So you've done your Lash Course... What's Next?

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Hey guys, it's April from Eye Envy Co here. We're about to do another episode on our podcast. And this one's called. "So you've done your lash course, and they've sent you out into the wild. What next?"

So we're going to talk about everything you need to know about where to start, how to price yourself, how to market yourself, your business setup, where to find models, where to advertise, and you know, how long it takes and where to buy products. And so definitely subscribe if this is helpful for you, because we will be bringing out new episodes every week. So again, my name is April, if you don't know me, and I have been the owner of eye envy co since 2016. We have a salon on the Gold Coast with amazing staff and awesome clients. And we also have our beauty training studio, where our trainers work and do beauty courses. And we also have our online courses and our online supplies, which is called the ilash collective. And we also have direct to client cosmetics. And that's called baddie cosmetics co.

So basically, you've done your lash course, you're a complete beginner, whether it's taken one day or a few days to finish your course, your trainers sent you off into the wild, and you're about to start your lash career. What do you do next? So obviously, you want to make sure that your technique is great. So you have to practice as much as possible and get as much content as you can. And that means you're probably going to have to do a fair few free clients. And that's true in any sort of beauty service. If you're learning facials for the first time, you're becoming a beautician, you're just going to have to do some free services. And from those free services, it's beneficial because one, you're building your confidence, you're building your skills, two you're getting your speed up and three, you're getting content and content is so valuable for you, as a beginner, especially if you're building your business like you might not be interested in a business and you're off to start your career working for somebody, you're still going to need to know these types of things for a beauty career. Alright, so let's start off as if you are starting off your own business, but it's it's all relevant. So it's good to know these things. Make sure you know everything about your contraindications and your aftercare. So making sure that you know who you can and can't lash and making sure that you tell your clients how to take care of their beauty services when they leave the salon. So there's no point you putting lashes on and they don't know how to take care of them because they might go home the next day or the same day and start putting oily products all over their lashes. And they're going to blame you because they're not lasting. So if you don't understand your aftercare or your contraindications, it's going to be a huge problem. So definitely educate your clients, educate yourself. And then that way, you're going to have less clients doing things from home that are going to ruin your good work. So whether you have to go back into your online course or your online theory or your manual, whatever your teachers giving you for your theory part, make sure you know that down pat and keep it nearby whether it's kept on your phone, or kept on a physical printed manual.

Business setup, I have touched on this on a previous episode about your business setup, you need to make sure that you have insurance. So as far as Australia is concerned, you do need to have public liability insurance, in case anybody gets injured on your property. There are other insurances in other countries and states. So definitely research what is needed.

Business setup, you can do your business name, registration, which in Australia, it's on the ASIC website. So as I see, you can also save your domain for your website. And there's so many little things that you can do for your business setup like starting your business bank account, I have touched on this, so definitely go back and watch our other videos. But definitely your insurance is the most important so knowing exactly what you need to do legally to cover yourself in any situation that might not be favorable business cards. So business cards at the minimum for marketing is super valuable. So whether you get a graphic designer to do this for you, you can go on Fiverr and find a graphic designer or air Tasker or just ask your local groups Facebook groups who they recommend. You can also do basic ones yourself on Canva and then just go into Vistaprint and have them printed and sent to you. Business cards are good to have the aftercare on the back as well so that if your clients forget, they can just refer back to that business card. Having that business card is also a good way for them to remember their appointments if they're the type of person that like you to write them down. There are still so many people that like you to write them down for them. So definitely having business cards at a minimum is great otherwise also having a menu to give out to people for your setup.

If you're working from home, you can decide on a recliner or a beauty bed. So beauty bed is obviously the flat bed that you can get and you can build up layers on that to make it comfortable. You can put bolster pillows under their knees, nice comfy pillows under their heads. Honestly some people just even use like a rolled up towel and under their head as long as you're aware of your clients comfortability, you really don't need a lot to begin with definitely having a recliner or beauty bed. We work off recliners in our salon. But we did work off beauty beds, beauty beds in the beginning because they were easier to work around. But now we find recliners are easier to work around, and they're so much more comfortable for your clients. So it's much of a muchness, for recliners, you can literally just go to your furniture, short furniture shop, oh my god, I can't speak tonight, furniture store and go and even just take a friend and have them sit in the recliner, just to see how far it goes backwards. Because what happens with some recliners is they either don't go far enough back, which means your clients sitting too far away from you. And it's going to cause you some issues with your muscles and your body being uncomfortable. And the other thing is that they're just not in the right position for you. So you may have to put a couple of pillows under their butt. But yeah, just see what's comfortable. And make sure you sit in the back and pretend that you're going to lash the client, and that it suits you both. You also want to make sure you have enough room at the top of the bed to put your utensils and your tray and everything. So definitely check those things. On our website. The ilash Collective, we do lash recliners, so it takes about two weeks for those to arrive. But if you're happy to wait, then that's definitely an easy buy to make sure that it does all the right things that you need. humidifier is another important thing that you need to purchase, because obviously, the humidifier is going to quicken up your glue or slow down your glue if it's trying too fast. And that's because either your environment doesn't have enough humidity in the air or eat has too much. So having a humidifier and having a dehumidifier. A dehumidifier is important for those reasons. So we'll get into that a little bit later. We'll also do an episode on glue and how to control your glue because I find that this is a bit of a controversial subject with some lash artists. It shouldn't be because it should be the same for everybody. But for some reason, people are confused. And I don't know if that's because of previous glue myths or not. But we'll definitely touch on that and what works for our salon.

You'll need an LED light. So just your normal salon lamps sometimes heat up the glue. So you want an LED based light, we go with floor lamps. And we've also got our LED moonlight lamps which have come into stock so you can purchase that on the eyelash collective.com. Also, having a good beauty trolley with all of your things neatly put away is going to be a lifesaver for you. So even if you can just buy a kitchen trolley and you can get that from Ikea, you can get things off Amazon as well. But yeah, having a trolley for all of your items is perfect, because you can just roll it to either side of the bed as you need. A great chair is so important. So for us, we work off little beauty stools, I prefer to sometimes have a back on my chair. I know some people don't like that. But some people like to have like an office chair. So I know we went and bought most of our stools from what's it called Office works. And they were office chairs that we didn't end up putting the back on because the bottom part was super comfy because we're obviously sitting down for long hours of the day. And I found some of the generic beauty.

Sorry, I say Um too much the generic. Oh my god, um, the generic beauty salon stools are somewhat uncomfortable. I don't know why. But like if you got kind of big booty, they're not very comfortable at all. So anyway, are you skinny girls are fine. But yeah, we went for office chairs and just didn't put the back on them when we were completing them.

,So what else practice makes perfect. So you are going to do so many free clients and that is fine. You should do as many free ones as you want because those people are probably going to get addicted and want to come back anyway. So friends, family, word of mouth, make sure that your friends and family are telling everybody else and showing them your good work. So your work has to be good. So make sure you're putting in that time to practice on free models until you're confident enough to start charging. Another thing with the free models, it not only builds your content, as I said and your confidence, but that stuff that you can put on your Instagram. So videos, pictures transformation. So before and after reels are awesome, especially because Instagram is pushing more video content in front of viewers. So having that before and after videos and splicing them together is great. You can also find if you don't have a lot of family and friends around or people to practice on, you can just put some ads up. So local marketplace ads like for Australia it's Gumtree but anywhere that you have local classifieds, Ah, Facebook marketplace is an obvious one. But also going through and finding Facebook groups that are relevant. So for us, we have like Gold coast marketplace. And you can just go in there and just put up an ad for free models. And we always usually get models this way. And what to charge so when you should charge when you feel comfortable, it's up to you, even if it's just enough money to cover your products. So it might be $10 to cover your products. But when you're comfortable to charge, that's when you should charge when you're doing a good job. So making sure that you isolate and you're doing even lashes on both eyes. So the most common complaint that I've heard when being a beginner is that the eyes aren't even so people know you're a beginner, and they're pretty understanding. But when their eyes don't match, and they obviously don't match, then that's going to be an issue. So make sure you get into the habit of spending equal time on both eyes, and mapping out both eyes so that they look the same.

Timing wise, I'm going to do a video on this because everybody's different. I know when I started, it took me about three hours to do a full set. And that's full set classic, full set pre made volume, it could take even longer hours, if you're making your own rush and volume lashes. For us. We just make sure we have good quality pre made fans, and good quality classic lash extensions. So timing wise, yeah, look, it could take you three hours, four hours, five hours, it depends how long you want to sit there and try and do it. Do it as much as you can practice as much as you can. Because you will get that time down. I remember just feeling so defeated all the time, because I was so slow. And my friend was so fast. And I was like I'm never going to get there. She's so quick. She's doing it in an hour. Also, she's a freak, because she's still just so quick. And we do them in 90 minute sets. And she's, she's doing them in an hour. So everybody's different. You're not going to be as fast as other people. But as long as you are making the lashes even and they're isolated, you're not causing any pain, they're not going away with stickies, those people will trust you and come back. So your timing will go down eventually. How do you price yourself when you leave your training, as I said, charge when you feel comfortable, but you are going to probably do a fair few free sets just to make sure that you're confident. And when you are feeling confident, I would probably say start an opening special. So have always think about what your menu is going to look like long term. So you want to make sure that you've got your full prices set out so that when you do an opening offer, you can tell people how much they're saving. So say if you want to do advertise a classic set, and you'd normally look around at your competitors, and just see what they're charging and see what they works like how long they're taking, and then match that up to what you feel comfortable charging for your own prices. So let's say a classic set in Australia is about $99. That's fairly cheap, I would say. So full set $99. But your opening special you want to make around $49. So $49. And I've researched and I've done this in our own cell. And many times $49 seems to be the magic number that people are happy to spend while taking a risk. So if they're not sure about you, they know you're a beginner, they're happy to part with $49, which is pretty much $50 They're happy to part with $50 or below if they're taking a risk, and they may not like the lashes. So if you're amazing, and then you charge $49 And they're amazed that you're charging $49 Then they're going to be happy to pay that full price at some point. Don't forget to also set your infield price. So that could be your opening special could be full sets are in full price. So say it's $99 for a full set normally, and yours is $49 for an infill, then $49 for that opening, special full set. That way people know what they're going to be charged when they come back when they're obsessed with the lashes you've just done. So always have your full sets and your infill set out. You're also going to probably get people wanting to remove lashes that other people or the lash techs have done. So always make sure you have a removal price in there as well and be ready and know how to do a proper removal without causing too much discomfort. You guys would already know but doing a removal a job removal can be quite uncomfortable if people get it in their eyes. So you need to be confident doing a removal. We charge about $45 for removal. But you can charge whatever you like or as an opening offer. You could do free removals with every new set just to get in new clients. How do we price ourselves currently? So as somebody who's been in the business for over six years now we start from 99. Actually no, we start from 109 for a full set, but we also do half sets. So if you don't mind cutting down into half sets, so we do 45 minute classic lashes or 45 minute volume lashes for anyone just wanting to get in and out really fast. Even like if it's a special occasion or maybe they want to do that every week or something. You can definitely do half sets as well. Great. So I think 40 For a half set of classic lashes, I think it's about $49. But definitely price it what you think is fair and what people are charging around you. Because everybody is completely different. I know in America, they charge like hundreds of dollars for a full set of volume. So it's it's going to be different wherever you are. How long to take, as I said, we're going to do a video on this because as I said, I took three hours to do a full set. Now I take 90 minutes. Some people you can get it down to an hour if you know their lashes, and they don't have as many natural lashes like yeah, easily but everybody is totally different. Everyone has different amounts of layers of lashes as well. Their eyes are bigger, so they might have more lashes to lash or their eyes are smaller, so it's so much less, you just never know but we as a standard do 90 minute full sets and one hour infills and those will take longer or take less time depending on the person

where to buy your product. So there's so many places you can buy products online. Obviously ours is the eyelash collective.com and our students get 10% Also, if you want to tag us on your Instagram, you can get a brand ambassadors discount which is 15% There's so many other places on the Gold Coast there's mme lash love her stuff, they've really come a long way with their product. So their volume pre made fans are amazing now, who else lash Vox la do good stuff, I do find them pretty expensive, but if you like them, they're pretty consistent with their products. Who else who else Lashay she's pretty good. And I'll think of some others and I'll put the links in the info below products to stock. So also when you're a beginner you don't want to be telling your clients are make sure you shampoo your lashes because they're going to be clean and they last longer. And then you don't have any last shampoo. Make sure you have everything in stock that they need. So they don't have to go and spend their money somewhere else or not take care of their lashes because they couldn't be bothered going and finding that product to help take care of their take care of their beauty services. So it's their aftercare it's called sorry for eyelash extensions, it's making sure that they have oil free products to use on their face. So our body cosmetics co brand offers oil free moisturizer, oil free morning serum, oil free mascara like there's so many things so definitely jump on there, you can apply to become a stockist and you will receive 40% off your order. And that means you can stock products that you know confidently are suited to lash extension whereas and I'm gonna do a video on this as well but it's a controversial one as far as like making your own lash shampoos. So if you make your own lash shampoo in your home or you know your beauty room is actually quite risky because if you didn't manufacture it, you're not covered by any sort of insurance your manufacturer would be covered by insurance. So if they get an eye infection or they go blind or something happens, you're not going to get sued, the manufacturer is going to get sued. So yet I don't like making lash shampoo anymore that I've learned this I used to many many years ago when I was a beginner but now I don't definitely don't recommend it. So if you can become a stockist of other brands then definitely buy those products I recommend having a mascara oil free mascara in stock at the very minimum. Obviously the lash shampoo and the lash brush, lash Serenbe Lash Serum oil free Lash Serum is a must it's going to keep your client's lashes strong and healthy. Not that you're causing any damage, you shouldn't be causing any damage. But sometimes over time, your clients lashes can get stressed out or they might pick out them or they might be rubbing at them. So having a lash serum is just handy to have because it strengthens their lashes especially our oil free one. And it allows them to keep their extensions on while strengthening their natural eyelashes. So we went through contraindications, aftercare, business setup, home setup, yeah, just practicing as much as you can. Instagram. So when you're doing your models and your first lot of like friends and family and new clients, definitely taking that before and after content is so important and putting it on your Instagram, on your Facebook and if you have a website, so linking it all up. And also if you guys get stuck at any point and you just like stressing out about the business side because as lash techs, we're not naturally supposed to be able to do the business side of things. And also the creative side of being a lash artist because that actually takes two different sides of the brain so one for business and like analytical things and then the creative side which is the lash artist and application side of things. So if you do need business help, definitely look into doing our business coaching our business coaching course that doesn't involve any coaching calls that's actually quite cheap and you can pay that off over a certain period of time. Or you can opt in to have us coach you personally with coaching calls. So definitely have a look. I'll throw in the link for that as well. But if you have any questions that you thinking like where to go to next, after you've done your course, some trainers will literally just teach you the bare minimum and kick you out. Take your money. So I mean, I hope that hasn't happened to you. We definitely don't do that. But if you don't get any post support from your trainer, then yeah, definitely feel free to listen to our podcasts, go to our YouTube, watch our videos, but also like DM us. comment, send us an email like if you're struggling at all, join our Facebook group as well. We've got a Facebook group linked to our I envy co Facebook page. And we love to help There's me Angel and Tosh and we're all trainers and we just love to help so any questions that you have definitely let us know. Again, subscribe if you can, it'll just send you notifications of when we've sent out new episodes. And also I will check those links in the bottom for you and hopefully they help you out a little bit. But yeah, otherwise you guys have an amazing week and we'll see you in the next episode. Bye