Rooted At West Oak.
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Rooted At West Oak.
Cosmetology School: What to expect and tips on how to survive it with Daniel and Emily.
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In this episode of Rooted At West Oak Daniel and Emily Discuss Cosmetology school. Our personal experiences, our advice and everything in-between!
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You are listening to Rooted at West Oak, a podcast for stylists, salon owners, and beauty lovers, from hair color and extensions to business, growth, and real salon life. This is where it all starts. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Rooted at West Oak podcast. With me, Daniel, I am your host, and I also have Emily. And we are going to be discussing all things cosmetology school today. So let's get into it. So this was actually a topic that you wanted to talk about, Emily, because you said that we have very different experiences with cosmetology school. Absolutely. I know we both are chronically ill online. Like we are literally like chronically ill being online. We're online so much. Um and we see all of these posts about cosmetology school, the pros, the cons, the good, the bad, the ugly, all the in-between. And I guess I want to start this episode off by basically having you tell me about your experience at cosmetology school. I'll tell you mine and then we'll go from there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that sounds great. So I went to cosmetology school after high school, which I think is sometimes different. I mean, I mean sometimes people go to like um, what is it, like a career center or career school while they're still in high school, like junior senior year, um, which is what Dan did. We'll get into that. But I went after high school. I went to back in the day, it was called the Ohio Academy, Paul Mitchell Partner School. Now it is, I believe, just Paul Mitchell Columbus. But I went there about gosh, yeah, 13 years ago almost, I guess. Oh my gosh, yeah, 13 years ago. Um, so I went after high school, you know, 18 years old, freshly graduated. I feel like my experience there, I learned so much. I mean, I had books on books on books, I had class every day, but I also was working on the floor every single day. I had clients almost every single day. And if I wasn't taking clients, I was working on a doll head. And we had so many like tasks that we had to complete every single day. I learned how to sell product. I learned how to do so many things that it's almost honestly now looking back on it, it is kind of overwhelming me to kind of sit here and tell you like all the things because hair school went by so fast, but it also in the time, you know. Oh, when you're in it, you know, it feels like a long time.
SPEAKER_00Well, girl, it took me two years to get through mine because I did it in high school.
SPEAKER_02So Yeah, and I think that my motivation level, because I wanted to do hair so bad, and I just I just remember because it's obviously based on hours. Right. So, and I was also 18 years old, and I did if I didn't want to get up and go that day, I didn't have to. Right. But I I went and I busted it out, and I got done with cause school in less than a year.
SPEAKER_05Period.
SPEAKER_02And I worked on top of that. I was working as a receptionist in school. So, not at the school, but at a salon. So I would go to school from nine to five, and then I had a five to nine working as a receptionist, learning to essentially book clients, run behind the desk, do laundry, do towels for the salon, right? Um, do all the ins and outs of like how to basically run a salon and keep a salon clean while I was in school. Right. So I mean those that year was that year was a doozy, but it was it was a lot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Before I get into myself, would you I I think it's really interesting that you bring up that you were also working in a salon as a receptionist uh while you were in school. Is that something that you would recommend? Because I never did that.
SPEAKER_02I recommend it to everybody. I think that that is how I learned really how to communicate with clients because being a receptionist is not for the faint of heart.
SPEAKER_00It is not.
SPEAKER_02I think that that's where I started. It took me a long time to build a backbone in this career. A long time. But I think that helped me.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Because when you are a receptionist, you are dealing with every single unhappy and happy client. You are filtering through the phone calls because especially where I was at, like this back then too, like you didn't have your stylist number, you had the salon's number, and that was it. You did not, I was one of the only stylists in that salon to really have like social media as well. Like, I had a hair page, um, I had a hair Instagram solely for that. My clients would reach out to me on there. That's how I built really fast, I think, with my whole experience with building a clientele. But also, like, that was how I got my face in front of clients because I went to school, I mean, it was up on Morse Road in Columbus. So, like, I grew up almost an hour away from there. So I was like, okay, how can I do this where I am I am getting to build clientele around where I'm from and where I'm wanting to work. So I didn't really think I wanted to work in a downtown Columbus salon, you know. I'm sure Daniel has known me for a long time. I'm not exactly a big city girl.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think that, you know, especially here in Ohio. Yes. Um, you know, we are about 15-ish. The salon that we work in is about 15 minutes-ish from central Columbus, right? And Columbus is our capital. Yes. We are that is a center of the state.
SPEAKER_02And I think fastly growing city. Yes.
SPEAKER_00And I think that here at least, a lot of times I think people think that in order to find success, you have to be in the city.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And you absolutely will find success in the city, but you do not necessarily have to be in the city. So a lot of times, just putting it out there, I think that a lot of times for I guess anybody who doesn't know about Columbus, you know, if you're not in a major city here, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're not going to find success.
SPEAKER_02No, not at all. Because you're you've got so many surrounding little suburbs and like small towns that I did. I wanted to come back and work in a small town and I wanted to be closer to where I grew up. I knew I could probably build quickly, and honestly, it helped me a lot because I have a brother who is two years younger than me. He was still in high school, and those girls were coming to me.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02I was then people started recognizing me from when I went to work on in that salon as a stylist. They're like, oh yeah, Emily worked at the front desk. I know her. Right. I'll go to her.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Well, why wouldn't they? You're right there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm right there. They knew my face. They had they've dealt with me before. They knew. And I think that even from like getting in front of clients, it also taught me a lot about how to book clients.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02It completely, because that's something that you're not really, you don't really get trained on that.
SPEAKER_00I feel like it's one of those things where people assume it's easy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's it is not easy.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02I had to learn specifically which girl and which stylist. And honestly, I was booking clients for like nail techs, for massage therapists, for like aestheticians, and I'm over here like learning how for each different service, like, oh, this manicure needs 30 minutes, this one needs 60, but this girl knows that she likes 15 extra minutes for this client. You really learn absolutely and you learn customer service from a different standpoint because like you're the first face that people see when they walk in the door of a salon. So it taught me how to dress the part for the part I want. And I wanted to be a successful stylist. I wanted to be like the girl at the front desk. So you kind of learn how to do that. But you also are, I was learning a lot about product. Right. I was learning about product pricing. I was learning about how to sell products.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02I was learning how to rebook clients. Like, okay, when can we see you again? When can I get you back in my chair?
SPEAKER_00And may I just say with the rebooking, I feel like that is almost like a I don't know. It seems what I from what I see online, it seems to be almost like and this is a bad saying, but like a lost art.
SPEAKER_02I was just gonna say it's a dying greed.
SPEAKER_00I don't know what what I I don't know why or what I see, and this is no judgment, but I don't understand the not rebooking people when you know that they enjoyed their experience and also if they enjoyed their experience, but you also enjoyed it. I don't know where the ambition to want to eagerly get that person back in for their maintenance, where that went. Because if there's something that I could say as somebody who very much almost needs people to book with me when they leave, you can almost guarantee that your appointment is going to be on their mind. Oh yeah. Not your appointment, but their appointment with you is going to be on their mind, even if they have to reschedule when it's booked. Yes, it can be a little frustrating if it's a last minute reschedule, but I think one of the most important ways for you to be able to consistently keep a solid enough income is to rebook people. Oh and also too, if I might, if I may, it's uh the if you uh uh go out of your way to ask the client to rebook, they know you want to see them again.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_00And I don't think people really realize that that, and by people I mean hairdressers. I don't know if they always realize that it can come across almost maybe unprofessional or maybe even s like snarky if you do not rebook them. Yeah. Because it's almost like, well, why wouldn't you want to see me again? You know what I'm saying? I just wanted to interject that, but I don't want to get too far away from the case.
SPEAKER_02No, because I would say most of your clientele rebooks, most of mine rebooks, and if they're not rebooking day of, it's because they're like, I need to go check my schedule, I'm gonna book online and I'm gonna do it a year out.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like I have clients who book a year out, and it's like, but those are my girls, those are my moneymakers, those are my girls that are in every four or five weeks, and they know that that's how they're saving that spot.
SPEAKER_05Yep, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Well, that could be a whole fun episode because I agree with you that that is kind of it's I don't know what the right term is, but I definitely do feel like I see a lot of people kind of downplaying that online and kind of discouraging it. Yes, and and let me be clear, and I said we're not gonna get too far off topic, but like I definitely understand that there is an approach that some people feel of it feels pressure. Yeah. There's pressure to the client where it's like, well, if you don't book right now, then you're not going to be able to. And that's not the case.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00What the case is is we want to make sure that we rebook people so that they know that we want to see them again. But also too, you want to rebook the people that you enjoy.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, absolutely. That's how you build a clientele you love.
SPEAKER_00You want to keep uh you fresh on their mind. And if they know that they have something booked, then they'll know what they're looking forward to.
SPEAKER_021000%.
SPEAKER_00But also, too, I always challenge people to think about the client's perspective in that in the sense of if you really enjoyed the appointment, if they really enjoyed the appointment, they want to know that you want to see them again.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00I know for me, if I were getting a service done, I would want the service provider to want to rebook me because I would want to know that I feel desired to be kept and to be seen in the chair again.
SPEAKER_02Um we'll get back to that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no. I um, but no, I really like what you had said about working in a salon while you were still in school because I do feel like there's a lot of value in that.
SPEAKER_02I I recommend it to everybody. I think it helped build some thick skin, and I think it taught me a lot of behind the scenes as far as that being in school just doesn't teach you.
SPEAKER_00No, I agree because I did not have that experience. I was um, you know, how we had said, I went to the career center here.
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_00Um, one of the career centers here in Ohio, and did it in high school, my junior, my senior year of high school. And they taught me the bare minimum. Loved my teacher. She was probably one of the sweetest people I've ever met. She always believed in me. She always, you know, I think she could have, she saw that I was taking it serious. And I was in school with a whole bunch of 16-year-old people who were not taking it serious.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, so shout out to my teacher. Um, but I think she did the best that she could with what the tools that she was given for free education. Um, but you know, my experience was very different. You know, my experience was not working on the floor every day. My experience was not working in a salon after working uh or going to school. Um my experience was very much, you know, you are in your regular school, you know, math, science, English, and then for the first half, and then the second half is your beauty school, and you're learning, you know, one of the things that um I think that they always expressed, at least at the time, which schooling is very different now, you know, public school is very different now than it was when I was in high school. But one of the things that I think that they always let us know was it was more of a safety concern for the school. They didn't want a whole bunch of people coming in and out of the school all the time. Um, which I don't know if there's different regulations with high school in comparison to like a a standalone cosmetology school.
SPEAKER_02I would imagine probably, especially when age comes into it.
SPEAKER_00Um because we all were minors. You were minor pretty much. So I I definitely did not have the opportunity to be able to service a lot of people in school, which might sound crazy to some, but you know, the things that I hear about other states and their cosmetology programs, it sounds crazy to me. So it's really wild how different the industry is compared to state by state and school by school.
SPEAKER_02But it's so funny to me that like to hear you say, like, yeah, I would have like math, science, English, and then would go learn about hair, which like for me, it was like, okay, it's perm week. We're having class on perms in the morning. And now let's go do a client. And it wasn't like you were specifically doing one thing. Like we were very heavily like walked through like every single thing that we did. It was very like clients signed waivers, obviously. And I had to have a client or a teacher come. We called them learning leaders. If you went to Paul Mitchell, you know, but we would have a learning leader come right off and sign off on every single step. When I say every single step, it'd be like, okay, show me what you want to do for this haircut. They might even start it for you.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_02But I will say also, like, we had a lot of walking through, but I will say I think it also helped me learn to formulate.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because I was actually talking to one of the girls who is our receptionist now, and she's in cost school, and we had to work dispense when I was in school. So, like, there would be days where you were assigned to work dispense. And I would go out, say I was on the floor and you were working dispense. I would go formulate for my client with my learning leader, with my teacher. She'd sign off on it. She or he, whoever my teacher was that day, client signs the waiver, teacher signs off on my ticket. I take my ticket back to dispense and I hand it to you. And you have to mix my color. Okay. So you are working on laundry and doing towels and doing all of this stuff, like mixing up someone else's color. Yep. And you are learning, and then you're, I'm sitting there waiting for you. It's almost like going to a bar. I'm like, hey, I'll take a I'll take this, I'll take a beer, and you have to go get it for me. It's already been approved by my teacher and I've walked through it, but then you are learning to also mix up, which I think, and you're mixing up for someone else, which is even more pressure because it's like the the seriousness, I guess, like the double seriousness into it because you gotta get this right.
SPEAKER_00Because if you don't, then you're messing somebody else up, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. And you had to do that with I mean, really everything. We we I don't really know that there's a part of hair other than booking clients, obviously, because we had a front desk person who, if I had somebody reach out to me and say, Hey, I want you to cut my hair, I would love to come to the come to the school and have you do it. I'm like, okay, cool, you have to call the front desk and book an appointment.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02So other than booking, but I was getting that as a receptionist outside of school hours. So it it's kind of funny now to look back and think like, I don't think that there was a part of my cosmetology school experience that I I felt that I was very prepared for salon reality. Obviously, you've got your things that are like, don't hold your shears a certain way, don't hold your blow dryer like that, you can't round brush like that, blah, blah, blah. Those kinds of things are always gonna come about. And I, of course, got away from those as soon as I was done with COS school. But I mean, I even learned how to sell product because we had competitions to fly us to Vegas for a hair show for school, and like a whole a whole scenario where I was like learning everything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think what um is sounding so great about being able to work in a salon while you're in school is is the areas that the salon reality of it all that you maybe haven't experienced yet in school, you're also getting. So you're seeing both sides of the industry already. Um, and I'm sure that's probably how Eva feels. You know, she's in school right now and she's also a receptionist.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_00And she's seeing the interactions between clients, she's seeing how to communicate with clients, how to rebook them, how to use checkout system, how to stock product, how to um have you know really whatever uh experience. She's learning the experiences of the salon while she's in school so that when she goes back to school, she can see this is how we do it, and then this is how it plays out.
SPEAKER_02And I think that also in Cause School, like I think obviously Eva's a great example because I always tell Eva she she's the me. That's where I started. I was working in a commission salon as a receptionist while I was in school. She is literally doing exactly what I was doing. And with her, I think what she's getting out of this that I also felt I got out of it is while I was in school, I was obviously friends with some of the stylists that I was working with in the salon. So it was far less when you're in school, it can just be so overwhelming.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02And like I feel like with Paul Mitchell, especially, like we had like a Paul Mitchell way of doing things. And I think that there's a lot of schools, a lot of different brands, and you like there's nothing wrong with that. Like, that's how you're teaching. There's a whole rhyme and reason to it, there's a method to the madness, there's a reason that you are doing what you're doing. But I remember we had um, this is just for example, we had this thing called blow-dry boot camp. So as soon as you start school at Paul Mitchell, we immediately you do core and you have blow dry boot camp while you're in core, and you learn your pre-dries and your finishes. And have you even ever heard the term pre-dry and finish?
SPEAKER_00I have through the sphere of the industry, yes, but was never I it was never a part of my daily experience.
SPEAKER_02So a pre-dry is essentially how you dry the roots, right? And a finish is how you are finishing off the ends. And I remember I would come into the salon because I was working with Jessica, for example. She was in school or she had gone to school where I did. So I've I've always very much looked up to her. Jessica is um a commission, or not commission, I'm sorry. She's been a booth rental stylist with us for a while.
SPEAKER_00Um but salon as a salon's an open.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like, but she I also grew up with her. So I had kind of followed in her footsteps to hair school because I was like, wow, I see what she's doing and I love it. And then after she graduated and went to the salon, I was like, oh, that ended up being the salon that I was working receptionist at. So I was super close to her. And she was kind of, she's always been kind of one of my mentors personally, because I'm like, you went to school where I did, you started working where I did, like all of these things. We've always worked together. So it was kind of cool to be able to go to her after school. After I was like, man, these blow dries and finishes, like this is just like, there's no way people still do this. And not that there's anything wrong with it. Obviously, you have to have a standard that you're setting for the school itself and for teaching in general. Like, this is how they are going to make sure that we all know they can say without doubt, without a doubt, when we're all at these 1500 hours, they know how to do this.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02And I would be like, Jess, do we really have to do pre-dries? And she's like, Emily, no. That's very much a school thing, but just do it through school. And like, that's okay, because there's gonna be other ways to do things. There are certain haircuts that I still do, that I still do it the Paul Mitchell way because for me that's what's easiest and that's what I enjoyed, and I learned it that way. But it was also so reassuring to know, like, if I'm bad at something this way, there is going to be another way to do it. And it doesn't have to only be the Paul Mitchell way, or it doesn't only have to be, I don't know, what's another hair school, the Eveda way or the other whatever way that they are teaching you. It doesn't have to be only that. And that was so reassuring for me, not even from like a business standpoint, because I talked a lot about like working as a receptionist from a business standpoint, but just from like a learning and a confidence standpoint where I'm like, okay, that's not so scary now. I don't have to do it that way forever, you know?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, yeah. You know, as we're talking about this, something in my mind is clicking a little bit, and it seems that your schooling seemed to be very structured and very specific. Oh my god. And I say this with love, but you are very, you know, you're a little bit more relaxed with it, and you're a little bit more go-with the flow with it.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_00And I find that interesting because I feel that my experience in beauty school was extremely go with the flow, very unorganized. And I think as a hairdresser, I approach it extremely organized.
SPEAKER_02That is so funny. I've never noticed that without us.
SPEAKER_00I've always liked that, and I've not really ever made that connection. Yeah. But I think just hearing your story about that, I think, is making me realize it's interesting because it's almost as if. I rebelled. Flip the. Well, no, we rebelled, but like it was like we rebelled in an opposite way. Absolutely. You know, the way that I was taught, and like I said earlier, loved my teacher, but it was just, you know, she was a teacher from the 80s, and you know, this was the mid-2010s, and it was just she taught what she knew and she taught what was best, and there wasn't a specific curriculum that we were following. So what I learned was is the extreme basic of one-length haircut, medium layer. We're done cutting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then anything else beyond that, we had to move on, you know? Oh. Or it was like you had mentioned, you know, with your checkoff sheets. We had checkoff sheets, but what it was was it was like this week we're learning how to do a spiral perm. So the checkoff sheet is you do three of them this week. Let me know when you start. I'll check off that you did it. Oh, see, we had like it wasn't like this, it wasn't this.
SPEAKER_02We had a checklist for the month and we had to get boxes signed off, and that's how we earned getting our hair done.
SPEAKER_00Got you.
SPEAKER_02So, like, you could earn a service. So you had a box for the month, and I want to say it was like 30 to 40 things that you had to do for the month. And when I say things that you had to do, you had to practice a perm on your doll head. A teacher had to come sign it off. You had to perform a manicure on a on a friend, you had to fully clean a station, you had to mix someone's formula, you had to mix your own formula, you had to do X amount of shampoos, you had to, there were some things that were like, you have to go fold towels, sign it off. And there were so many things that you had to do, and then at the end you could turn it in and be like, here, I want my hair done now.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it was so funny because we had to like work for that. Yeah. But what you were even saying about teachers just sparked something in me. Was like, you obviously loved your teacher. Yeah. And I know, I'm obviously not going to name names here. I know some girls who are going through school, or we've had so many assistants come through here that have gone to school and they're like, I can't stand this teacher. She doesn't know what she's doing, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. I felt like even I actually still talk to some of my cost school teachers. Like, I still I was messaging one last week. We were spitballing formulas.
SPEAKER_05There you go.
SPEAKER_02And I still, I've always respected her. I always felt like she was somebody I could go to, and I feel like I really developed a relationship with her. I trusted her. But you know what's funny is even the ones I disliked, I knew they knew their stuff. Yeah. And I was like, oh, I might not like this one. She's one of the best in the business.
SPEAKER_00That's how a lot of people feel about me.
SPEAKER_02Period. Maybe if I think you're a very so I think you might disagree with this, but I think you're a very sociable person.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I have everything to say all the time. Why do you think I just wanted to start a podcast? No!
SPEAKER_02I was like, you guys, this is my dream. I'm just gonna sit here and talk for hours.
SPEAKER_00Literally, here we are for hours. Here we are. No, I want to let you finish that thought actually, because I don't think you got to it yet. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_02No, you're fine. You're fine. I just I feel like you're very sociable, but even my client or not my clients, I'm sorry, my teachers who I was like, ooh, not really good with people. I'm like, oh, but I have to trust her. She knows what she's doing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Like she knows what she's doing, and maybe I don't get along with her or him, or maybe they don't get along with her or him. And everybody had one. Everybody had a teacher that they didn't really love.
SPEAKER_00Well, you're not gonna like everybody.
SPEAKER_02No, but I will say I knew my stuff. I most we were all pass, obviously pass and stateboard, that's a big thing, but like, which was another thing, we had a class specifically that you like finally took once you were in a certain level at school. Um, because a lot of cost schools say, like, oh, they teach you to pass stateboard. I'm like, no, we didn't even have stateboard class until you built your kit, and then you had like specific weekly classes once you hit a certain time frame. Right. But I feel like just in general with you, like you're very like sociable. I feel like you have a good connection with these girls that work here that you're teaching. And I think that sometimes you just don't, especially when there's so many teachers and so many different students and stuff at a school that size, I just felt like I never felt like I wasn't learning something. Right.
SPEAKER_00Well no, that's great. I think a lot of people would really appreciate hearing that because I think people don't really know what to expect when they're looking at these bigger name brand schools and they don't always know what the right choice is. Um, you know, for me personally, I you know decided to do it in high school and I would absolutely even though my education was not that great, you're always gonna have to work on your education. So I would always recommend going to beauty school vocational way because I got the education for free.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I did not get the education for free.
SPEAKER_00But also, too, I got the education, graduated high school, and if I didn't want to do hair, I could have gone right into college, I could have gone right into whatever a different trade, I could have gone into whatever direction, alternative direction that I could have gone in, and I wasn't out any time. So I think that's one of the biggest perks of doing it in high school. But it sounds like one of the biggest perks of doing it after high school and doing maybe more of a private school is you really learn a there's a culture. That's the word I think I'm looking for. You learn the culture of of beauty of the beauty industry through maybe more of a private school or more of a name-brand school because their sole purpose is to get you prepared for the industry versus what I went through was their sole purpose was you need to graduate high school, and then you also need to make sure you get your certificate of and I think that maybe that's where even like the money aspect comes in.
SPEAKER_02Like you're going to a and I guess I've never really thought about this. Like, I'm paying a tuition to go to this school. So obviously I am going to probably have more opportunity.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02Like I am over here paying the X amount of money. I forget how much it really was. And honestly, nowadays, I feel like Cause school usually runs between like 20 to 30. Am I usually roughly? I think about right. But like at least here. Yeah, that's here. That's mid-Ohio. Like, yeah, I feel like that's pretty fair. But like, I think in general it's just that I never thought of it that way. Of like, okay, I maybe had more access to more because I was prov I was paying out of pocket more. And I just gave it the state funded. Like I, yes, the state funded, but then it's also like they, Paul Mitchell, these big name brand schools, they have the kind of like the potential for backlash of like, I'm paying you 30 grand.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Why are you not doing this X, Y, and Z for me?
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_02But I also going back to what you said about like you got done with it young. You were 18 years old when you were fully. I was just starting at that point. But I will say, like, the pros and cons to both, like, you went and you're like, I could have gone to college or something. And people do that. People go to cause school in high school, and then they work as a stylist or barber through college. And that's how they pay for college. Yeah. For me, I think I was such a little lost girl at the point when we were having that conversation of would you, because here in Ohio, at least, like they come to you at the end of like your sophomore year and they're like, hey, what are you doing for the rest of your life? What are you doing for the rest of your life? And you're like, bro, I'm 15. I don't know. And I mean, honestly, it's even a crazy question to ask an 18-year-old, but it's a crazy question, I think, to ask anybody. Anyone, literally, like I'm 30 and I'm like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Hopefully this, but who knows? And I think that's one of the things that like it was so intimidating to me at the time because it had always been an interest. Hair had always been an interest. I was doing friends' hair and makeup for prom for homecoming. I was braiding people's bangs for cheer competitions. Like that was my life. And I loved it. I always loved it.
SPEAKER_05That was me too.
SPEAKER_02I was cutting Barbie dolls' hair and getting in trouble because I would ruin my Barbies because I would paint their faces and their hair with nail polish. Oh, yeah, I ruined so many toys because I was playing I was playing I was playing cosmetologist.
SPEAKER_00What is some advice that you might have for anyone d thinking about going to beauty school, or any advice that you might have for somebody who's currently in beauty school who maybe is not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel?
SPEAKER_02So I'll start with the latter because I feel like that's obviously right fresh in my mind. And I remember saying this all the time to people that I was in school with, and I even said it to myself in school. I was only in school for a year, and it felt like I had senioritis again. Yeah. So I had just finished my senior year of high school. I even I had the opportunity to go in July and start a month earlier than I did, and I was like, no, I want one more summer. I'm never gonna have a summer again because I wasn't going to college. So I started in August, and it felt like one more year, one more year, one more year. And that's what you're telling yourself your whole senior year of high school. So I felt like I had the worst case of senioritis two years in a row. And I'm like, I just gotta put my head down and get through this year.
SPEAKER_00What gave you the fire to make it through?
SPEAKER_02Just getting done.
SPEAKER_00Just getting done. It was just these. You could actually physically solve the work. And you're like, get me there as soon as possible, get me out. So buckle in, buckle down, lock in. Lock in.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And I had to. And I was kind of just like, I think that my parents did a really good job of raising me to like have a drive.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And like wanting to make money. I would agree with myself as well. Yes. I think our parents both instilled that in us. And I think it shows in the way that you and I both work and the way you and I both carry ourselves in our field. And I think that they instilled that in me. And it was like, well, you better finish. You better finish school. We're paying for school. We better go. Better get it done. Get it done. As far as the first question of what would I say to somebody who is interested, I would say, if you're interested, tourist school, take a look at it. But just know that if this is already your backup plan or you think that this is your easy way out, it is absolutely not that.
SPEAKER_00No.
SPEAKER_02Cosmetology school has, I don't want to say an exact number, but we were talking about it like last week.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02It is not a 100% graduation rate.
SPEAKER_00No, it is not. I think I had like a 50%.
SPEAKER_02I you watch a lot of people start COS school that do not finish. A lot. I watched them, I watched a lot of girls that I started core with that by time I was in so in at Paul Mitchell when I was there. I don't know if it's the same way. I actually know it's not the same way because I know somebody who had gone there who told me they don't have the program anymore. And you had like six weeks of core, then two weeks of protege, and then you went to adaptive and then you went to creative based on hours. And you would like graduate from one class to the next. And from the time that I was in core to even adaptive, or from the time I was in core to even protege, yeah, there were people dropping out by that six-week point.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I know people who went through the full thing and they don't do hair anymore. And that's fine.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02That's absolutely fine. We either one of us could decide not to do hair tomorrow. You know, and we have that. We have that option as humans, whatever. But like I think that my biggest thing is that so many people go into it thinking it's oh, this is gonna be easy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02This is it.
SPEAKER_00It's not. So I guess more so just uh putting the warning out there that if this is something that you think is going to be a cakewalk, it absolutely is not.
SPEAKER_02Nope.
SPEAKER_00And I would agree.
SPEAKER_02I so sorry.
SPEAKER_00No, no. I think that it's just one of those things where and it's not just because I work in the industry and I have happened to find success in the industry, but it's any job's gonna require hard work.
SPEAKER_021000%.
SPEAKER_00This job is going to require hard work in the sense of it's going to require your mental capacity. Mental capacity 100% physical. Yes.
SPEAKER_02You are on your feet a lot. And people say that your feet and your back are gonna hurt, your shoulders are gonna hurt because you're my shoulders and my knees. Girl, I got scoliosis I didn't even know about. Oh no, not scoli. Not scoliosis. But truly, like you end up having all of these, I don't even want to say issues, like you're gonna have a lot of things pop up that if it's not something you love, it's gonna make it that much harder. And we talked about that a little bit in the last episode. Like, you have to love it for those obstacles to feel worth it. If you already are like, whatever, it's gonna be easy. By the time those hard things come up, you're gonna be like, oh, I'm not doing this. No, thank you. But if you go into it already with like a drive and loving it, and at least not even loving it, but just like a like, an interest. Yeah, I might be good at this. Then when the hard things do come up for you and those obstacles, like you are more motivated in that moment to get through it or see the light at the end of the tunnel of like, okay, but I still love this. Yeah. Because even I have those days, 13 years into this, like, where you're like, oh my gosh, like this week, I am slow, slow. But I'm like, you know what? I've been doing this for over a decade. I know that we have slow weeks. Yeah. And you know when I wished I had a slow week last week when I was here for 10 hours on my feet.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. No, I get it, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And it just like you have to go into it knowing that this is a field where, you know, sometimes your mental capacity is shot. Your social battery, done. Half the time I leave here in my car drive home during the holidays, no radio, dead silence. I don't want to hear another voice, not even my own. I'm tired of listening to my own my own voice.
SPEAKER_05Yep.
SPEAKER_02I am in pain. I'm driving home with the heater on, so my back, my seat heater's on, so my back pain goes away. And you've just got that brain fog, that brain fry. But you also have to keep in mind that our career depends on other people's money. Your income is never guaranteed.
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_02It doesn't matter the cancellation policies you've got in place, it doesn't matter any of that.
SPEAKER_00Like, well, and I would say that's easy to do.
SPEAKER_02Unless you're hourly, but that usually you grow out of that too.
SPEAKER_00Like, I would say that's something that I think a lot of people don't think about is your money is not going to be consistent unless you constantly put the work in every day. You have to every single day show up and do the work to the same standard you've always done it. You have to make sure you're showing up online, you have to make sure that you're advertising yourself, you have to make sure that you are aware of all of the products that you're using and that you know how to purposefully use them to create results for your clients. You need to be able to physically show up so your body's got to be right. You've got to be able to mentally show up, so your mind's got to be right. On top of that, you have to make sure that you're aware of how to actually form a successful communication with clients. So and the list goes on. Yeah. So I think one of the things that I would say for me, if people were going into looking or people were thinking about going to beauty school, looking at the beauty industry, be prepared to make sure that you are pushing yourself to be the best you can be. If you're lucky enough to find a salon owner or a mentor to push you, that's great. But at the end of the day, it's you that's gonna have to push yourself to know what to do, how to do it, and how to stay busy. But what I want to say is to anybody out there who is debating beauty school, it is absolutely a fantastic career to go into. You can find so much success, so much happiness, and also you can create so much success and so much happiness for people if you choose to go into this field. Uh is there any final thoughts that you have, Emily?
SPEAKER_02I just wanted to add on to that. I know we said a lot as far as maybe why you shouldn't go. Well, no, I think it's more so just the transparency of what's going on. Very transparent, but also Dan and I both have had very successful careers behind the chair. We have both done a lot behind the chair. We've both done a lot as far as like building client relationships. I have provided for myself my entire adult life. You have as well. Like we have done so well for ourselves and have built really incredible lives and careers for ourselves. And I think that a lot of it comes from loving the field that we're in.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I wouldn't be here if I didn't know. There's no way.
SPEAKER_02I wanted to just add on to that and say, like, if you're even thinking about it, like I said, go tour the school. Go look at a couple, go look at a few of your options and see which one's a right fit, because there's a right and wrong fit. And I didn't really realize that until I'd say the last two years. Um, I'm very thankful for my cause school experience. I know some people who would have liked to change theirs. Um, but I feel like if that interest is even a little bit of a spark in you, just go toward the school because there really is so much good that absolutely can come out of it. So much success, so much just love and so many relationships. Truly.
SPEAKER_00You heard it here. Thank you guys so much for listening and for tuning in with us at Rooted at West Oak. We are so happy to have you and we will see you guys on the next one.