All you need are three all-natural ingredients – sugar, lemon juice and water – to form a sugaring paste. Some sugaring techs spice up their paste formulas with a drop or two of essential oils, maybe a dash of honey, but the basic ingredients remain the same. A natural product, sugar only adheres to hair and dead skin cells, so the procedure does not agitate healthy skin.

Generally, you’ll need an esthetician’s license before you can train to practice sugaring. There are many online courses available to train in the skill. Also, beauty salons and spas throughout the country offer training as a sugaring tech. Most of these in-person courses can be completed in a day, after which you’ll receive a certificate you can display in your salon – and start sugaring.

You can make decent money offering sugaring services, but again, being able to offer sugaring means you’ll attract more clients to your business. So getting trained in sugaring gives your customers one more reason to choose your salon over all the others.

Sounds sweet? Let’s get ready to train in sugaring. 

In this article you’ll learn:

• How much money you can make as a sugaring technician
• The required training and certifications
• Professional groups to join
• Employment opportunities for sugaring technicians
• Finding clients
• Plus helpful tips for new sugaring techs

How much money can you make?

Salaries for sugaring techs range from $33,000 to $38,000 annually. By training to become certified as an esthetician, in addition to sugaring services you can nearly double your annual income to an average of $73,000. Information on how to become a certified esthetician can be found in Chapter 1.

Salaries for sugaring techs also depend on your employment location. Sugaring technicians working in department stores, for example, actually make more money than those employed at spas and resorts.

You can check average salaries for your state with EstheticianEdu.org’s searchable web page.

Training and Certification

There are dozens of online training programs in sugaring. Many spas and beauty salons also offer in-house training, which is beneficial because you get hands-on experience.

Because licensing regulations vary widely around the country, the first thing to do is find out what’s required by the state where you plan to practice sugaring. Here’s a state-by-state listing of official governing agencies.

Even if your locality does not require formal licensing, becoming trained in sugaring is still important because it takes skill to perform the procedure successfully. You can’t just whip up a sugar and lemon-juice paste with a dash of water and start removing hair from your clients’ bodies. It takes practice.

Training course fees typically range from $500 to $1,000 or more, with $750 to $800 being average. Most training courses can be completed in a day. In-person training at a salon or spa tends to cost a little more than online training, but again, the advantage is you get immediate hands-on experience. If you choose the on-line route to training, you could ask friends to be test subjects so you can get some actual sugaring practice under your belt.

Here’s what you’ll learn during training:

• Hair removal theory
• How to consult clients on the process, covering what to do and what to avoid before and after their appointments
• Preparing sugaring paste (if you don’t wish to buy a prepared formulation)
• Practicing sugaring technique on a model
• How to sugar different areas of the body

If your state requires certification as an esthetician to perform sugaring, join the National Coalition of Estheticians, Manufacturers/Distributors & Associations (NCEA). This is the most-respected organization for certifying professional estheticians in the United States.

The cost of training with the NCEA ranges from $664 if you pay in installments, to as low as $600 for paying upfront. You can complete the training and take your final exam at home with study materials delivered via email from the NCEA. For detailed information on becoming an esthetician, see Chapter 1.

Check out this video of a common sugaring procedure to get a feel for what’s involved.

This video offers a demonstration of how to apply the sugaring formulation the way the pros do it.

Professional Groups to Join

Consider joining The Professional Beauty Association to meet other sugaring technicians and enjoy continuing education opportunities that can advance your career. This association offers three membership levels, bronze, silver and gold, starting at $195 a year. Bronze is probably the right choice for an individual membership. The gold level is mainly for salon owners who can add up to 30 employees on the same membership for a $1,500 annual fee.

Benefits of joining include social networking (a good way to find out about job openings), plus continuing education, conferences and special events, and discounts on liability, health, dental, and vision group insurance.

If you pursue certification as an esthetician as part of your career preparations, maintaining your membership in the National Coalition of Estheticians, Manufacturers/Distributors & Associations (NCEA) will further expand your professional network while holding onto a valuable credential.

Employment

Local spas and beauty salons should be your first destination. Many offer sugaring services to clients and those that do not can probably be convinced that they should. Bring copies of your resume, licenses and certifications, as well as photocopied images of your sugaring work (or a business card with links to your website and Instagram account). Your attractiveness as a job candidate – and opportunities for making a larger income – will only increase if sugaring is just one of the beauty services in your skill set.

If you’re able to relocate, online job-search sites like ZipRecruiter, Simply Hired and Indeed.com can turn up dozens of job opportunities for sugaring techs. Bear in mind that when moving to another state you’ll need to be in training and certification with that state’s laws before you can work.

Finding Clients

In addition to your business website, create an Instagram account to showcase your sugaring services. The idea is to post plenty of “before” and “after” photos with hashtags so that people looking for sugaring services can find you. For example, using #Eyebrowsugaring as a hashtag will cause your Instagram page to pop up when people search for eyebrow sugaring on the platform. Instagram is the #1 online venue for sugaring artists to display their work. Be sure to get written permission from your clients before you post images of their faces. Close-up shots of eyebrows and sugaring work are probably okay to use if no individual can be identified by the images.

Other strategies for attracting new business:

• Give discounts to new customers.
• Create a referral program with discounts for returning customers who bring new clients to you.
• Ask clients to review your services online. According to a survey, 90% of people say their buying decisions are influenced by positive online reviews.
• Ask all new clients to complete a simple form about their interest in your sugaring services. Get their contact information on the form. This lets you follow up with clients and increase repeat business.

Good to know:

When consulting with clients about their sugaring procedure, there are important pre- and post-procedure topics you should discuss with them. Here’s what your clients need to know:

• Exfoliate the skin a minimum of 2 days before an appointment.
• Do not exfoliate the day before, the day of or the day after the sugaring procedure.
• Do not moisturize before the appointment. That means no lotions or creams on the body area to be treated.
• Avoid using deodorant the day of the appointment if getting underarms sugared.
• Wait four to six weeks for regrowth of hair before scheduling another sugaring appointment.

In addition, for at least 24 hours after sugaring treatment, clients should avoid:

• Applying scented lotions or creams
• Exfoliating the skin (wait at least 48 hours after a sugaring treatment)
• Using deodorant (if the underarms were sugared)
• Heat (no saunas, steam rooms or hot-yoga studios for at least a day)
• Direct sunlight, tanning beds and infrared lamps
• Working out
• Make-up (if the procedure involved facial sugaring)
• Touching, scratching or rubbing the treated area

If you enjoyed this article, check out some other PocketSuite.io content that can help you grow your career as a sugaring technician. Here’s a great place to start.

PocketSuite has thousands of business owners who all started where you are right now. Our community is always happy to help you ramp up, grow your client base, and achieve your income goals, both within the PocketSuite app and as part of our exclusive Facebook Community Group. PocketSuite’s vision is for any professional to be able to work for themselves and make a great living. It starts here. It starts with you. It starts today. Let’s get started, download PocketSuite now! Feel free to reach out with any questions (we’d love to hear from you)! Text us @ (415) 841-2300.

If you’ve been dreaming of a career in the beauty industry or just want to build on your professional accomplishments, the information in this book can help make your dreams come true.

We’re going to take a look at what you need to do to become a certified esthetician as well as the training required for some of the most popular cosmetic procedures practiced today at spas and salons throughout the country. You can earn a great living as an esthetician while enjoying the professional satisfaction that comes from using your knowledge and artistic skills to help others feel better about themselves by enhancing their appearance.

In this PocketSuite guide you’ll also discover how much you can earn by offering each procedure, what’s involved in getting started, the best professional organizations to join for advancing your career, where to look for employment and how to draw more clients to your beauty business. There’s even a section on helpful tips when you’re just starting out. Each chapter in this eBook outlines the certification requirements and costs to train in several different beauty procedures.

Download the Book

All of these esthetician specialties included in this single eBook!

Contents

• Chapter 1 How to Become an Esthetician
• Chapter 2 How to Become a Lash technician
• Chapter 3 How to Become a Brow technician
• Chapter 4 How to Become a Microblade artist
• Chapter 5 How to Become a Threading technician
• Chapter 6 How to Become a Sugaring technician

Download the Book

Source: Trader Education

Are you an Esthetician solopreneur or possibly a small business owner with an Esthetics or Beauty business, and you’re interested in getting more clients from Yelp? Yelp has been under some major scrutiny following allegations and even multiple lawsuits claiming they were unfairly punishing businesses for choosing not to pay for advertising – i.e. extortion. However, as explored in this extensive article we’ve written on this topic, Yelp is still conclusively a great place for small business owners to find more clients, especially in the skincare and personal grooming industry.

For this reason, we will be covering some important tips today that will help you as an Esthetician get more business from Yelp.

Before we begin, let me preface this by saying that Yelp has been underfire for quite some time, but still has a large volume of consumers using its platform to find Beauticians and Estheticians such as yourself.

So even though you may disagree with their alleged business practices, we can’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak.

Given that tens of millions of consumers are still searching for services on Yelp, how can we use that reality to our advantage and come out on top and profitable?

Let’s get right to it – how do you win on Yelp as an Esthetician?

Source: Elegant Themes

HOW TO DOMINATE YELP AS AN ESTHETICIAN

Maybe you’ve heard of the new documentary, Billion Dollar Bully.

Or perhaps you’ve read articles regarding Yelp’s alleged mafia-like business practices.

Either way, it’s no excuse for you not to take the time to investigate this challenge of a business and attempt to use it to your advantage.

If you were able to opt out of being featured on Yelp, this article would definitely have a different tone to it.

But as the situation stands, there is no way for businesses to opt out of having their listing (and public reviews) displayed for the world to see.

That being the case, let’s see if we can turn lemons into lemonade on this situation. If you’re already in the belly of the beast, you might as well make the most of it!

Let’s get to the practical aspects of how to win on Yelp as an Esthetician.

Source: Yelp

STEP ONE: OPTIMIZE YOUR PROFILE

Make sure your pictures are on point, including pictures of you holding up your Esthetician license, as we mentioned in our article on How to Run your Esthetician Business on PocketSuite.

One tip is to make sure you have plenty of pictures of smiling, overjoyed clients that received a facial or other beauty treatment from you.

Secondly, make sure that you have a Yelp Deal set up.

It doesn’t have to be a huge discount (something like $15 for $10), but it will make it so there is a green ‘Yelp Offer’ button next to your profile in the listings, which will draw consumers’ attention to your profile and distinguish it from the litany of other Estheticians on the platform

Make sure you input all of your business information, such as:

• Hours of operation
• Location (Physical Address)
• Phone Number
• Website
• Services offered
• Women-operated business (a new Yelp feature)
• A description of your business

In the description, try to speak from the heart and write about what made you decide to get into the Beauty and Esthetics field.

You’d also be wise to include information such as how long you’ve been in business, what product lines you carry, and your PocketSuite online booking link (so folks can book your services directly from Yelp).

Additionally, keep an eye on your email or Yelp app, as that’s where you’ll get notifications that you have a new message in the Yelp Messaging center.

Your customers will be reaching out to you via the ‘Contact this Business’ button, and when they do, Yelp will offer to automatically send their message to other businesses.

For this reason, it’s absolutely imperative to follow up quickly, so other Estheticians don’t gobble up your potential clients by booking them before you have a chance to!

This is another reason to have the PocketSuite online booking functionality as you can include your booking link in your follow-up messages to the folks that reach out to you through Yelp.

This cuts down on the friction of forcing them to call you and instead allows them to self book your services with a single tap or click.

Now that we’ve covered some practical ways to improve your Yelp profile, let’s talk about how you can get more 5 star reviews as this is the fuel that will propel your profile into the top ranks of Yelp where you will be discovered by more clients and get more views – and more bookings!

STEP TWO: GET MORE 5 STAR REVIEWS

An easy way to get more 5 star reviews is to ask your happy clients to post reviews on your Yelp profile.

“But how do I distinguish my happy clients from the disgruntled ones,” you ask.

Easily – by surveying each client post-service to find out their opinion on the quality of the treatment they received.

For example – let’s say you recently performed a stellar facial for your client Lisa.

You should contact Lisa via email, phone, or text message the day after her appointment, and ask something like this:

“Hey Lisa! It’s [Your name] with [Your business name]. I wanted to thank you for choosing us for your facial treatment yesterday. I wanted to get your feedback on what you thought about your service as this does help us to improve.”

Wait for the client to give you the feedback. If it’s negative, thank them for their feedback and try to make the changes requested or mentioned in the clients’ message.

If the feedback is positive, immediately follow up with something to this effect:

“Thank you Lisa. We do strive to provide amazing service, and I’m happy you’re impressed! I was wondering if you would be willing to share your experience by posting a review on our Yelp page? It would really help us out.”

You can also offer to text or email the happy client a link to your Yelp profile, which will make the process easier for them and improve the chances that they’ll actually post a review.

As a bonus pro-tip, you can repeat this process for other review platforms like Google or Facebook.

Side bar: You can actually automate the entire process of asking for an internal review and then a Yelp review in PocketSuite. Check out “Smart Campaigns” in PocketSuite to learn more.

So now that you’ve built up a respectable Yelp profile with good information, a sharp follow up system, and lots of 5 star reviews, you should see new business rolling in.

The next question is, how do you manage all of the scheduling, payments, messaging, and the rest of the routine tasks that typically come with running your own small business?

Here’s where PocketSuite steps in to help – you can book clients online, accept payments, take deposits, sell products, manage your inventory, and a whole lot more – all from a single app.

Try the Premium FREE trial and see why the ASCP (Association of Skin Care Professionals) specifically recommends using PocketSuite to all of their Estheticians!

If you’re already using PocketSuite, here’s how to set it up for your Esthetics business.

Like this article? You’ll love these articles:

• Why You Should Get Your Esthetician License
• How to Run your Esthetician Business on PocketSuite
• How to Market your Esthetician Business on Instagram
• Our guide on how to generate leads for service businesses in 2022
• Our Frustrations with Square article
• Taste the Sweet Success of Sugaring