A business journal for independent beauty pros, by salonMonster
Part 2 of 3 in our cancellation policy series. New here? Part 1 covers why a policy matters and the terms worth defining first. There is no universal “correct” cancellation window or fee for every beauty business. A barber with 30-minute appointments can sometimes refill an opening faster than a colourist who reserved half a …
You finish a colour service, sweep the floor, walk your client to the counter, and take payment on a separate terminal. Then the payment admin begins. You type the sale into one system. You enter the card total into another. At the end of the day, you compare numbers and try to work out why …
There are conversations you walk away from feeling like you’ve just had coffee with someone who’s lived three lifetimes in a single career. My chat with Sonya Dove was one of those. If somehow you don’t know the name: Sonya is the artistic director for Intercoiffure, a 42-year veteran of Wella, and a member of …
Part 1 of 3 in our cancellation policy series. Your five-hour colour appointment does not cancel itself. It arrives as a text at 10:47 p.m.: “So sorry! Something came up. Can we do next week?” Now you are deciding whether to charge a fee, waive it, explain the rule you thought the client knew, and …
There’s a specific moment most people don’t notice happening to them. An idea shows up: a weird one, a big one, the kind that doesn’t come with instructions. And before it’s even finished forming, a second voice jumps in: Would that actually work? That question feels like good judgment. It isn’t. It’s premature finishing. You’re …
There’s a character showing up everywhere right now, in the shows everyone’s watching, in the brands people are actually loyal to, in the conversations that stick with you after you’ve already left the room. They’re not the hero. They’re not trying to be. They don’t have a highlight reel. They’re not performing gratitude for the …
There’s a conversation happening in the music industry right now that’s gotten loud enough for the general public to start paying attention. Artists being asked to play weddings for free. Producers being offered a shoutout in exchange for a track. Session musicians, the invisible hands behind some of the most recognized songs on the radio, …
Are you old enough to remember the days of the Yellow Pages? That massive brick of yellow paper didn’t just make a great doorstop, it was the main place people looked to find anything. Every business owner had to have an ad in the Yellow Pages. Today, the Yellow Pages are a thing of the …
This one started with a broken leg. A few weeks ago one of our team members got hurt, nothing life threatening, just one of those unexpected things that shows up without asking. And almost immediately, without really talking about it, the rest of us started shifting. We started showing up a little differently. Checking in …
The rise of “stylist horror story” content and what hairdressers can actually do about it
There’s a particular kind of gut punch that hairdressers know well. It usually arrives as a notification… a tagged post, a comment from a colleague, a client’s username in your DMs; and when you click through, you find yourself watching a video of someone you just spent four hours with, describing your work like you were the worst thing that ever happened to their hair.
The caption says “stylist horror story.”
The comments say “girl run.”
And somewhere in the retelling, the consultation disappeared. The formula discussion disappeared. The three reference photos you both agreed on disappeared. What’s left is a narrative that’s clean, shareable and almost entirely fictional… and it has your salon’s name in it.