Hi Caroline,
I also did a HND in Beauty Therapy, graduated 2013 but I've been in the industry for 18 years now and lots has changed, yes.
If you want to do things properly and really make a go of it the best place to start is with excellent training courses that will give you confidence in yourself and the products you use - enabling you to charge higher prices for the services you provide which means you can earn a decent living without running yourself into the ground doing fast, cheap treatments with potential problems arising from product breakdown. You do not need that stress and worry, you want to enjoy every moment of your exciting return to the beauty industry and have some fun along the way.
I've used a lot of different brands over the years working in other salons but when I started my business 2 years ago I chose CND products because they are THE BEST. CND are world leaders in nail products and I'm yet to use anything that rivals them. If you've done an L&P course previously you should be able to do the CND Conversion course, and if you've got a manicure qualification I'm pretty sure you can do the CND Shellac Conversion course. Excellent training will give you a rush of excitement for your new business, the trainers are amazing and so helpful. Plus other people doing the training on the course are always so lovely and usually all different levels of experience in the industry get talking to them for some tips. Call Sweet Squared for info on CND courses the staff are very helpful.
Sweet Squared are good suppliers. They don't just sell CND products but lots of other brands too. They've recently added LASHUS to their line. Would you be better off doing lash lifts instead of lash extensions as it's a much much quicker treatment with excellent results, little maintenance for clients and really good profit margins for you. Lash extensions can be very time consuming to learn and to pick up speed, so if you have plenty of time on your hands to practice then great go for it - if not though choose to provide treatments that you're going to pick up quickly to earn the money you need then maybe later on down the line when your business is a little more established you can see how much free time you have to dedicate to courses that'll take you a bit longer to refine. Although, if you are going to train in lash extensions then Nouveau and Lash Perfect are good places to start.
What type of facials do you plan on offering? Is it more for relaxation or results driven? Or do you just want the products to retail for extra income? Dermalogica is my all-time favourite because the results are brilliant but they don't supply to mobile or home based salons unfortunately. Eve Taylor I wasn't that impressed by I'm afraid but maybe that's because I've used Dermalogica since 2007 and nothing else I've used so far has produced similar results, I've tried a lot of other brands over the years.
Another tip that may help with your confidence is having a good insurance company, they are usually very helpful with and full of advice for what you can and can't do etc and I find it helps with setting out your rules to follow for clients and treatments, it's good to know you have back up when working alone, you have to build up your support network. A lot of insurance companies give free subscriptions to trade magazine like Scratch which is a great source of information and inspiration. Also membership to Babtac will be very useful too.
Hope that helps a bit x
