Male Waxing Blog

Archive for the ‘Training’ Category

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a Perron Rigot Discovery Day in London at the Thalgo Head Office (the UK distributors) with Andy Rouillard of Axiom Bodywords in Basingstoke.

They are the first of these events that I have attended and are so brilliant. The afternoon started off with an introduction to the brand and it’s history, and then the range of products available. With the Signature, Aromatherapy, Hypoallergenic and Natural lines there are a lot of products to choose from! Each range has its own strip / warm wax selection and non-strip / hot wax products. You work with them all in the same way, they just have slightly different formulations depending on which line they are in.

And then the real fun starts – playing with the waxes! Plenty of each type of wax to choose from, and the opportunity to try them out on both male waxing and female waxing clients. Ear and nostril demonstrations are always popular at these events.

If you haven’t tried the new generation style of hot non-strip waxes then you should get in touch with Thalgo and book onto the next days course! They charge £20, but this is then a credit against any product you purchase on the day.

These are the products I use everyday in my practice on all clients, and they will travel further and pay more for the experience because it is so much better!

I believe this may be the first course of its kind, and one that many in the health and beauty industry have been calling out for. It is a one day workshop that shows therapists how to make the most of our the Internet and their websites for building their client base.

Traditionally, in the days before the Internet clients would rely on word of mouth referrals, local listings such as Yellow Pages, or even newspaper adverts. As technology moved on so did how clients find therapists. For example when was the last time you were looking for a local business and the first place you turned was a telephone directory? It is more likely to be Google or another internet search engine.

A lot of therapists and salons will set up their own website, and that is great! But it is only a small part of the task – you need to get your website out there. Clients, and most importantly, potential clients need to be able to easily find your website when looking for a treatment.

But before you get onto that you need to spend some time looking at your website. They come in many styles, many layouts, and many colours and as with everything in life – many levels of quality. Your site must reflect your business and what you are trying to portray. If it doesn’t clients will be put off and won’t come to you for an appointment. Never underestimate the importance of a good website. And this is where the workshop starts, looking at your own website and doing a peer review so that you can get some independent feedback on the design and content.

The workshop aims to demystify the world of online advertising and Search Engine Optimisation. It is structured and designed to be taught without jargon and techno-babble, topics covered include:

• Website design – How to ensure a salons website appeals and gives a professional image
• Google Advertising – How to setup and run AdWords campaigns
• Facebook – Setting up a salon business page, how to use it to communicate with clients, including using Google Places
• Facebook Advertising – Paid advertising and how to get the best value for money
• How to use sites such as Groupon and Living Social to your advantage.
• Twitter, Blogs, YouTube Videos and online articles – how to use these to promote your salon

The workshop was developed after hearing too many stories of salon owners who had paid companies to run SEO or advertising campaigns. These companies often charging hundreds of pounds for work that a salon owner could do in a few hours a week at a fraction of the cost.

You can find out more about it within the Training section.

Well here we are in 2011 now! And the weather just seems to be extra grey and miserable to make sure we all feel even more depressed on these cold mornings!

Now that I am back at the wax pot I would like to welcome every into 2011 and hope to see you soon. This year there will see some exciting developments for Waxing for Guys with new training courses and venues coming on. I will also be down at Professional Beauty London checking out the latest products, gadgets and treatments.

So stay tuned and here’s to helping make 2011 smoother year!

Lori Nestore, President of Eva’s Aesthetics, has put together a video on YouTube about how you can wax any eyebrow using just five lines of wax. It’s a really simple system, and one that is worth sharing. And so here it is:

I have started writing a series of articles on waxing, massage, aspects of the beauty industry all aimed at helping therapists build up their own practices. As they are published I will feature them here with a link to the relevant article:

Male waxing is becoming much more acceptable and popular now with more salons offering it, and more clients requesting it. A lot of waxing training concentrates on areas of the body for women, who are still by a big majority the highest proportion of waxing clients. Back and shoulders is probably the most commonly requested male waxing treatment and if you have never waxed one before it can be quite daunting. This article will guide you through a basic procedure for waxing a guys back and shoulders.

View article here.

This article isn’t to be used instead of professional hands-on training, but as a reminder and guide to the relevant procedure.

At the moment only 33% of salons offer Male Waxing, so why not build up your male client base before your competitor does? If you are already qualified in waxing you may not feel confident in waxing a man, they are generally a lot hairier then women and what is the best way of doing it?

Well now you can come along and spend a day with Mathew O’Marah, owner and therapist at Waxing for Guys, and learn from his years experience in waxing the male of the species. The training is very hands on, you will spend as much time as possible during the day waxing a male model while discussing tips and tricks to make it as positive experience for your clients as possible. The course covers A&P recap, trimming hair for those clients who don’t want to go all the way, and waxing. It includes using the latest types of hot non-strip wax for areas such as the Speedo line.

The training is also accredited by the Beauty Guild so you will qualify for CPD points, and will be fully insurable. For more information about our training please get in touch.

In July the Beauty Guild published the results of its annual Beauty Industry Survey, and it makes for very interesting reading. The survey was first undertaken in 1995, and has been run every year since to monitor the state of the industry. While the survey doesn’t include every business in the industry it does cover a lot, approximately 34,500 businesses which is a 3.8% increase on the previous year, and over 71,000 therapists working in those businesses.

One of the most interesting facts for me was the type of business people are running:

• 33% Home Based
• 31% Mobile
• 22% High Street Salon
• 7% Hairdressing and Beauty Salon
• 7% Other

Nearly two thirds of our industry doesn’t have a high-street presence, so while there is demand for the full salon experience this shows that a lot of clients like the privacy of a home based private practice or treatment within their own home.

The three most popular treatments continue to be waxing, facials and massage closely followed by manicures. Waxing also remains the most commonly available treatment with up to 70% of Salons offering some form waxing service, while 66% offer facials and 81% offering manicures. Waxing is still highly sort after, but only just over half that have waxing (36%) also provide Brazilian / intimate waxing services.

Within the survey male waxing and male intimate waxing are two separate treatment categories, and this really shows how the demand for this is growing the figures below show the 2010 availability with the 2009 ones in brackets:

• Male Waxing: 33% (36%)
• Male Intimate Waxing: 6% (7%)

The number of salons offering this as a percentage has decreased over the past year, but this may because their are more beauty businesses so the market share as dropped but the number of businesses offering these services may well have increased.

But this does go to show, that even with the press coverage on male grooming etc waxing services for men still remains a very niche market, particularly intimate male waxing. So if you own a beauty business should you be offering male waxing? Absolutely – there are many men who want to get rid of their hairy backs, and many clients who are actively looking for a salon to treat them. And to treat them with respect and offer and professional high standard of service. Male intimate waxing is a very specialised treatment, and those salons offering it are building up a very loyal customer base.

So yes, Male Waxing is definitely worth it and with price a increase of 8% from 2009 to 2010, and 11% for intimate waxing it is a very lucrative service to offer in the salon.

That’s right! You will soon be able to learn the art of Male Waxing with me! Details of the courses are being finalised, but I’m really excited about them and you’ll see the dates and more information announced here in good time.

Wax on!

The Carlton Institute has added a new hair removal course to its list of training available at its training centres across the country. This new technique – the Alexandria Body Sugaring method is fronted by Lina Kennedy who is president of Alexandria Professional, and known as the ‘Sugar Queen’ in Hollywood circles.

Using the Alexandria Professional™ painlessly extracts hair in its natural direction of growth and does so when the hair is still in the early growth stage, eliminating breakage, unnecessary discomfort, irritation and ingrown hairs while exfoliating dry skin cells. The result is smooth, beautiful skin without the discomforts of other hair removal techniques.

I was recently lucky enough to experience an amazing treatment at the Mandarin Oriental Spa in Barcelona. They use the fantastic product range from british company Espa, one of the best range of professional skincare products available in my opinion.

At the end of my treatment I was discussing some suitable products for my skin with my therapist and she gave me a small brochure outlining the full product range. One of the products was the Skin Balancer: 24 Hour Balancing Complex which has the description below:

A light and non-greasy cream/gel moisturiser which helps to calm and purify oily, congested or combination skin. White thyme, sage and lemon actively work to soothe, cool and correct the effects of skin imbalance leaving your skin feeling clean, smooth and hydrated. Even skin prone to oiliness can become dehydrated, so it is important to use a balancing complex in order to regulate oil production and keep the skin healthy and supple.

Having had this used in my treatment the description really did sound wonderful, and I considered buying it … but at €53 I decided against it. I was looking through the brochure, and in the general (ie for women) section there was another product that looked interesting, a 24 Hour Balancing Complex:

A light moisturising blend of natural skin balancers and antioxidants which calm irritation and rebalance congested skin. Lavendar oil helps to regenerate and repair skin cells, whilst sage oil stimulates blood circulation and tones the skin. Essential oils of chamomile and Vitamin C-rich lemon soothe, purify, nourish and reduce stress. The perfect treatment for purifying oily, combination or slightly dehydrated skin.

Both of these products are a 24 Hour Balancing Complex, but they have just been described very differently to appeal to the different markets. The first would immediately appeal to guys, those with razor burn / irritation would be interested. They may not think so much about toning or reducing skin stress, whereas for women more detail about the individual ingredient benefits. It is a really good example of how to describe products and treatments to appeal to guys.

Another example of this comes from The Shave Doctor products, unlike most shave ranges this doesn’t include a Moisturiser product. Instead it has a product named as a “Moisturazor” as a lot of guys may not like the idea of moisturising but using a product as part of their shaving routine wouldn’t be a problem.