In case you missed it, back in June of 2023, Christine Geiger, a salon owner in Traverse City, Michigan, decided to drop the following “hot take” via her salon’s Facebook page:

“If a human identifies as anything other than a man/woman please seek services at a local pet groomer. You are not welcome at this salon. Period. Should you request to have a particular pronoun used please note we may simply refer to you as ‘hey you.’”

One can assume she must have thought she was being very clever and very funny, but shortly after, three people filed certified complaints. Christine doubled-down, saying she “has no problems with the LGB. It’s the TQ+ that I’m not going to support,” she posted. “For those that don’t know what the + is for, it’s for MAP (Minor Attracted Person aka: pedophile).” 

The plus sign in the LGBTQ+ acronym is actually a placeholder for queer identities who don’t neatly fit into the acronym, but none of them are in any way holding space for child abusers. 

Christine defended her stance, saying small business owners should be able to serve whomever they wish. Given the timing, she was likely emboldened by the Supreme Court’s ruling involving 303 Creative, a web designer who refused to make wedding websites for same-sex couples, saying it would violate her sincerely held religious beliefs because, by doing so, she would be forced to express a message celebrating and promoting a conception of marriage that she believes is contrary to God’s design. 

The court held that a person’s First Amendment rights would be violated in situations where they are forced to express a message contrary to their religious beliefs. The court did not say that business owners may ignore state or federal anti-discrimination laws. The constitutional carveout applies only to expressive conduct: behavior designed to convey a message. (It’s also important to note that the case was based on a theoretical scenario; there were no actual aggrieved customers involved.)

As the news about Christine’s Facebook post spread—first in Traverse City community groups and then nationally—protesters stood outside the salon chanting and holding signs. The salon’s Google and Yelp pages were flooded with negative reviews. Christine’s distributor, Jack Winn Pro, revoked her authorization to represent their brand or sell their products. 

“Jack Winn Pro strongly believes in and supports LGBTQ+ rights. We are committed to creating an inclusive, respectful environment for all – regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or any other characteristics that define who they are,” the company posted. 

Apparently this free speech Christine did not like very much. She attempted to sue Traverse City and the three people who filed complaints (whom she accused of being “state actors”). 

After a brief attempt at turning her salon’s Facebook page into a “political memes page,” Christine made her business’ social media accounts private. Phone calls to the salon went straight to a voicemail box that was not accepting new messages. 

A business that chooses to sell to the public assumes a duty to serve the public without unjust discrimination.

Justice Sonya Sotomayor

Christine’s case against Traverse City and the alleged “state actors” was dismissed last week.

Today, we’re going to talk about freedom of speech, gender diversity, and how to navigate social shifts that might be a bit hard to adjust to if the only information you’re receiving is from biased partisan sources. Ultimately, this post aims to correct any misinformation you may have been exposed to. 

This article provides a basic overview explaining how gender differs from sex, why you should care, and how you can ensure your salon is an inclusive place of public accommodation.

What Freedom of Speech Is (and Isn’t)

The first and most important thing to know is that freedom of speech doesn’t guarantee you immunity from consequences. The First Amendment is why you can complain about your government without fear of secret police pulling up in a windowless van and snatching you up off the street. It’s why Congress can’t mandate church attendance. It’s why people like me can post things on the internet without running them past a government censorship board for approval first. It’s why people were allowed to pick up signs and protest outside Christine’s salon. It’s why Christine and others like her can petition the government when they feel it’s not acting in their best interests.

The First Amendment does not shield all forms of expression unconditionally.

The US has a high threshold for restricting speech, but certain categories of speech—direct threats, incitement, obscenity, and defamation—are subject to regulation. Christine Giger’s dehumanizing FB post is hate speech (“abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or similar grounds”), which is not constitutionally protected.

As a private citizen, there’s nothing stopping Christine from expressing her views, but she operates a business—a place of public accommodation—and she conveyed a discriminatory message through its social media profiles. 

Places of public accommodation (which Studio 8 most certainly is) are not allowed to discriminate against protected classes, as outlined in Title II of The Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

The Civil Rights Act is why you can’t ban Black or Hispanic clients. It’s why you can’t refuse services to Muslims, French people, or everyone presenting as male. Christine may not “want the woke dollar,” but if a business chooses to profit from the public market, which is established and maintained by the state, the state may require the business to abide by a legal norm of nondiscrimination.

Unfortunately, our federal government hasn’t yet included transgender people in these protections, but Christine’s state of Michigan sure has.

Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, and public services based on religion, race, color, national origin, age, sex, height, weight, familial status, or marital status. The Elliott-Larsen Act was amended in 2023 to add greater protections over sexual orientation and gender identity. Unfortunately, the legislation did not take effect until February 2024, long after Christine made a strong case for the amendment’s necessity.

Understanding Gender Identity

For the rest of this section, I’m going to assume that you (the reader) know almost nothing about the queer community. (If you already know these things, consider this a refresher.) Let’s get some foundational facts out of the way:

Biological sex and gender identity are not the same thing. 

Biological sex refers to chromosomes, hormones, and genitalia—features none of us chose but all of us are born with. Biological sex is typically binary—male (XY) or female (XX)—but exceptions do exist (we can leave that to the geneticists, all you need to know is that biological sex itself isn’t quite as binary as most people believe).

Gender identity is a complex and multifaceted concept relating to social roles and expectations surrounding the concepts of “masculine” and “feminine” within our culture. Over the years, society has come to recognize and acknowledge a spectrum of gender identities, each unique and valid in its own right. Regardless of your biological sex, your identity sits somewhere on this spectrum (masculine at one end, feminine on the other, and non-binary in the middle).

Many people are cisgender, meaning that they identify with the gender role associated with their biological sex, and they don’t feel caged by the expectations society imposes on people with their biological sex.

Transgender people, by contrast, do not feel their biological sex and gender roles are in alignment. (Yes, it really is that simple.) 

Traditional gender roles assert a heteronormative patriarchal system, where people must dress and behave a certain way based on their biological sex. These rules are messy, complicated, and constantly changing. However, we have been pushing against the borders of these restrictive boxes for decades. Katherine Hepburn offended and outraged the public by wearing pants (“the gateway drug to female perversion”) in the early 1930s. More recently, Billy Porter slayed in a tuxedo dress at the Oscars in 2019. We are no longer content to “push” these arbitrary and oppressive boundaries; we are dismantling them entirely.

Hepburn did a radical thing by refusing to wear dresses in the 1930s, when women were arrested for wearing pants in public and charged with “masquerading as men.” This fact—that women were arrested by police and sent to jail for wearing trousers—seems absolutely ludicrous to us now, as it should.

This is America, land of the free. 

If you genuinely believe in freedom of speech and freedom of expression (as Christine claims to), you should also believe that people should be free to wear whatever clothing they want, just as they should be free to use whatever pronouns they want. 

At no point, in any of this, are you required to endorse pedophiles: literally nobody is doing that, and if they are, they should be reported to law enforcement immediately.

The patriarchal gender role system was designed to reinforce male dominance and control over women. These structured gender roles placed men in positions of authority and control in both the public and private spheres. Until the 19th century, laws reflected and enforced male dominance. Women were denied the right to own property, enter contracts, or vote. Women were socialized into submissive and nurturing subservient roles, denied opportunity and education, creating conditions that, in addition to forcing heterosexuality, were designed to keep them dependent on men, be it their fathers or husbands. 

This is our history, but these beliefs have no place in our modern society, especially in a country that values equality and freedom of expression as much as ours. Countries that weaponize the law against their citizens based on their biological sex are not nations where any American who values freedom of expression and personal autonomy would want to live.

So, to recap:

• Forcing people to wear clothing based on their biological sex is silly.
• Forcing people to adopt attitudes, values, and sexual preferences based on their biological sex is silly.
• Forcing anyone to conform to a set of nebulous, arbitrary societal rules and expectations based on the biological sex they were assigned at the moment of conception is absolutely silly.

The problem we have as a country is that most people can clearly see the first two ideas as backward and archaic, but some—like Christine—are still struggling to grasp the third.

The Importance of Inclusivity in Salons

Beauty salons and barber shops have a long, rich history as inclusive community spaces where political discussion and grassroots organization happen. From the days of the Madam C. J. Walker Company, change has taken root in our chairs—the women’s liberation movement, the civil rights movement, and now, the LGBTQ+ rights movement. Beauty salons have played a huge but hidden role in shaping our society. 

Salon owners are community leaders, and we should not take that for granted.  

As beauty professionals, our entire business is about personal expression. People come to us because we can make their outer appearance consistent with their inner identity. This is the core of what we do. Personal expression is a fundamental aspect of individual autonomy, and infringing on that right of expression is at extreme odds with our core values of personal freedom and empowering individuality. 

Opposing anyone’s human right to be who they are runs counter to the fundamental ethos of our industry.

Salon owners have an ethical responsibility to create a welcoming environment for all. A discriminatory environment undermines public trust, but it’s also a betrayal. Christine and others like her reflect negatively on those of us who are working hard to ensure our profession is held in high esteem. (I hope I’m conveying exactly how disgusted I am—because I do take this personally, and so should you.)

Every human being who walks into your salon deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. This is what it means to be a professional. 

Salon owners who discriminate face a variety of very unpleasant legal consequences. For instance, Michigan salon owners who publicly share Christine’s sentiment would run afoul of the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act. Individuals who can prove they were discriminated against could file civil lawsuits, pulling the salon owner into lengthy and tremendously expensive proceedings that will certainly destroy the salon’s reputation and its budget. Federal agencies could step in and impose penalties or force the salon owner to take corrective actions.

Inclusivity Best Practices for Salon Owners

Alright, now we can talk about how you can create an inclusive salon that welcomes and supports everyone. 

Advertise inclusivity. When you’re part of a privileged class, it’s easy to overlook or underestimate the challenges and fears faced by those who routinely experience discrimination.  It can be incredibly difficult to fully grasp the depth and breadth of the obstacles and anxieties that individuals from discriminated-against groups endure daily. At this point in our nation’s development, it isn’t enough to silently consider your salon a safe space. 

Visible signage advertising inclusivity is a powerful statement of support and a commitment to creating a safe and welcoming environment for all clients. 

Creating client-facing non-discrimination policies is a great start, but marginalized clients are more likely to notice overt invitations (a cute flag or a window cling, for instance). This signage significantly reduces the anxiety and hesitation a trans person might feel about entering a new space.

When possible, show inclusivity in your marketing materials too—and please don’t limit it to the performative song and dance every business does throughout the month of June.

Every month is Pride Month if you’re truly an inclusive business.

Eliminate sex-based pricing. If you haven’t done away with sex-based pricing ($15 for men, $50 for women), now is the time. 

While sex-based pricing isn’t universally illegal, in some states, general consumer protection or anti-discrimination statutes might be interpreted to cover gender-based pricing, particularly if such pricing can be demonstrated to be discriminatory without a basis in significant differences in the cost or delivery of the service. California passed the Gender Tax Repeal Act, which made it illegal to discriminate against customers based on their gender in terms of pricing. Businesses in California must provide a price list for services, and any price difference must be based on the amount of time, difficulty, or cost of providing the service, not the customer’s sex.

My colleague Jaime Schrabeck and I have advocated gender-neutral pricing for years. If you want to learn more about why, read this article Jaime wrote for Nailpro. (Both of our salons have gender-neutral pricing, so if you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the comments.)

Train your employees on LGBTQIA+ issues, terminology, and sensitivity. If you felt a twinge of discomfort at the thought of having to gather your employees to discuss how to treat queer people like human beings, that’s exactly why you need to do it.

In the US, a lot of trans people still feel uncomfortable coming out, for good reason. Transgender individuals face disproportionately high rates of violence compared to the cisgender population. In 2022, the U.S. Transgender Survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 47% of transgender people have thought about moving to another state because their state government considered or passed laws that target them for unequal treatment.

In Conclusion

Change is hard. I’m from a small town populated almost entirely by sweet, church-going snowbirds and retirees, so I know how strange and overwhelming this can seem to people who don’t often interface with “the gays.” The concept of gender is so ingrained that seeing anyone subvert our expectations can be alarming at first. Hateful and false rhetoric amplifies the fear and confusion, encouraging our worst impulses.

It’s up to us to do better; nobody said it would be easy.

I understand that this can be hard, but do you know what I would argue is harder? Being the parent of a trans kid, having to worry about the Christines in this world, who are quick to categorize them as subhuman perverts and sexual deviants.

It’s easy to stay silent while people make racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, or transphobic remarks in our chairs or in the break room. It costs us nothing to be neutral, to save ourselves from ridicule or judgment, to protect our salons from becoming collateral damage in a perpetually aggrieved client’s quest to be Facebook Villain of the Day. As a salon owner, I get that. I truly do.

I’m asking you to do the hard thing anyway, because it’s the right thing to do, and now is the time to do it. Make an effort to learn. Maybe also take a second to recognize and respect your professional “ancestors,” who understood that our salons are sacred, intimate spaces where people from diverse backgrounds come together to share and exchange ideas. Catalyzing shifts in societal norms is an important part of our industry’s history and our role in American society. Our communities and our kids deserve nothing but the best from us.

Now is the time to start seeing other people as humans whose chromosomes don’t dictate who they are allowed to be. Appreciate the things that make us individuals. If your love for other people is conditional on them being the exact person you want them to be, figure out why that is. Genuinely try to understand your discomfort, preferably with help from some queer allies who are open to answering any questions you have. 

Additional Resources

If you want to learn more about the history of the trans community in the beauty industry and how you can be a better ally, here are several links to get you started: 

The Salon Professional Academy – Gender Equality in the Beauty Industry
PBL Magazine – Why The Beauty Industry Needs To Do More For Trans And Non-Binary Clients
Salon Services Pro – How Are Salons Creating Safe Spaces?
Boulevard – The Ongoing Legacy of Trans Women in Beauty 
Al.com – Jody Suzanne Ford, trans Birmingham hairdresser shot to death in 1977, paved way for others to live unafraid

Today, the salon owner charged my client’s services before the service was over. She refused to give me the money and told me she would put it towards rent, but I never agreed to this, nor did I agree to her taking a percentage from both the sale and my tip.

When I said that I wasn’t going to tolerate this, she claimed that it couldn’t be helped because the client paid with a gift card. I know the client didn’t pay with a gift card, but that’s beside the point, because the owner knows I don’t accept her salon’s gift cards. (Besides that, nowhere in my lease does it say anything about her stupid gift cards!)

After I caught her in the lie, the owner said I’m no longer allowed to receive any walk-ins. Is this legal? Can she seriously refuse me walk-in clients?

I’ve already addressed this topic, but your story provides important insight.

You did everything right. You took every step you could to prevent being taken advantage of. When your landlord pushed your boundaries, you responded immediately. Few have the confidence to do so, and I’m glad to hear you did. Her treatment of you is nothing more than childish, petty retaliation. I’m embarrassed for her.

However, unless your contract states otherwise, you aren’t owed walk-in clients. (More about that here.)

What can you do about it? Unfortunately, not much. You could bring her to small claims court, but the filing fee will likely cost more than the disputed amount, and unless you really want to make a point, it might not be worth your time to pursue.

In these situations, the only thing you really can do is tell her to make things right, or you’ll warn others, starting with your fellow renters.

If she refuses, make good on that promise. Only state what you can confirm—what you’re willing to swear to in court under threat of perjury. Don’t embellish or get creative. Stick to the facts, and keep your emotions in check.

If she threatens to bring you to court—good. Let her. Be sure to update us so we can hear how she rationalized the theft. 

I’m sorry this happened to you. Sometimes, even when you do everything right, you aren’t entirely safe, and even if you’ve clearly been wronged, you might never see justice.

Take a deep breath. Now read this handy list.

Dress conservatively and professionally. No sandals. No jeans. No tank tops. No t-shirts. Dress like you’re going for an interview at a law firm or to a congressman’s funeral. This is not the time to make a fashion statement. Dressing sexy will win you no points here. If you chose to wear a skirt, make sure it’s no shorter than two inches above your knee.

Courts are weirdly formal places. Prepare yourself accordingly.

Keep your makeup minimal and natural. Don’t get crazy with that eye shadow. You want to be taken seriously, so don’t walk into the courtroom with you eyelids covered in rainbow glitter. Remember, you’re entering a place where people tend to care a whole lot about presentation and decorum. Some judges read a little too deeply into fashion choices and what they say about people.

Remove the metal from your face. If you normally wear facial piercings, take them out. They aren’t appropriate to wear to court. I cannot reiterate this enough times:

As stupid as it is, appearances matter. A lot.

Don’t wear a belt or complicated shoes. You will have to remove your shoes and walk through a metal detector before you can enter the courthouse. Make it easy on yourself by leaving your belts and metal accessories at home and wearing flats you can slip into and out of easily. Don’t create unnecessary stress. You’ll likely be a hot mess of nerves to begin with.

When it’s your turn to sit in front of the judge, follow these rules.

Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. Never show emotion during your opponent’s testimony. You can be nervous, sad, and scared. You cannot be angry, loud, or disrespectful. Judges have zero patience or tolerance for belligerence.

Don’t roll your eyes, sigh, or draw attention to yourself.

Even if the other party lies through their teeth, keep your mouth shut and your attitude in check. Write down your objections and bring them up when it’s your turn to speak. Put on your best poker face and be patient.

Always address the judge with “Your Honor” or “Sir” or “Ma’am,” and never use slang or profanity. When you’re asked a question that requires a yes or no answer, always say “yes ma’am/sir/Your Honor” or “no ma’am/sir/Your Honor.” Never say, “yeah,” “nope,” or “I dunno.”

Don’t go in demanding justice. Do not bark orders at a judge or demand anything from them. Sure, your tax dollars pay their salary, but they don’t work for you. 

You’re at court to reach a peaceful, reasonable resolution, not to fight with your opponent.

Both of you believe you’re right. You can’t come to an agreement, so you are in court to ask the judge to come up with a fair solution based on the information and evidence that each of you collected. Approach it from that perspective–it’s not about winning or losing but having a neutral party evaluate each of your positions and make a decision for you.

You can think that your opponent’s actions were wrong. You can feel your opponent’s action were wrong. You don’t know they were wrong or not. The judge determines that. (Even if you really do know and you have fistfuls of statutes and evidence to support that argument, never go in with the arrogance of assurance.)

In small claims court, don’t be afraid to tell the judge that you’ve never been in court before and you may have questions during the proceedings. Small claims courts are generally pretty mellow. Nobody has attorneys and judges don’t expect you to be competent in court procedure. If you don’t understand what a judge asks of you or what they mean, politely ask for an explanation.

Keep your testimony brief and only testify to what you can prove. This is so, SO important. Do not pop off with a bunch of irrelevant, unverifiable testimony. If you cannot prove a claim, the judge will likely disregard it.

Bring evidence in triplicate. One for you, one for the judge, and one for your opponent.

A lot of professionals panic at the thought of going to court. Don’t be scared. The majority of the time, you’re going to end up in small claims, where the stakes are low and the process is pretty informal. You don’t need an attorney, the rules are relaxed, and if you’re the plaintiff, generally, the worst that can happen is that your case gets dismissed and you lose your filing fee. No biggie. In other proceedings, you’ll have an attorney representing you and doing all the heavy lifting, so relax and focus on controlling the one thing you can control—yourself.

Have you ever been to court? What for? Were you scared? What happened? Tell us about it in the comments!

A handful of these owners, however, were proud of their commitment to abusing their workers, acting as if surviving the abuse were a cultural rite of passage and a necessary part of every professional’s growth.

“We don’t believe in employment, so everyone here is independent.” my client said.

“Your current arrangement puts you in a very vulnerable position from a legal perspective because you’re exerting managerial controls you have no right to exercise,” I replied. “You’re also making less money than you would be making if everyone were properly classified and legally compensated. So, why don’t you ‘believe’ in employment?”

“Because that’s just not how this industry works. We just don’t believe in it. Everyone here is independent and they are in charge of them. If they want to be successful in this business, they need to work for it, promote themselves, and climb up the way we all did. That’s how we drop the dead weight from the industry.”

The professionals in this salon weren’t independent by any definition of the term, legal or literal. They were very much misclassified employees and the salon owner (who wanted to have and eat all of the cake) was willingly and knowingly committing tax evasion, wage theft, and fraud—and bragging about it like they were virtues or deliberate professional development strategies instead of extremely serious and highly punishable state and federal crimes.

“We have to pay commission-only! Why would they work if they’re getting paid to just sit there?”

Like it or not, salon owners, you’re required by federal law to ensure prevailing wage compliance. “Commission-only” is not and has never been legal and calling an employee an “independent contractor” doesn’t make them one.

I’m accustomed to this entire process, having had this exact conversation hundreds (if not thousands) of times with salon owners over the years. First, they boast about how industry abuses are part of our “culture.” They lament the changes they feel “forced” to make. Then, they try to defend their indefensible actions and behaviors by arguing that they somehow make our industry and the workers in it “stronger.”

“My employees pay for their own product,” another client explained to me. “That’s their responsibility and a cost of doing business in this industry. If they can’t afford it, they need to find a new career. Why should I be paying for their product?”

“Because they aren’t business owners and never asked to be burdened with the responsibilities of a business owner,” I said. “You’re the one who sets the prices, creates the schedule, and handles the appointment book. How can they offset their costs and be profitable when you’re the one who determines what their services are worth, when they can work, and how many clients they get each day? That’s not independence. That’s you pushing your costs of doing business onto misclassified employees. If they fail, it’s because you didn’t take responsibility for managing them properly, not because they aren’t cut out for this industry.”

Over the last two months, I’ve been reminded of these salon owners and how proud they were of not taking ownership of their businesses. I can’t help but think about how they would present their laziness, irresponsibility, and lack of consideration for the welfare of their employees as a series of clever management tactics. Even now, I am astounded by the mental gymnastics these owners do to attempt to justify themselves.

Every problem in the salon is the fault of the professionals:

If the salon isn’t making enough money, it’s not because the owner hired more people than the business could justify hiring and didn’t bother to schedule them strategically, it’s because the employees are not marketing themselves well enough.

If the employees quit because they couldn’t afford to work for free, it’s not because the owner refused to pay the prevailing wage in accordance with state and federal law, it’s because the employees “couldn’t compete in the industry.”

If the owner ends up in hot water with the IRS for misclassifying their employees as independent contractors, it’s not because the owner was exploiting them and willfully breaking the law, it’s because the employees had a “personal vendetta” against the salon owner.

There’s no attempt from willful violators to take responsibility for setting their workers and their salons up to fail. There’s no remorse. Instead, there’s a dismissive wave of the hand, an irritated eye roll, and muttered resentments.

When talk turns to actual management strategy—with regards to talent acquisition and retention, for instance—the callousness really becomes apparent.

“Employment benefits for hairdressers? Sick pay?! Nobody does that! Why should we?”

For years, I’ve wondered what makes people in our industry this way. What gives these owners such a strong sense of entitlement? What makes them think the best way to develop a professional is to baptize them by fire? Why do they believe professionals in our industry aren’t worthy of guaranteed wages, paid time off, or health insurance? Why can’t they see that this lack of security is directly tied to our high attrition rates? How do they not realize this asinine attachment to an “eat or be eaten”/“survival of the fittest” mentality undermines the legitimacy of our profession and damages their own salons?

Why are they bragging about being a terrible place to work as if that’s a point of pride akin to a company value rather than a profound embarrassment and a scathing indictment of their irresponsibility?

COVID-19 killed the fabricated nobility of this sink-or-swim narrative dead in the two weeks it took for exploited professionals all over the United States to realize what their self-employed status actually meant.

Non-compliance is and always has been the easy way out for salon owners who wanted to own a salon but didn’t want to do the actual work required to become a good salon owner. I’ve long suspected these abuses were never truly the result of an ideological choice but have been presented as one to convince professionals of their validity. This lazy, shitty approach to business ownership won’t survive the post-Covid economy, and I’m glad for it.

A good deal of non-compliant salon owners are in for a rude awakening when the stay-at-home orders are lifted. The pandemic has made evident the serious flaws in our industry’s approach to employment. It’s not just the professionals non-compliant owners will have to answer to, but their clients and the public at large, as these issues have been gaining more attention over the last five years.

“Even documented workers will have a challenging time accessing the benefits they may be entitled to due to the pervasive, illegal payment practices that pervade the nail salon industry, including underreporting earnings, or failing to keep records altogether.”
-Allure

There problems aren’t new, they just impacted individuals previously, and therefore often went without much public notice. COVID-19 put all exploited workers in the same boat pretty much immediately, and that sudden education on an industry-wide scale changes everything. As an advocate for beauty workers, I can’t help but appreciate the poetic justice and rejoice in the sudden and (hopefully) final end to this idiocy.

Our industry has used “girl power” to manipulate people for as long as I can remember, promoting our largely female-founded companies as mechanisms driving female empowerment and allowing beautiful, well-marketed salons to grace the pages of popular fashion and lifestyle magazines, all while conveniently ignoring the fact that many of these same female founders owe their success entirely to the (mostly female) employees who quietly accept their exploitative practices.

The hypocrisy has annoyed me for decades…but those were the Before Times. Things are certainly different now, so the days of brainwashing workers to confuse acceptance of abuse with “empowerment” are finally over, once and for all.

[Related Post] “We should not be praising exploitative salon owners for providing work opportunities for immigrants any more than we would praise pimps for providing protection and work opportunities to women.”

Education is the true mechanism for empowerment. Educated professionals confront exploitative salon owners. Their knowledge gives them the strength to demand better. It motivates them to share what they know with others. For the last ten years that I’ve been working to provide accessible information to the industry and helping non-compliant salon owners become legitimate employers, the transition has been slow and painful, as willfully non-compliant salons were often only forced to change when an employee or group of newly-informed employees filed complaints with the WHD and IRS.

That time is suddenly now. Like the misclassified employees who had to contend with the possibility of being ineligible for unemployment during a pandemic, the salon owners who exploited those employees (intentionally or accidentally) are finding themselves in the same boat, too.

We’re likely to see a massive shift in how salon owners approach business management.

What form that shift ultimately takes—whether we see more salons revert to rental or become overwhelmingly employment-based—remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: non-compliant salon owners with a strong desire to “stick it to The Man” by way of screwing their employees over will have to figure something else out, because nobody in our industry can unlearn what they now know. They’re wiser and harder now, and certainly won’t tolerate “customary” abuses any longer, no matter what ridiculous narrative that abuse is dressed up in.

If you want an efficient, stress-free tax season, you need a system that streamlines your recordkeeping throughout the year.

Salon professionals need to stay ahead of the game when it comes to handling their taxes. Here’s how to make it happen. 

1. Use Bookkeeping Software That Syncs With a Mobile App

If you aren’t using bookkeeping software, what decade are you living in? Don’t get me wrong, I’m the kind of person who carries a physical planner and must hand-write things if I hope to remember them, but I refuse to go back to the days of keeping a manual ledger.

As careful as we are, we’re not perfect.

Working in our industry often involves a lot of cash changing hands, which doesn’t always have a paper trail. Around this time of year, I spend a lot of billable hours helping build that trail for salon owners and renters who stuff cash in their pockets throughout the day and fail to record their transactions. Every point-of-sale app facilitates cash tracking and nearly every single platform comes with mobile app synchronization, making recording sales of all types as easy as opening the app and tapping a few buttons.

If you’re not interested in an actual point-of-sale software, you can create a document on your phone and track transactions there throughout the day. I recommend saving this document to the cloud (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox—take your pick) so it saves automatically and is accessible from multiple devices.

No matter which method you choose, your transactions will sync with the cloud. You can classify it as a business transaction, and with a log kept every day, your taxes will be easy once it is time to file. 

2. Make Expense Tracking Part of Your Purchase Process

I’m not willing to stoop so low as to include gifs in my posts, but I’ll link them. This is me, talking to you right now. This is you, next tax season and every season that follows.

If you have time for Instagram, you have time to snap your damn receipts.

Create a folder on your preferred cloud-based storage system and call it “[YEAR] Receipts.” Whenever you spend money on a business expense, snap your receipt and save the picture to that folder.

While the cashier does their thing, I’m waiting with my phone, card, and receipt envelope in hand. I grab a quick pic of the receipt and toss it into the envelope. (I prefer to buy this pack of 12 and use one each month.) When I purchase something online, I immediately print, snap, and store the purchase order.

At the end of the month, print out your business bank statement and fold it like a letter. Slip the receipts inside. Write the total revenue on the left side of the folded statement and total expenses on the right side. Put that statement/receipt bundle into your receipt envelope and toss that envelope into the battered shoe box you’ve been using to store your collection of crumpled, faded receipts up until this point.

Every time you fail to deduct a business expense, you’re losing money. Stop that.

The better you keep track of everything that you spend, the better prepared you will be to handle the tax write-offs for your business. 

3. Pay Your Estimated Taxes on Time and in Full

If you’re self-employed, pay your estimated taxes each quarter to avoid potential fees, penalties, and big tax bills.

Self-employment income isn’t subject to withholding. What does this mean? If you don’t withhold and remit taxes quarterly (breaking your annual tax due into a quarterly payment), you’ll likely end up with a really large annual tax bill come April.

You must pay at least 90% of your estimated annual taxes to avoid penalties and fees.

Sign up to use the EFTPS (Electronic Federal Tax Payment System) through the IRS. Paying quarterly is quick, easy, and free. Payments can be made immediately. If you like getting money back from the IRS or hate the idea of a large tax bill more than you hate the fact that the government will be earning interest from your overpayments, contribute more than you anticipate owing.

You can download The Salon Professional’s Guide to Quarterly Tax Payments here.

4. Encourage Digital Payments

Apps allow people to use credit and debit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App, and other services. Give your customers as many ways to pay digitally as possible. These services link payments to your bank account, giving you cleaner transaction records.

businesses that don’t accept digital payment options will fall behind.

Just as cards replaced checks and cash, digital payment options are quickly rising in popularity, replacing cards. In the next ten years, people will increasingly use smart devices (phones, watches, etc.) to process transactions. This is a trend, not a fad. Get ahead of it.

Contrary to popular belief, business owners actually aren’t required by law to accept cash. If you want to fully automate your transaction tracking process, you can get real radical and stop accepting it altogether.

I quit taking cash years ago for a variety of reasons. Primarily, I consider the possession of cash a liability, and I really didn’t like the tedious process of tracking cash transactions.

5. Choose an Entrepreneur-Friendly Bank

Be selective about the banks you do business with and don’t be afraid to switch when a better opportunity presents itself. Every bank offers special programs and incentives to lure business owners. Take advantage of them.

If you don’t have one already, immediately open a business checking account.

I can’t express this clearly enough—nothing annoys me more than having to go line-by-line through a client’s monthly personal bank account statements to determine which transactions are business-related and which aren’t. I’m willing to bet you don’t want to endure that torture so do yourself (and/or your accountant) the massive favor of separating your business finances from your personal. This, combined with the envelope/snap system, will turn your tax filing into an hour-long data entry task instead of a nightmarish week-long hellscape.

6. Keep Informed of IRS Changes

The IRS makes changes to the law each year. Some will be inconsequential, while others will directly affect the type of business you do. The IRS has social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook, but they also have an email newsletter. The newsletter is written for tax professionals, but anyone can sign up and receive updates.

7. Rectify IRS Issues ASAP

Often, consulting clients tell me they’re scared to file taxes because they’ve failed to file for so many years and/or have a lot of unclaimed income. As much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, filing your taxes isn’t optional and constitutes a big part of your responsibilities as both a citizen and business owner.

Each year you delay resolving outstanding IRS issues, the worse the consequences will get.

All is not lost if you run into tax trouble. Late filing penalties and payments aren’t ideal, but they are not the end of the world. The IRS works directly with taxpayers to create realistic payment plans.

If you’re hiding from the IRS, contact an Enrolled Agent to advocate on your behalf. They’ll represent you in your dealings with the IRS to help you get the best outcome.

8. Hire a Tax Pro to Assist You

If you’ve read this entire post and have determined that you aren’t a “tax person” or an “accounting person,” find someone who is.

People who struggle to keep records and stay organized should seek help from a tax professional immediately.

In addition to keeping your records in order, tax professionals can help you put together a tax strategy to minimize your tax responsibility and maximize your deductions. Let them handle the heavy lifting. 

Whether you are a hairdresser, nail technician, massage therapist, or another sort of beauty professional, putting in a little bit of effort every day will result in a quick, simplified filing process. Stop putting off for (a long, miserable) April what can be done easily today.

If you feel like the new kid at school, that’s because you are. You can try to convince yourself you’re not in high school and that you’re surrounded by other grown adults, but the salon environment isn’t your typical office and it’s likely that more than a few of your coworkers are creative personality types.

Are salons drama-filled workplaces? That depends highly on the management.

In a well-managed salon, drama tends to be minimal, with most of it coming from without (clients) rather than within (coworkers). In a poorly managed—or completely unmanaged—salon, bad behaviors often go unpunished. Creating an environment where employees are permitted to reap the rewards of their bad behavior obviously ensures that those behaviors will continue, but it also virtually guarantees that employees—who otherwise wouldn’t need to seek retribution (thanks to management intervention)—certainly will. Every professional I know has worked in at least one miserable salon, spending their days with their ears open, mouths shut, and neck-hairs on end, monitoring the climate minute-by-minute and hoping everyone would just stay cool.

Thankfully, times have changed since the 90’s and early 2000’s. Now, those salons tend to be the exception rather than the rule, so the odds of you ending up in one of those pre-Glassdoor, pre-Twitter hellscapes aren’t high.

You’ll never experience much drama at all in a salon where everyone respects one another, regardless of management.

Make the first move. Introduce yourself to your coworkers at the first appropriate opportunity. It’s normal to feel anxious and uncomfortable when meeting someone new but if you don’t suck it up and follow through, the entire vibe can get real awkward real fast.

Don’t make it weird. Acknowledge people with a greeting when they make eye contact with you. Say hello and introduce yourself if it seems like an appropriate time to do so.

Observe and ask questions. Does the owner prefer for colorists to work with small batches? How is backbar inventory tracked? What washer and dryer settings do you use for towels and linens? Do you immediately dispose of trash bags containing chemicals or wait until the can is full? Where are the garbage can liners and paper towels kept?

Pay attention, newbie. Watching what others are doing when you’re not busy will provide answers to questions you haven’t thought to ask.

Should you have a question, seek answers rather than making assumptions. You may not think twice about tossing the cardboard packaging around a tube of color but if your salon owner uses box tops to replenish backbar, you’ve just messed up her system and compromised the salon’s inventory balance.

Don’t say too much. During your first week or so, listen more than you speak. Get to know more about the people you’re working with. Let them tell you and show you who they are so you know what to expect from them and how to interact with them.

I’ve found that it’s easier to create and maintain relationships with others when you’ve spent enough time learning who they are before showing them too much about who you are. As a rule, I tend to share only necessary information about myself—keeping my opinions to myself and my private life as private as possible. In an effort to establish a connection and bond quickly with coworkers, some professionals make the mistake of oversharing. At best, this is a high-risk strategy. While a well-timed, well-targeted overshare might be just the thing to break a barrier and make a friend or two, you’re far more likely to embarrass yourself. Instead, play it safe.

When you do speak, be sure to think carefully first to keep from being misunderstood—especially if you’re feeling anxious. You’re not being timed or graded. You don’t have to have an immediate answer or response to everything. It’s okay to consider for a few seconds. You could also say, “I’m not really sure what to say about that,” or “I’m going to have to think about how to respond first.”

Nothing annoys me more than when I impulsively say the right thing the wrong way and have to backtrack to explain what I originally meant.

As a writer I may be more conscientious of this than other people, but I think we can all agree that the words we use and the order we use them in matters. It’s worth it to take the time to consider the messages we’re sending, especially during the early days of a new job when your coworkers don’t know enough about you to instinctively know what you mean when you do misspeak. Clear communication is critical (at least for now).

Don’t participate in or react to gossip. Remember when I said “it’s unlikely anyone will give you an orientation?” Notice that I didn’t use the word “impossible.”

One or more of your new coworkers may take it upon themselves to catch you up on the salon’s drama.

You should tell this coworker you’d rather not hear about it, but for most people that can be really difficult to do on the first day or week at a new salon. If you don’t have the intestinal fortitude to tell that gossipy coworker, “Thanks, but no thanks,” remember the following:

• Their version of events may be biased and/or entirely uninformed,
• The coworker you’re talking to is for sure one of the—if not the—problematic employee in the salon. You should probably consider distancing yourself from them ASAP. (Come at me in the comments, haters. I stand by it.)
• Body language is still language.

Your reaction is an opinion.

You might not speak a single word but your raised eyebrows, smirks, and eyerolls communicate a lot. If you’re going to listen, prepare to do so as a blank slate or risk having your facial expressions creatively interpreted by a coworker who—for some reason—felt it appropriate, acceptable, and somehow helpful to dump a bunch of sordid backstory on a new employee.

Don’t bring offensive foods for lunch. I’m not sure why people still need to be told this but nobody wants to spend 1-2 days smelling the stink of your microwaved salmon. If your meal comes with a stench, eat it at home.

Focus on work and be a team player. Build goodwill by doing your job. When you’re not working on a client, look for opportunities to help your coworkers. Sweep hair you didn’t cut, pick up damp towels you didn’t use, wash color bowls you didn’t dirty, set up a treatment room for a service you won’t perform.

Teamwork constitutes a big part of a salon professional’s job.

Be yourself. I saved what arguably constitutes the most critical tip for last. Some professionals feel pressured (or just tempted) to behave unnaturally when they start a new job. Maybe they want to seem more laid back than they normally are, so they set up others’ expectations inaccurately by pretending to be cool with things that secretly drive them insane.

For example, If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t normally share tools, don’t be loaning out your flat iron on Day 1 and your blow drier on Day 2 or you’ll set a precedent that will have you flipping your lid on Day 8.

It’s too hard to force yourself to pretend to be someone you aren’t, especially for long periods of time. During those first few weeks at a new job you’ll be learning a lot about your coworkers, but they’ll be learning about you too. It’s in everyone’s best interest if you make sure they’re seeing your real self and not a character you play while you’re on-the-clock.

Remember, your relationships with your coworkers will strengthen over time, so don’t force things. Be cordial, do your job, and allow yourself to settle into place naturally. Before long, your newness will fade and you’ll be part of the team.

It will never be a true friendship. Friends are typically equals, right? That won’t be the case in a workplace when one of those friends holds a position of power. You have the authority to make decisions that affect the livelihood of your employees and their experience at work. Because of that fact, you can never be certain if your so-called “friendship” is genuine or a manifestation of your “friend’s” desire not to be penalized, or part of their strategy to advance in the salon.

You might make them uncomfortable. Some professionals don’t want to be friends with the boss. They understand how complicated that relationship could get and how that could negatively affect their future at the salon. Don’t put an employee in a position where they feel pressured to play along.

The sharing of personal information and gossip is tremendously inappropriate—and it will happen. Friends vent about work, especially when they work together. They also talk about their personal lives. Anything you say to your employee/friend may be used against you in the future.

Even if you somehow manage not to talk about your personal life or work, the existence of the friendship gives the employee/friend a degree of credibility they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Anything your “friend” says about you will likely be taken pretty seriously, whether or not it’s true.

They may lose respect for you as an authority. A person’s behaviors change when they become friends with another. This may result in situations where your “friend/employee” rolls their eyes, groans, or snaps at you when you instruct them to do something. Other employees will see this behavior and emulate it themselves.

You may be accused of (or pressured to show) favoritism. Your “friends” may expect special treatment, but whether they do or not, the existence of your workplace “friendships” alone will become a lens through which employees evaluate your management of the salon. Employees will question their performance reviews, promotions, demotions, and terminations—among other things.

Your friendship with your employee (or employees) gives your team the ability to question your impartiality and therefore the validity of your decisions.

Some may feel excluded or may consider you disingenuous. You aren’t going to hit it off with everyone you work with. Should you not pursue friendships with every employee, you’ll leave some professionals feeling dejected and possibly resentful. If you do pursue friendships with every employee (including those you normally wouldn’t be friends with), those employees may see it for exactly what it is—an insincere gesture.

It overcomplicates everything. For some managers, disciplining or terminating an employee can be awkward and difficult. When that employee has become a personal friend, it can be agonizing. Why would you introduce even more stress to your job?

Your responsibilities are too important to compromise with childishness. There’s no nice way to say this, but even if there were, I’m of the opinion that lessons like this aren’t effective unless they’re delivered like a kick to the sternum. If you’re so desperate to be liked that you’re willing to risk losing respect and credibility, and possibly becoming completely ineffective in your position, then you’re not cut out for management.

Understand your role in the salon. You are there to work. You are not there to make friends with your subordinates any more than the employees are there to make friends with their clients.

Personal friendships with employees are inappropriate—period.

Employees may try to pursue a personal friendship with you at some point. Sometimes, these relationships develop naturally, but the possibility exists that the employee will be motivated to “befriend” you for professional gain. Err on the side of caution and assume that is always the case.

How can I keep my employees from pursuing a friendship with me?

To keep employees from crossing any lines:

Never discuss your personal life. While you should try to get to know your employees so you can manage them better, there’s absolutely no practical reason for your employees to know anything personal about you.

Never engage in or allow controversial discussions (on religion, politics, sex, etc.). It can be easy to believe that others share our opinions, but often, we live in self-constructed bubbles by curating our news sources and social groups, creating echo chambers that aren’t representative of the real world, where opinions and lifestyles vary wildly.

Assume that any opinion you share will offend half of the people who hear it. Then, stay on the safe side by keeping those opinions to yourself.

Never participate in social events with employees outside of work (excluding work events the salon organizes). There may be instances where your employees want to grab drinks after work or hit the club to celebrate a coworker’s birthday. Decline those invites. Social events, especially those where alcohol will be consumed, create the potential for serious lapses in judgement and boundary-crossing.

Never give or accept gifts or favors (obviously, performance bonuses and discretionary rewards you may distribute for job performance do not count). Look—I’m a mom. I’ve been a mom from the time I was twenty-two years old. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve been tempted to accept an offer of help from an employee? I would have killed for a night out. However, as the employer, you never want to put yourself in a position where you owe an employee anything. Remember, there’s a power dynamic at play here. Don’t complicate things.

Never allow inappropriately familiar social interactions (i.e. hugging). Some employees are natural huggers and cuddlers, but you should maintain personal space—even if it means having a discussion with that employee. Not a single “touchy” employee I worked with has ever had negative intentions or sinister motivations for putting their arm around my shoulders or pulling me into an embrace on a rough day, but that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable behavior.

Should any employees continue to pursue a friendship with you, speak to them privately about their behaviors. Be straightforward about where your boundaries are.

Your employees need a leader; not a friend. Strive to foster an honest, respectful, and trusting relationship with them. You don’t have to create an inappropriate relationship with your professionals to be liked—simply give them the guidance and support they need. Care about their job satisfaction and show them that their contributions are valued.

Not everyone will like you. We learn this as young children. We also hear that we should “kill them with kindness,” but it’s best to promptly reject that lesson the second you consider a career in any kind of management. Certainly, you can be courteous and kind, but as a leader you’re required to be fair—not to bend over backwards to earn the approval of others.

You will rarely be capable of pleasing everyone and you’ll never be capable of pleasing someone who is determined to be miserable, no matter how hard you try to be their friend. At some point, a toxic employee will bypass your new hire screening safeguards, fool your gut, and will make you question your ability to judge a person’s character. (Fun fact: An estimated 10% of the population are sociopaths.)

Some managers and salon owners go into “panic mode,” doing whatever they can to earn the employee’s favor again. Some will allow those toxic employees to influence their decisions.

Don’t go down that road.

Your decisions should always be made with two things in mind: what’s best for the business, and what’s fair to your employees. Not all of your decisions will be popular ones. Don’t complicate your life and undermine yourself by adding avoidable difficulties.

Have you ever crossed the line with your employees before? How did it go? Tell us in the comments!

First, it’s important to acknowledge that there’s a difference between being personable and getting personal. Contrary to popular belief, you can be a popular, friendly professional without becoming overly familiar with clients. Relationships with clients should form naturally, but many professionals are taught (often in beauty school) to manipulate clients into a manufactured “connection” for the purpose of gaining their loyalty and earning higher tips. Those who promote this strategy encourage professionals to ask clients personal questions and to share their own. They’re told to document personal client information (like their children’s birthdays) so they can recall this information later to make it seem as if they’ve been thoughtful enough to remember it.

This manipulative tactic is amateurish, outdated, ineffective, and can be outright creepy.

Additionally, inviting clients to dump their drama on you has the potential to set a precedent that will result in you becoming the sounding board for every grievance every one of your clients has ever had. Can you imagine how miserable your workday could become? I’ve personally seen this happen to coworkers whose clients treated them like a substitute therapist.

Connect with your clients through education and accommodation.

Ideally, you’ll establish yourself as a true professional from the client’s first visit. How?

• Greet them by name with a handshake—not with hugs.
• Do not use pet names like “honey,” “sweetheart,” or “dear.” (They’re infantilizing and gross.)
• Consult thoroughly, keeping the conversation focused on the service as much as possible.
• Be kind, courteous, and friendly, but respond to probing behavior with redirections and clear dismissals.

Most professionals don’t have a hard time avoiding inappropriate physical contact or pet names. Many tend to get tripped up on redirections and dismissals.

It can be difficult to navigate those interactions in an industry that often confuses the acceptance of abusive behavior with “great customer service.”

To clarify—I am not saying that clients who ask innocuous personal questions are abusive. I am saying that as professionals, we’re often expected to allow clients to boundary-stomp in a variety of ways (disrespecting our time, sexualizing us, and bullying us when it benefits them). That expectation creates a culture where professionals stop asserting themselves in situations where they absolutely must, even in low-stakes situations like those where a nosy, gossip-hungry client simply needs to be redirected.

Innocuous small talk or gossip-mining?

“So, are you married or do you have a boyfriend? I’m sorry, I assumed you were straight. Are you not?”
“Do you have kids? How old are they? What school do they go to?”
“What does your partner do for a living?”

Clients have asked me these questions, or some version of them, more times than I could possibly count—and they still do. You’re probably sitting there thinking, “What’s the big deal? They’re harmless questions! Small talk is a normal part of socializing!” (And to you I say, “Have you met me?! Hello. I’m Tina Alberino, overthinker and overanalyzer extraordinaire.”)

Are these questions really harmless? What motivation could a client have for asking them? Is it necessary for them to know my marital status or sexual orientation? Do my kids have anything to do with their service? How is my partner’s career relevant to anything?

I’m sure plenty of people ask these questions politely to feign interest and attempt to ease the awkwardness that can accompany being within such close proximity to someone relatively unfamiliar for such long periods of time, but—if you’ve been in this industry for longer than a minute—you know that’s not always the case.

A segment of your clientele will be made up of judgmental ass Judys.

Judgmental Judys live for salon gossip and to spit their opinions all over you while you serve as their captive audience for the duration of their appointment. They get their foot in the door with one of those seemingly harmless questions that most people never think twice about, but instead of nodding politely and muttering, “That’s nice,” before returning her gaze to her phone or magazine, she’ll follow up with a more invasive question, or start in on you with the advice.

“You’re recently divorced? What happened there?”
“You don’t have kids? Why not? Don’t you want children? You aren’t going to be young forever, you know.”
“Your wife is an artist? So, you must be the breadwinner of the household then.”

See how that happens? Just like that, Judy has got you defending and explaining yourself. No matter how much money you make, you aren’t getting paid enough to tolerate that.

Let’s agree right now that you’re entitled to a private life—and a workday free of judgment and unsolicited advice from your coworkers and the random people patronizing your workplace.

(Let’s also agree that your coworkers are entitled to a work environment where they aren’t forced to listen to you tell the same personal story twenty times a day for weeks on end.)

I’ve always felt that my personal life has no place at work. The majority of people who ask don’t care and are only inquiring because they feel socially obligated to, and a good deal of the others are merely seeking entertainment. Their motivations for asking are entirely irrelevant though, because their appointment time isn’t about us—it’s about them and ensuring their service experience and service outcome are exactly what they expected.

So, with that in mind, how do we keep the appointment focused on the client?

How do I respond when clients ask me a personal question I’m not comfortable answering?

Step 1: Deflect

Keep it simple. Wave off the question then slide into Step 2 the way your ex nonchalantly tries to slide into your DMs.

“Thanks for asking, but I don’t want to talk about me. This is your time to unwind, relax, and enjoy your treatment.”

Step 2: Redirect

From here, redirect in the way that best fits the situation.

“Can I get you anything?”
“Is the water temperature okay?”
“Is there anything you want me to know about your hair/skin/nails before we get started?”
“This product/technique I’m about to use is…”

How do I respond to a client who continues prying into my personal life?

Step 3: Reject

Attempt to deflect and redirect again, this time a little more insistently. If that fails, you need to make it clear that you’re rejecting the intrusion.

“Thanks for asking, but as a rule, I don’t talk about my personal life at work.”

The only clients who require Step 3 are the most judgy-est of Judys. Shut it down with a smile.

How do I establish boundaries with clients after I allowed them access to my personal life?

Fortunately, establishing boundaries with existing clients who have become accustomed to hearing all about your business isn’t as difficult as putting toothpaste back into the tube.

Step 1: Apologize.

You screwed up. You really, really did. Say so.

“I’ve been assessing myself lately and have realized that I made some regrettable mistakes. It was unprofessional and inappropriate to share so much of my personal life with you the way that I have.”

Step 2: Promise.

“In the future, I’m going to be more respectful of your appointment time, focusing on you and the quality of your salon experience.”

Step 3: Reclaim.

Undoubtably, a handful of clients you have this talk with will be those you’ve established rapport with who might feel as if the apology and change in your behavior isn’t at all necessary. (A decent chunk of those will be objecting because they feel obligated to.)

Should a client insist that you’ve done nothing wrong and/or don’t need to change on their behalf, reply with a reclamation of your privacy wrapped in a reiteration of the apology.

“It’s nice to know you care, but it can be easy for people in my profession to forget that our clients are not our friends or therapists—no matter how much we like them personally. At times, we can over-share, distracting the client from the service they’re paying for, robbing them of their relaxation time, and inviting them into our personal lives without necessarily intending to. Now that I recognize that I made these mistakes, I won’t be making them in the future.”

While it’s easy to establish your boundaries from the first visit, it can often be easier to communicate with existing clients. In general, people are far more understanding than we tend to assume they’ll be.

When you’re fully booked, an absence can throw your entire operation out of whack. This article will help you prepare and provide you with helpful templates and scripts, so you can slide through any expected or unexpected absence (whether short-term or long-term) unscathed.

Salon owners, we’ll address your solutions first.

Salon Owners

Understand the Law

You knew we were going to have to go here first, right? Understanding the law gives you a clear idea of how much time off a professional is entitled to and for what reasons.

Employees have certain rights when it comes to taking extended leave. (If you read Salon Ownership and Management, you can probably skip this part. If you haven’t, read on.)

The Family Medical Leave Act has different coverage criteria. As a private-sector employer who owns a salon business, the FMLA will only apply to you if you have 50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year. Employees are only eligible when they work for a covered employer for at least twelve months (accumulating at least 1,250 hours of service for that employer during that period) and at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles. The twelve months of service do not have to be consecutive.

Employees of covered employers may be eligible for up to twelve workweeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period for one of more of the following reasons:

• The birth of a child or placement of an adopted or foster child;
• To care for a spouse or immediate family member who has a serious health condition;
• To recover from a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job; or
• For any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that a spouse or immediate family member is a military member on covered active duty or call to covered active duty status.

Employees must request leave following their employer’s usual and customary requirements for requesting leave and must provide enough information for their employer to determine whether the FMLA may apply to the leave request.

Renters do not have any basis to claim leave under the FMLA. They’re self-employed tenants and must abide the terms of their lease agreement. It’s up to the landlord whether to allow them to suspend their lease without consequence or to hold them to it.

Cross-Train and Empower Your Employees

The first salon I worked in required every licensed cosmetologist to be cross-trained and to routinely rotate between departments. This strategy ensured every professional could competently perform every service on our menu. When two employees left on the same day to open their own salon, this approach paid off immensely (for obvious reasons).

Get your employees accustomed to playing more than one role.

Qualified professionals should be trained to perform every service their license empowers them to perform. This allows people to step in and pick up the pieces whenever one of your employees quits or must be absent.

Additionally, cross-training can help prevent extended absences from happening in the first place. For instance, a stylist with a sprained ankle or lower back injury that makes it painful to stand can still perform sit-down services like facials or manicures.

Cross-Train Yourself

One of the first things I tell aspiring salon owners to do is to obtain their professional license. Not only does this ensure they’ll be qualified to provide hands-on training and properly evaluate the technical performance of their employees, it guarantees at least one extra set of professional hands if the salon requires them.

You owe it to your business to have a professional license.

A salon owner without a license will find themselves dependent on their professionals, creating a situation where their employees have the leverage to essentially hold the owner hostage. More than that, an owner who lacks a license will be utterly powerless to handle an unexpected employee absence or mutiny. With a license, handling a last-minute employee illness will be as simple as taking over that employee’s appointments until they recover. No biggie.

Get Meticulous About Your Scheduling

You don’t have to be a psychic to see the future—or plan for potential outcomes before they come to pass.

You likely know when your busy periods are, and if you don’t then I’ll be happy to provide some insight. There are no hard and fast rules, but generally, you can expect a spike in walk-ins and bookings during the following times:

• The two weeks before major holidays,
• Late-April through May, and
• Whenever it is least convenient.

You can count on employee absences and departures during the following times:

• Fall/Winter (Flu Season),
• November-January (“F*#k this job” season),
• June-August (“My kid is out of school and you don’t pay me enough to cover outrageously expensive daycare costs” season).

It’s always better to be under-staffed than over-staffed, but ideally, you’ll have an employee whose book contains a bit of breathing room and a part-timer or two whose schedule can be expanded when circumstances necessitate it.

Solo Professionals

I’m not going to candy coat this for you, microsalon owners: you guys have it really rough when it comes to absences. Preparing in advance would benefit you tremendously, so let’s talk about how you can do that, starting today.

Utilize the Buddy System

If you don’t have any trusted friends in the industry in your local area, make some immediately. Ideally, your “buddy” will be someone who works in the same facility you do, but if you have to choose between a person whose skills are on-par with yours and someone who’s convenient, you’re better off going with the skilled professional.

You and your buddy (or buddies) will agree to accommodating each other’s clients when necessary.

Everyone involved should understand the risk inherent with this system. Remember, clients have the right to choose their professional. Every time your client sits in another professional’s chair, you run the risk of losing that client. However, your buddies should be trustworthy professionals who aren’t likely to actively poach your clients from you. Should your client choose to stay with them, you should feel confident that the client made that decision on their own, not due to your buddy’s powers of persuasion.

You can learn more about how the buddy system works by reading this post.

Have a Backup Assistant on Standby

Whether your absence is foreseen or unforeseen, you should have an assistant on standby to help efficiently handle the inevitable client overflow. You’ll need those extra hands when you’re working 12-hour days for a week straight (before the foreseen absence and after the unforeseen absence) to make up for missed appointments.

Be Ready for BS

I don’t know about you, but when I was on my own, some of my clients would catch an attitude when I had the nerve to take off work. It didn’t matter if I was taking a much-needed vacation or recovering from the birth of one of my children—I could count on whining, begging, bargaining, and a handful of guilt trips.

You are allowed to take care of you.

Some of these clients do these things to express their fondness of you without realizing how anxiety-inducing it can be for those of us who work in the service industry. Don’t feel obligated to accommodate the client who “simply must” get in while you’re out.

Your clients come first when you’re willing and capable of working. when you’re neither of those things, you come first.

Don’t allow clients to make you feel indentured to them. You’re a professional and a solo business owner; you are not their servant.

The following scripts should keep pushy client behaviors to a minimum, but if they start pushing you too hard, don’t be afraid to draw a hard line. Plan out how you’ll respond in advance. You don’t have an employer to step in on your behalf, so you must establish and enforce your own boundaries. The last thing you need to be worried about when you’re recovering (or chilling on a beach in Mexico) is Becky’s meltdown over her weekly blowout.

Scripts & Templates

These notifications can be used over the phone, in person, or via email or social media, whether you’re a salon owner, employee, or microsalon owner.

Foreseen Extended Absence

I will be on leave from [DATE] until [DATE]. In the interim, I recommend booking your appointments with [NAME]. While every professional here has the qualifications and training to perform exceptional services, [NAME] has specialized in [SERVICE/TECHNIQUE] for [X] years. I’ll introduce you before you leave today, if you’d like.

Foreseen Temporary Absence

For the next [X] days/weeks, I will be away. We’ll schedule your next appointment right before I depart. If that’s not possible or if you need to come in while I’m gone, I recommend booking your appointments with [NAME]. While every professional here has the qualifications and training to perform exceptional services, [NAME] has specialized in [SERVICE/TECHNIQUE] for [X] years. I’ll introduce you before you leave today, if you’d like.

Unforeseen Extended Absence

Use this script when calling clients to inform them of an unforeseen extended absence. Typically, the salon owner would be making these calls. If you’re a microsalon owner, however, you may want to entrust a friend or family member with the task.

Unfortunately, [NAME/I] will be absent from work for the next few [WEEKS/MONTHS] [and your appointment will need to be rescheduled]. Please consider booking your appointment with [PROFESSIONAL]. [Provide contact info.] [NAME/I] will keep you updated and informed [VIA EMAIL/TEXT/SOCIAL] so you’re among the first to know when [NAME/I] will be available again.

Unforeseen Temporary Absence

Unfortunately, [NAME/I] will be absent from work from [DATE] to [DATE] [and your appointment will need to be rescheduled]. We can schedule your next visit for [DATE], but if that’s too far out, I recommend booking your appointment with [PROFESSIONAL] [Provide contact info.]

Should I disclose the reason for an absence?

Employers should never disclose the reason for an employee absence unless the employee grants permission, especially if that absence is due to a sensitive personal or medical issue. It’s one thing to give the client a vague reason—it’s another to tell them the intimate details of an employee life.

Use your judgment.

“She’s out sick today.” = Okay.
“She’s been struggling with depression since her cheating husband left her.” = NOT okay.

Microsalon owners should determine for themselves whether it’s appropriate or wise to disclose the reason for an absence. When in doubt, remember that you’re much better off keeping your personal life  personal.

As industry professionals, it’s important to remember what clients are actually owed.

Clients are not owed a detailed explanation for an absence, nor are they owed access to our personal lives. They are owed timely notice and gracious accommodation. They are also owed a clear understanding of what it means to be a customer of an in-demand, fully-booked professional whose schedule doesn’t contain much (if any) flexibility. They’ll need to be told that missed appointments are incredibly difficult–if not impossible–to make up. This can result in situations where the client may end up waiting weeks or months to be seen again if they’re unwilling to accept service from another professional.

Do your best to provide those things the clients are actually owed, and don’t feel obligated to sacrifice more of yourself than is necessary or appropriate. We are human people with needs and lives outside of the salon. Anyone who doesn’t understand that or can’t respect it isn’t worth losing sleep over.

Apprenticeship is an employer-driven on-the-job training model that allows an employee to earn wages while they learn how to perform trade. Typically, apprentices are also required to follow a job-related curriculum to ensure they meet the minimum standards to attain a professional license.

Where are cosmetology apprenticeships legal?

Cosmetology apprenticeships are legal in the following states. I have linked the relevant information. However, as there are fifty states, each with their own regulations, please do not consider this list exhaustive.

If your state is not listed, don’t assume apprenticeships aren’t legal. Check with your state board.

How can an apprenticeship program benefit employers?

For starters, salon owners generally have the flexibility to customize their training strategy to meet the needs of their salon. This flexibility allows them to provide more comprehensive training in critically necessary skills and focus less on techniques and practices that may no longer be marketable or relevant. This results in a measurable competitive advantage.

There are financial benefits as well. For instance, sponsors who employ apprentices can compensate those employees less than a newly licensed graduate. Those wages will have to increase incrementally as the apprentice becomes more educated and their skills improve, but state tax credits may also be available to further help defray the cost of training.

As far as I’m concerned, the primary, most significant benefit salon owners will take from an apprenticeship program is reduced employee turnover. The facts don’t lie: apprentices tend to remain employed up to two years longer than typical employees.

According to the Department of Labor, 91% of apprentices that complete an apprenticeship are still employed nine months later.

Staffing can be extremely challenging in our industry, often through no fault of our own. The business—as a whole—suffers from high attrition rates. While I believe these issues begin in the offices of school recruiters (who often present a version of the industry that hardly resembles reality), the fact is that most of the professionals leaving the industry are doing so not because they don’t love the craft but because they weren’t adequately prepared by their educators or their employers.

Apprenticeship programs allow professionals to experience the workplace while training, in an arrangement that requires the employer and the educator to collaborate for their benefit, virtually guaranteeing that the apprentice will develop an accurate impression of the business and the job itself.

You can help create professionals who understand the industry and their role in it, and who are unlikely to experience the “rude awakening” effect driving many traditionally educated professionals away from this career.

How do apprenticeships benefit professionals?

Professionals can benefit greatly from a properly structured apprenticeship program provided by a qualified, passionate employer.

In traditional beauty schools, students are at the mercy of the curriculum and the student/teacher ratio. Apprentices may find that they get more focused attention and have more control over the education they receive.

Although they are typically required to complete more hours than traditionally educated beauty professionals, apprentices are compensated while learning. Apprentices complete their education debt-free and, unlike traditionally educated licensees, do not lose two years of compensable time.

Apprentices are also less likely to have gaps in their education.

Unfortunately, our beauty school curriculum hasn’t evolved much in the last 50 or 60 years, and it’s impractical to expect textbook publishers to keep pace with the rapid developments in techniques and product technology. It’s a well-established (and infuriating) fact that too few schools bother to give highly textured hair the training time and focus it deserves, leaving many graduates unequipped to properly serve all clients. As a result, cosmetology graduates are often not trained in vital areas, like braiding and chemical texture services. Thanks to the flexibility afforded to many sponsors, apprentices are more likely to gain experience and training in the areas our schools have neglected to adequately address.

Apprentices also receive invaluable real-world experience interacting with customers on a daily basis. While traditionally educated beauty professionals can gain this experience working on the clinic floor, there’s an important distinction between the expectations of a clinic client and a salon customer. Apprentices will typically be held to a higher standard when interacting and serving customers than a student will, and the stakes for the former are much higher than those for the latter. A negative interaction may result in disciplinary action for a student, but an apprentice could lose their job and their sponsor.

What’s the catch?

Sponsors typically have to jump through some regulatory hoops to establish the program, and there are often some reporting requirements to comply with. However, most states have apprenticeship councils and industry associations to provide support and assistance.

Apprentices require a significant time investment. Sponsors will be training a new employee from scratch. The apprentice may not have any experience at all, so it may be a while before a salon owner begins to benefit from the arrangement.

How do I create an apprenticeship program?

Step 1: Check your state regulations.

You may have some prep work to do before you’re able to begin accepting apprentices, but your state may also provide a wealth of assistance in establishing and managing a program. Most states will also register your program with the federal government for you.

Step 2: Partner with local schools and state agencies to create your program outline.

Apprenticeships typically combine on-the-job training with classroom instruction and/or independent study. If your state requires some degree of classroom instruction, you’ll likely need to partner with a community college, technical school, or other recognized education provider.

This instruction may not actually take place within a physical classroom. Many states permit apprentices to complete their classwork online.

Step 3: Calculate the apprentice’s incremental wage increases.

Apprentice wages are raised incrementally over time. (This is a requirement of the federal government and most state governments as well.) Your state may or may not require you to have your starting wage and ending wage mapped out, but it would be advisable to plan out the skill benchmarks and wage raises for your apprentices in advance. This will give them something to work toward and a sense of progression. Additionally, they will know what to expect from the program, eliminating the possibility of the terms becoming a point of contention in the future.

Step 4: Design accountability systems.

Whether your state requires it or not, create goals and protocols for evaluating and tracking the apprentice’s progress. This will hold both of you accountable to one another.

You and the apprentice are working in partnership towards the goal of producing a well-trained, competent professional. Neither party should be doing the majority of the heavy lifting.

Your accountability system could include weekly/monthly skill assessments, a detailed curriculum, performance metric monitoring, or all of the above.

How can cosmetology apprentices can avoid being scammed?

Apprentices should be wary. While I lack statistics, in my own experience as a consultant and Person Who People Complain to About Exploitation in the Beauty Industry™, I’ve been contacted a considerable number of times by apprentices who have been victimized by illegitimate sponsors. These sponsors typically didn’t pay the apprentices, required them to sign contracts that held the apprentice responsible for exorbitant “training fees” if they quit before their term expired, and didn’t provide any actual training—instead using their apprentices as free or extremely low-cost labor.

When these apprentices were due to sit for their exams, these illegitimate sponsors (nearly all of whom weren’t in compliance and didn’t have valid apprenticeship programs in the first place) would refuse to validate their hours, essentially holding their apprentice hostage by interfering with their future.

I couldn’t tell you why, but many of these complaints come from Michigan. I can only speculate, but I suspect it may be due to the fact that the sponsor has the authority to administer the exam and submit the results to the state board. Apprentices may have the option to report the sponsor and petition the board for the ability to sit for the exam without sponsor endorsement, but if there’s a protocol for that, I can find no evidence of it.

To avoid falling into a scam, aspiring apprentices should be very familiar with their state’s requirements for apprenticeship programs and should plan to hold themselves accountable for ensuring their rights aren’t violated (for instance, by tracking their own hours and keeping a daily service record).

A program is only as good as the sponsor running it.

Those who wish to pursue apprenticeship as a path to licensure should look out for the following red flags:

• “Intern” apprentices: This isn’t a thing. The words “intern” and “apprentice” cannot be used interchangeably as they aren’t synonymous. Interns in legal internship programs are not considered employees and do not displace regular employees, whereas apprentices certainly are considered employees and do displace regular employees. A proper sponsor knows this.
• No compensation: As stated earlier, apprentices must be paid. Any “sponsor” who tells you that apprentices aren’t eligible for pay isn’t a real sponsor.
• No applications, written agreements, or recordkeeping: Requirements vary from state to state, but generally, apprentices must submit an application to the state board for approval, the program must be registered and have an approved outline, and sponsors must track an apprentice’s hours. (See Alabama’s cosmetology apprenticeship requirements, for example.)
• More than one apprentice: Again, laws vary, but few permit sponsors to apprentice more than one person at a time.
• Sponsor intimidation and/or evasion when questioned or challenged: Every time I’m contacted about apprenticeships, it’s by a professional who has become alarmed at their sponsor’s behavior and treatment of them. In every instance where this has been their primary motivation for contacting me, the apprenticeship has not been legitimate. If a potential sponsor can’t or won’t answer your questions patiently, respectfully, or with answers that makes sense, that person likely isn’t really a sponsor.

Potential apprentices would be well advised to do their own research about their state’s requirements for a legal apprenticeship program before entertaining the idea.

Ultimately, it will be up to you to ensure you’re entering a valid arrangement. It’s always better to avoid being taken advantage of than to attempt to hold someone responsible for exploiting you after-the-fact.

If you’re interested in creating an apprenticeship program in your salon or seeking licensure through apprenticeship, check out the following resources. If you have any experience in this area that you’d like to share, tell us in the comments!

U.S. Department of Labor: Quick-Start Apprenticeship Toolkit https://www.doleta.gov/oa/employers/apprenticeship_toolkit.pdf
Apprenticeship.gov https://www.apprenticeship.gov/
U.S. Department of Labor: Apprenticeships https://www.dol.gov/apprenticeship/toolkit/toolkitfaq.htm#1b