by To be independent, to work any time you want, not to give part of your fee to someone else – this all can be said about the work of a freelance professional freelance makeup artist professional website. That’s why it is not wonderful at all that aspiring creatives in the sphere are wondering how to become a freelance makeup artist.
However, not everything is so perfect. The more pluses the more competitors who also want to follow the same way of making the makeup career.
From the article new business, you will learn what steps should be done to work as a freelance professional makeup artist local businesses and how to be successful in your own business.
Let’s come straight to the point!
Pluses of freelance successful freelance makeup artist work
Flexibility
You are the only person who is in charge of making all the decisions concerning your successful makeup artist work. Just imagine it: you create your work flexible schedule setting makeup certification your own hours for work, you set all the prices new business, you choose clients, you make all the changes in your work. However, consider that the reverse side flexible schedule of the medal is that freedom cause by the absence of an employer also means a huge amount of additional duties such as self-promotion, communication with clients, counting costs, etc.
Sociability
You do makeup for different people every working day makeup certification.
Creativity
There’s a big space for your imagination, of course, it depends on the type of client – whether he/she has a clear and strict demand or not – and on the type of makeup looks you do – it is simple daily avant garde makeup or it is theatrical makeup, for example.
Opportunity
You can rise to heights if you work hard: work with celebrities, become famous and successful makeup artist, open your avant garde makeup school, produce your own makeup products and so on.
Brand collaborations
Even if your blog is not big at all, you still can collaborate with brands getting fees or free products for ads local businesses.
Minuses of becoming a freelance makeup artist work
High competition
A big number of makeup artists with quite good makeup skills result in long hard work other job.
Lots of hustle
You need to spend lots of time on searching freelance makeup jobs.
Long time of establishing your personal brand
You don’t have a team or a company, so it can take lots of time to cover a big amount of people.
An esthetician or cosmetology license is possible to be necessary
It depends on the law of your state, check yours.
How to Become a Freelance Makeup Artist: A Step-by-Step Guide
0) Figure out features of your State law
Before you decide on the way of mastering makeup artistry, it is vital to research the laws, because laws in some States suppose that you need to get a cosmetology or esthetician licence to begin working as a becoming a freelance makeup artist. You should specify whether your state has this point in laws or not other job.
Getting an insurance
Consider getting an insurance. There are different types of insurance, for example, General liability insurance (covers personal and advertising injury, property damage) and Professional liability insurance (covers mistakes caused financial loss of a client).
Choose the one that suits you more and that will be more beneficial. Even if you work only at the weekends, you can still get an appropriate insurance. There are types of insurances that are active in the concrete periods.
1) Learn How to do Makeup Perfectly
The most important thing in professional makeup training freelance artist portfolio as in any artistry is theory combined with practice.
Of course, there are many examples of highly professional freelance makeup artists without formal education, but becoming a makeup artist of high level not attending any classes at all is just impossible. In addition, accomplishing a class will be your advantage which will attract clients.
Nowadays there’s a possibility to take makeup online courses. It is really convenient if you don’t have lots of time or if you want to get to a concrete professional who is far away. Moreover, here you can watch online classes several times. However, the minus is that not all the courses have feedback provided, so choose a class attentively, if it’s important for you.
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It is advisable to exercise every day for at least an hour to achieve ideal skills.
It will be a big plus if you will practice your makeup not only on yourself, but also on your friends, because applying makeup training to you and another person are 2 quantitatively different things. People have diverse skin types, skin tones, eye colors, eyebrow and eyelash colors, facial features; everyone’s face shapes is unique, too.
2) Reflect on your Makeup Services and Makeup Skills
Before you start to work as a makeup artist, maybe you need to figure out your strengths and weaknesses to be absolutely sure in yourself and to accomplish your work truly professionally. After estimating your makeup work from different sides, it is necessary to find ways how to eliminate the disadvantages.
The ways can include a bigger amount of practice, attending a special course in the area where you have problems (airbrush makeup, creative makeup, bridal makeup…), watching some videos on the necessary topics, and so on.
Besides the usual duties of hired makeup artists, being your own boss requires you to take over the following functions:
Organizational skills
Oragnization in makeup includes such skills as time management, financial management, keeping track of the clients. Just imagine the result of not doing these points or doing them not good enough. You will be late and consequently lose your clients’ trust and them. You will not be able to understand whether you put adequate prices or not, whether you get profit or not, what the structure of your products prices are and what the ways to enhance efficiency of the business are.
Work ethic
Not every aspiring makeup artist has a correct picture of what lies ahead in their makeup jobs and how much energy they’re going to put into the work. Since the competition is big, your expectations can be lower than necessary.
You will have to not only work really hard learning all the subtleties of makeup business and makeup skills themselves, you also will have to master all the skills needed, e.g. communication skills, marketing skills. On your way to a successful personal brand, be ready for lots of kinds of work: communication with different people, attending events, buying advertisements, etc.
Tech Knowledge
By “tech knowledge” we don’t mean that you have to be tech-savvy, we only mean the knowledge of online culture and especially social media accounts. Your accounts on Instagram, facebook page and/or Twitter (whatever you choose) will become the main source of communication both with your potential clients, new clients, and constant ones.
Related article: How to Become Famous on Facebook
Practically all the functions can be accomplished with the help of social media.
Since social media is incredibly powerful source of clients flow, it is vital to design your profiles tastefully.
For example, design of Instagram page contains:
- processing of photos (you can buy or download presets for photos to get the same color scheme in the whole account; it doesn’t mean you can’t use different presets, but they have to be similar);
- profile header;
- name of the account;
- highlights;
- profile picture.
All these parts of the profile have to pare with each other well and be in one style.
Besides, the design should be appropriate and represent your makeup style, and of course you should like it, eventually, it is your business, so the design has to reflect you and your taste. Moreover, now, when personal brands are developing intensely, it will be especially cool if you will show yourself, it will attract customers and increase the level of their trust in you.
If you really can’t make high-quality design, hire a professional or ask your friend.
Professional makeup artistry portfolio
A portfolio plays an essential role in your success. Just like your social media, it will be your face for the audience. It must contain professional photos, so you will have to hire other professionals from other areas to make a photoshoot: a fashion stylist, a hairstylist, a photographer, models, etc. Not to pay rate a big sum of money, attract beginners.
For a low-budget option, ask your friends to help you or find beginners from other spheres to gain some experience.
You can place “Before” and “After” photos for a bigger effect. This way, people will be able to divide the appearance of models and the effect of cosmetics and, consequently, to estimate the quality of your work even better.
3) Choose the niche
Choosing your niche and doing the makeup of concrete types will ease your first steps in the makeup career and it actually minimizes the number of cosmetics and tools that you will need for the first time.
If you haven’t decide on your niche, follow these steps to learn what niche will suit you.
Imagine your perfect client
Would you likely accept a suggestion to do bridal makeup, daily makeup, evening makeup, or maybe another one? Consider what kind of atmosphere, what events you want to work with.
Describe your preferable place of work
Are you okay with moving all around the city to get to your clients or you’d better stay in your studio space? You can also compare costs here. On one hand, you have to pay rent for a studio, on the other hand, transport costs result in quite a big sum.
Name your makeup style
What is closer for you: to create dramatic images which change people beyond recognition or just to enhance the natural beauty of your clients? Would you choose to do colorful, glossy, and even audacious makeup or do you prefer calm, peaceful makeup of muted tones?
4) Build Your Professional Makeup Kit
To buy a professional makeup kit is quite expensive. However, we hope you understand that getting a professional kit is extremely important since makeup tools are one of the main parts of your work.
Although some ways how to economize still exist. The first way is to buy a professional course with a makeup kit already included in the price. The second way is to search for discounts and stores with accessible prices. Finally, of course, you can buy a little bit cheaper cosmetics and tools, but we really don’t advise you to economize a lot.
Since you’re an aspiring makeup artist and you’re preparing to work as a makeup artist soon, we’re sure that you already know many subtleties of cosmetics, but there are some moments we want to remind you of.
For example, the important point is lightning, which you probably have to buy to be able to do makeup in poor light. Purchase several variations of each product which depends on some appearance features (eyebrow pencil, foundation, etc.). Also, it is necessary to remember all the details: spare towels, wet wipes, and all the tools for cleaning.
5) Establish boundaries in makeup business
Many beginners in the beauty industry as well as in any other sphere make a mistake by taking too many orders. It will exhaust you which may end up in your emotional burnout and low quality work.
A big part of the orders may be formed of makeup that you are not sure of or just don’t want to do. There’s nothing strange or unprofessional about rejecting orders which are not in your specialization.
It is necessary to learn to say “No” if you have problems in this area.
Remember that people will treat you in the same way as you treat yourself. This law works not only in the makeup business but in life in general. Here, the most important rule to stick to is to have a reasonable sense of proportion.
6) Be insistent
It is vital for a beginning specialist not only to refuse of undesirable orders, but also, on the contrary, to promote the makeup services actively. However, there’s a common feature in these actions: confidence that lies in the base of both of them. If you promote your makeup services intensively, you are sure of your level of its quality.
Of course, it matters how you present yourself. Don’t give your potential clients to doubt in you: speak loudly and clearly, don’t agree to overwork for free, don’t underestimate the prices, etc. However, it is important not to go too far here, too.
This advise will be extremely useful for your career because you will have to interact with diverse people a lot. On the early stages of a makeup artist career, you use absolutely different places to search for customers: at events, at parties, on special occasions (e.g. at bridal parties, birthdays) in makeup stores, in your close circle of friends and family. So, remember to mention your new work wherever you are and order business cards for convenience and a bigger impression. It is even better if you always keep the business cards in your purse just in case you meet someone.
You shouldn’t wait until some occasions happen in your life, connect with different organisations by yourself. For example, this can be beauty salons, wedding planners, or any other places where makeup artists may be needed. If you don’t mind employment or freelance jobs which not as a makeup artist, but as a worker only connected with the sphere, you can try to work at a makeup counter in one of local retail stores.
Posting photos on social media will help you bring new clients, too. Moreover, active accounts will be helpful in spreading information about you by your current clients. It will be even more persuasive if you are glad clients will show plenty of your gorgeous photos of makeup.
7) Stay Current with Makeup Beauty Trends and Keep Learning
As you know, one of the main traits of fashion is to change extremely quickly. That’s why it is important to monitor trends in makeup industry constantly and to keep practicing to build a successful career. If you don’t follow trends, then many other other makeup artists will do it and take your current and potential clients from you. Even if they don’t, your status with your clients will be raised.
Eventually, you just will have more clients because many people want to follow last trends.
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How long does it take to become a makeup artist?
On average, it takes about 6 months to learn the basics of makeup artistry.
By basics, we mean knowledge of the main makeup looks, appearance types, makeup tools, makeup techniques and skill to choose right makeup look/looks for each appearance type.
How much money do makeup artists make?
Makeup industry can provide with quite significant rates per hour, however, as we discussed before, it is difficult to gain respect and client base. So, your earnings depend on your skills and experience basically.
Aspiring other makeup artists usually make $10 per hour. A successful freelance makeup artist can get even $80 per hour. In general, according to CareerExplorer, the average salary of a freelance makeup artist is $30 per hour.
How much should you charge?
The main factors influencing the pricing of your makeup artistry are:
- Your reputation.
- Your experience.
- Location. The richer a city the higher prices.
- Extras. Eyelashes, glitter, highlight, the contour can be available only for an extra fee.
- Hairstyling. Some makeup artists suggest their services also in another area.
- Quality of cosmetics and makeup products.
- Level of difficulty of your services. For example, transformational makeup is more expensive freelance makeup jobs than just light daily makeup.
- Duration of your services.
To learn approximate charges, do a little research and look for prices that your competitors take. They should have all the parameters the same as you: city, experience, technique, etc.
This is all!
We hope the article was useful and you have learned all the necessary information on how to freelance makeup jobs artist.
Good luck in your freelance career!Haven’t found yourself yet?how about becoming a flight attendant with no experience?
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