Hairstylist Salary: How Lucrative is a Career in Hair?

Hairstylist Salary: How Lucrative is a Career in Hair?

Today’s Q&A covers the hairstylist salary. Although she loves doing hair, a reader wrote in, wanting to know if she could make as much as she does in her current career. The answer might surprise you.

Happy Hump Day Hotties! Welcome to another edition of Ask the Pro Stylist, where I answer readers’ and/or guests’ beauty, hair and nails questions. This Wednesday’s focus is on the hairstylist salary. Safia left a high-paying job to do hair and wants to prove the naysayers wrong.

I am a student in my late twenties and am changing careers from a high-paying ‘traditional’ career to hair, because I love it! I’m just wondering, is it possible to make a high level salary in hairstyling? I mean around the $80-120,000 range? I just want to prove that I can do this AND get paid the same that I would have if I stuck with my original career…This seems to be the negative point that people are using on me, and I’m getting scared that I’ll only be making ends meet.

A U.S. News MONEY report lists the average hairstylist salary in 2013 at approximately the mid-twenty thousand-dollar range, higher in Seattle and San Francisco and approximately $73,000 for the entertainment industry. Other reports indicated the numbers jumped slightly for 2015 and also considered education, training and experience as factors when equating the hairstylist salary.

For the most part hairstylists are not paid by the hour. Some receive a flat day rate and factor in tips, and others rent chairs. Low salaries have led to hairstylists renting, opening their own salons or working from home.

What the reports don’t account for is the major expansion of the beauty industry, which is opening a vast array of positions in education, and as brand ambassadors. Additionally, perks are not factored in to the hairstylist salary. Hairstylists rarely pay for their own services when in a salon or will barter with a friend. Beauty products and hair care are discounted for professionals, if not free when offered samples to test new lines.

There is a certain gratification from making someone look beautiful and feel confident that is inexplicable. Yes, to be honest, if you get stuck in a small salon in small-town USA, then no, you will never make a substantial salary. But now the opportunities for hairstylists are endless, and therefore so are the salaries.

To make an $80K salary a year you need to continually educate yourself, as a matter of fact, education is key no matter what. You could work high-end salons, own a salon, become an educator for top-named brands, become a platform artist, and utilize Instagram and Pinterest to showcase your work. Become so in demand that people will pay YOU to come to them, including your travel expenses. Create a portfolio and resume, attach yourself to a brand and enjoy benefits, and post Vlogs and Blogs with guides of your latest looks. Again, the opportunities in the hair field are as vast as your imagination.

The bottom line is never let anyone deflate your dream. If you have a question for me similar to Safia’s hairstylist salary query, please email me at DeirdreAHaggerty@gmail.com. Do I make a lot of money? Sadly, no, but I do so love what I do! Happy Styling!

©Deirdre Haggerty, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this article may be reproduced without prior written permission and consent from the author.