Cosmetologist

Cosmetologist and barbers are people providing hair care services to enhance the appearance of their clients. Other personnel who works for personal appearance enhancements are manicurist and pedicurist, theatrical or performance make up artists, shampooers, and skin care specialists. These people provide specialized services for helping clients look and be at their best.

Cosmetologists, along with hairdressers and hairstylists provide a wide range of beauty services. These services include cutting, shampooing, coloring and also styling hair. Cosmetologists and hairstylist may also advise their clients on how to care for their hair at home. Furthermore, cosmetologists could also be trained to offer manicure and pedicure, facial and scalp treatment, make up analysis, and clean and style hair pieces and wigs.

Cosmetologists also keep a record of the skin regimen and hair color used by their regular clients. More and more are now actively selling hair, nail and skin care products. Other cosmetologists, barbers and personal appearance workers operating their own salons also have managerial responsibilities including hiring, operating and firing workers. They are also the ones keeping business and inventory records, the ones ordering supplies and arranging for ads and running marketing campaigns.

Training and Education

To become a cosmetologist, a GED or high school diploma is required in some states. Most States also require for cosmetologist and barbers to complete a course or program in a state licensed beauty school. Both public high school and private post secondary vocational schools offer programs in skin care, hairstyling as well as other services for personal appearance.

Full time programs in cosmetology and barbering usually takes about 9 months and may become an associate degree, but other non-technical training for manicuring, shampooing and skin care needs less time.

Licenses

Each state has a requirement for cosmetologists and barbers as well as for personal appearance service personnel to have a license; exempting only shampooers and make up artists. The qualification licenses usually differ in each state but generally, a person needs to have a diploma in high school or GED, be at least 16 years old, and must have graduated from a State-licensed beauty school.

Students need to take a state licensing exam after graduation. Most states may credit cosmetology training to a barbering license and vice versa while there are also some states combining the two licenses. Some states also have reciprocity agreements allowing licensed cosmetologist and barber to get licenses from other states with having any more training but this agreement is not very common.

Other Cosmetology Qualifications

Aside from education gathered from beauty schools, personal appearance workers such as cosmetologists and barbers should have a good understanding of fashion, technical design and art. Cosmetologists should also have a neat personal outlook and a well-kept work area. To attain success in this field, image, attitude and interpersonal skills are very important.

To keep their current clients and increase their sales, cosmetologist and personal appearance workers should also have that ability to become an effective sales person. For some schools in cosmetology, people skills are considered to be an essential part of the job that is needed for the assignments in that area. For those who are also planning to run their own salons, business skills are also an important qualification to have.