Just some possibilities

Beauty school student Cristina R.—called “amazing” by one Brokelyn reader, “incredibly talented” by another—writes in about two more days of cheap haircuts and blowouts from her and her wonder-working fellow students at Carsten Aveda Institute:

“April 5th and 19th my school is hosting another fundraiser- all haircuts and blowouts will be $15 and 100% of proceeds will be donated to a foundation dedicated to providing clean water to underprivileged communities. The last fundraiser for Haiti relief was a great success due in no small part to the readers of Brokelyn who joined us!”

Appointments are available for both days between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. Email cristinar.hair@gmail.com for a spot.

Carsten Aveda Institute, 22 E. 17th St., 2nd Floor, 212-675-4884, Manhattan (but Cristina’s a BK gal)

Beyonce's Cadillac Records hair

The new Beyoncé Cosmetology Center at Phoenix House—offering recovering addicts seven months of cosmetology training—sounds like so much fun it’s almost worth faking a Sudafed addiction to get in, especially since beautifying is a “lucrative” field, according to Beep Marty Markowitz. Really? How lucrative? We spoke with some borough stylists to find out.

It all starts with a NY State cosmetology license, which requires 1,000 hours of class time and $10,000 to $15,000 in tuition, on average, though government financial aid is available. Here’s what Brooklyn hair-care pros can expect to earn after that:

Salon assistant: washes hair, sweeps salon, holds foils, makes coffee, sets appointments
Training: cosmetology license
Pay: barely minimum-wage to $120 a day, mostly from tips

Junior stylist: similar to full-on stylist, but much less busy
Training: 1 to 3 years as a salon assistant
Pay: usually barely more than an assistant (dependent on clientele)

Hair stylist: cuts, colors, styles, does make-up
Training: a lifetime of branding and building a clientele
Pay: $800/week at Supercuts to $1,500-2,000 ($4,000 for the upper two percent)

Once a beauty school grad gets the required training, she must decide if she want to fight her way through a big, corporate salon or enter the gentler, much-less-profitable small-salon world. A teacher at a Brooklyn cosmetology school tells it like this:

“The hardest decision a lot of us are making when we graduate is whether to go to a large salon and be stuck as an assistant for a sure-fire 2+ years (making *no* money, but maybe make great money in the future), versus going to a smaller salon and getting a chair in a few months but not ever being able to charge those ‘big bucks’… A lot of people enter this industry thinking that you get out of school and roll into some $80K/a year gig wearing your Chuck Taylors to work every day and it’s just not the case. It’s been a big wake-up call.”

Outside the salon, stylists can double their income working for celebrities, film and photo shoots, weddings and even on cruise ships. Specialty jobs like this require much longer hours (and often travel), so it’s a viable option only for the young, single or adventurous.

Colorists see more commission from higher-priced color treatments, but the treatments also take longer, so that means fewer in a day or week. And, as one stylist t at a luxurious spa salon in southern Brooklyn tells us, borough stylists can’t rely on a specialty (like coloring) the way their high-clientele Manhattan counterparts can. “In Brooklyn, you need to do everything in order to survive.”

Veteran stylists say the generalist renaissance-stylist has been in a recent decline, as more schools emphasize a single skill-set. No matter what one’s specialty—a killer shag or a one-stop shop, a beautician’s survival requires hustle. “Your ability to retire depends on your ability to market yourself,” says one of our stylists. Here’s a resource for beauty schools in the area.

My school is holding some events and I (and my fellow stylists!) need models. We are taught by excellent instructors in a beautiful, extremely clean studio using professional product lines. We workshop with lead stylists from the top salons in the city. (You know, those ones where people pay $600 for a haircut?) Every step of every service is heavily supervised from start to finish. And it is really, really cheap. Here’s what we need:

1) We are hosting a haircutting fundraising event in Manhattan on Feb. 16. Haircuts are $15 (any style) with 100% of the proceeds going to Haiti relief.
2) We are also hosting a hairstyling competition on Feb. 23 and are looking for models for any style of bob haircut.  The haircut is FREE and a lot of us would love to incorporate some cool/funky/creative color (of which the price can be determined… it will be next to nothing.)  Rumor has it that this will be judged by stylists and owners of some of the top salons in NYC (previous judges were from Cutler Salon, Frédéric Fekkai Salon, Paul Labrecque Salon, Beth Minardi Salon, etc) and promises to be a great event and an excellent opportunity to get a new look for next-to-nothing.
3) I personally am always looking for people who want to make a drastic/funky color change.

If anyone’s interested in either of the above please feel free to contact me at CristinaR.hair@gmail.com. Thanks!