starting your own beauty care requires good management of time, capital, and general busy management skills.
  
  
• Communication skills-Your job in the beauty industry will involve lots of talking. From the moment a client walks into your salon to when you complete working on their hair, skin or nails, you have to constantly listen to them, act on their feedback or reassure them whenever it is required.
  
  
• Professionalism-As already mentioned professionalism is an important skill for any beauty technician. Your reasoning and performance must always be guided by professionalism. You must learn to avoid mixing emotions with your work if you want to have successful relations with your clients.
  
  
• A desire to learn-With new products being invented every year, trends in the beauty industry changing and every salon having their own rules, you must desire to learn new things and adapt to change very fast. The most successful technicians in the industry are actually those who are proactive in learning new trends and implementing them to clients in the best way possible.

Admission - What are the entry requirements?

The entry requirements to pursue a program related to cosmetic science in a beauty university are fairly low ad anyone with the passion to join the industry has no reasons to. Basically, the primary requirements are:

• High school diploma or certificate in most countries around the world
• Fluency in the English language
• Complete GCSE in the UK

Duration of Study?

A typical beauty science program takes a few months to four years to complete. Short courses often take 6 months, and graduates become beauty technicians in salons at the entry levels. People who wish to specialize in more lucrative areas pursue the 4-year programs and end up working in high-end resorts and spas.

What are the Job Opportunities?

Below are the main job opportunities for someone who pursues any program related to cosmetics.

• Hairstylist

At the basic level of this field, you get to join a profession that is always in demand. If you pursue a degree, you gain more advanced skills related to taking care of hair. This could help you get a job in high-end resorts, spas, and salons.

• Perfumer

A perfumer creates perfume compositions for beauty industries. It is one of the common career paths for people who complete degree programs in beauty and personal care colleges. A perfumer requires great skill at reading mood by smelling at perfume. They then use their skills to help manufacturers design different perfumes that could be applied in different occasions.

• Skincare Expert

A skin care expert is someone who can evaluate the skin, make minor diagnoses and recommendations of how to improve its health and looks. A skin care expert with a degree will often work in high-end resorts, on TV, in research firms, and in beauty manufacturing industries. They are highly paid, especially those who work in big companies.

• Film makeup artist

A film makeup artist helps actors, actresses and TV personalities look good on camera. Specialist makeup artists use props and other tools to help actors appear appropriate for different scenes. Most horror films, for example, use the services of makeup artists to give their actors the horrifying appearances.

• Teaching

One of the most overlooked career paths for people with background training in cosmetology is teaching. With an advanced degree in personal care, it’s easy to become a trainer who helps upcoming beauty technicians join the industry with ease.

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What is The Expected Salary?

According to the government agency, BLS.gov, the expected salary for an average cosmetologist is $12 an hour ($26,000 in a year). Specialist beauty technicians attracted a higher pay of up to $41,000 per year.

Top 10 Beauty and personal care Schools

1. Paul Mitchell schools, Florida
2. Pivot Point Academy Beauty school, Chicago
3. The Sassoon Academy, CA
4. The Ogle School, Texas
5. Xenon International Academy, Nevada
6. Hollywood Institute of Beauty, California
7. The Hair Design Institute, Florida
8. American National beauty College,
9. Tricoci University, Illinois
10. The Aveda Institute, Ohio