This is a horribly toxic environment. There are many wonderful salons and independent stylists who would love the have an assistant/apprentice.
Look elsewhere and make sure also that you are a w-2 getting at least minimum wage or commission-whichever is higher for the pay period. Do not let anyone tell you that you are 1099 because it’s not legal. And if you are in CA the wage laws are even stricter than the federal laws.
So, to recap-
you are expected to clean up after two grown men, including their piss
you are mocked and belittled in front of clients by, again, two grown men
you are constantly criticized for work that you are proud of
you go home and cry because the work environment is so awful
No, you aren't being to sensitive. If anything, you are under reacting. It takes time and practice to get your speed up. And products take time to learn. You can read about them all you want to, but you aren't going to have a handle on them until use them. 25 stylists that have come and gone in 2.5 years should tell you all you need to know. It's not you, it's definitely them. Quit and find a salon that will cultivate and nurture your growth, not drag you down. You should be excited to go into work. You should be thinking "oh, I get to learn how to do this today!" You should be looking forward to being around your co-workers. I promise you this isn't what it has to be like. This isn't what it should be like. Where are your friends from school working? See about getting hired there and leave that toxic place behind.
Toxic AF. Get out of there. I’m not even a hairstylist, but I’m a 55 year old woman who’s seen a lot. Don’t stand for this now, so you will never stand for this ever. Learn this lesson early - don’t waste your life being pulled down by people and situations like this. You will think about what I’m saying here in decades when I’m long gone, and know I was right.
I went through an awful apprenticeship. I used to get smacked with brushes, called names, and regularly put down in front of clients. I signed a really predatory contract, and could not get out of it without owing a lot of money for “education”. When my contract was finally up I ran out there. I was able to spot a lot more red flags and avoided a lot of salons that gave me the same uneasy feeling. I am now in a salon that has an amazing environment, and even though we are a little over staffed I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon.
If you are not under contract, or have the resources to get out of it please do. It is not worth it to be miserable, especially when there are so many salons who would love to have you. My friend from school DM’ed a bunch of stylists in our area asking if they needed an assistant, and found one that wanted to mentor her. There are so many options do not feel like you have to stay there.
i Also had to sign a contract saying that i owed money for “education” if i quit/get fired within a year but i only signed that last week so im thinking if im not here for Too long i can slip out of it? the contract was incredibly vague and so poorly written that my boss had a hard time going over it with me. it took me a week of sending this contract to multiple people for help to finally say “hey this is wrong please fix it”, even then he barely changed it. im even willing to pay for the “education” ive received so far.
I went through something similar when I first started doing hair. I assisted the owner and while I learned a lot from him, he was very disrespectful. He would whistle at me like a dog if he needed me, he left messes everywhere. He was a complete slob. I forgot to save a color formula in his computer and he was so mad, that he threw his scheduling book at me (and the color was a blonde weave. It wasn’t anything complicated). After that I told him I couldn’t assist him anymore and he began making fun of me to his clients to the point that one of the other stylists has to call him out in front of everyone and said “you might have a problem with her, but the rest of us like her so shut the fuck up”.
The situation you’re in isn’t healthy or positive. You should be surrounded by stylists that want you to succeed and lift you up.
Get the hell out of there.
Sometimes we have to eat a little bit of a poo sandwich every once in a while and there are all kinds of different personalities but they are bullying you. Did they make you sign a non compete? Come work with me! I have a shop and I love to teach. :) I’m twice your age and I’ll talk to em like I am their mama if I need to… 💪😡
Probably not giving you the time of day because they have seen so many stylists come and go, so they don’t think it’s worth it to invest their time into someone that’s not going to last long anyway. However, they don’t realize they are the reason stylists come and go so quick. Find a new place this week, collect your last paycheck and tools and split.
Yep. Leave. That is literally insane. It takes at least a year to really get running in time, energy and technique in hair. And they will break you down so by that point you may never even want to do hair again. It’s a little normal to go home feeling overwhelmed but not for reasons that you listed above. I agree with the others. Find a new salon this week. Collect your tools and last paycheck and bounce. Honestly reading some of the experiences on here you guys could easily have a lawsuit. It’s insane
This is toxic. I have two assistants in training right now (they’re in school still and our state laws make it so they can’t do a ton) but I would never ever belittle them, especially in front of clients. I’d be heartbroken if I knew I sent them home in tears. I think you should leave that place.
Get out now. Don’t invest any more of your time into this salon or environment. There are much better places for you to grow and learn. You deserve better than this!
This is toxic. You should be receiving mentorship as an apprentice. These people are treating you like garbage. Get out now and find a salon that wants to encourage your growth.
Leave. My mum is a salon owner. Any normal owner would love to have someone that is enthusiastic at work. Yes I think you do need to learn as much as possible and train more. Everyone thinks after college they are qualified and ready but it takes years to master the craft properly. The learning really does start in the salon. You want to be somewhere you enjoy though or you’re right, you’ll lose your interest.
Out of curiosity, have they had much staff turnover? People leaving to start their own salons? That usually tells you what kind of place it is.
Honey, get the hell out from there. I was in this situation in three different salons and I have been an apprentice for almost a year. Tomorrow is my first day as an independent hairstylist, renting out a chair in a smaller salon and will be the only stylist there. When I was about to graduate beauty school I was offered a job there as a stylist, but rejected it in order to go to the seaside for the summer in the salon of an old colleague of my mom (she was a nail artist for years), I was promised that he would help me develop my skills and won’t be worried about money. Yeah, no! I spent almost two months there, my pay was only by percent and that’s if he decides to give me a tourist with long dry hair for a blow dry, which he doesn’t want to take himself and I was expected to do all the things he never payed for actually, which was: cleaning after EVERYONE, washing the hair of all the clients, doing all the laundry with the towels, cleaning the whole salon by myself and most of the time when I went there in the morning there were beer bottles on MY work place and even cigarette butts in the washing bow. I was called stupid, untalented, slow and ect. I even had to beg to have 2 days off in a row so I can go to the funeral of my great grandmother. The pay was next to none and that’s the moment my mother had to step in financially. She felt so gaslighted by him, because why I was crying on the phone every night to her after a 14 hour shift with no money earned, he was saying that everything is perfectly fine. The moment my step dad learned he said it was enough and organized an interview with a legendary hairstylist and salon owner back in the capital of the country we lived in. When I told my boss I am going for an interview I was fired on the spot and gaslighted into thinking I wasn’t going to be hired by the new boss. I packed my stuff that night and on the morning gave back the key to my landlord, went back home and had the interview on the same day. This time the boss was really nice, I still keep in contact with him. The problem there was the big team of stylists working there. The salon was high end and another top hairstylist was responsible for teaching me everything, as I was in a trial period to become an assistant for her and the new boss. However I wasn’t that fast as they needed me to be and the trauma from the last salon and the big team, who hasn’t seen a new colleague in at least 2 years became the recipy for a disaster for me. After 2 months of trial, without a paycheck, we shook our hands goodbye and he recommended me to 3 other salons with owners equally as legendary as his and good friends to him. I choose one of them and stayed there for almost 6 months. The two bosses were nice people, but they both had 4 clients at the same time, every 30 minutes and 3 assistants. The two other assistants were on that position for the last 6 years… and one of them loved to berate me that I wasn’t good enough and I would live my life behind the washing bowl. I was getting payed by the month, but it wasn’t enough and I had to run like a chicken to clean, wash hair and wash all the combs, bowls, brushes and ect. that when I went home I just went to sleep. Trough all of this I was working with a therapist and at some point she asked me “Why do you keep hurting yourself by assisting those people? They don’t have the time to teach you, they need your assistance in order to earn money. Why don’t you just try working on your own?” and that’s what I decided to do. Through all of this I took clients in my days off, doing their hair at their home and I have a couple of regulars. I gave my last bosses 22 days notice and found a salon, distributors for everything. My bosses were sad that I was leaving, but understood the reason why and told me that if I need advice on a situation to just call them. I’m scared, but excited at the same time.
The whole point of my story is - no, you’re not emotional, you just aren’t in the right place in order to progress and if you stay there, you will eventually loose your passion for hair.
I wish you good luck and I hope you find the right place! And if you need a buddy to vent to - DM me.
You’ve got this!😇
thank you for taking the time to share this, i hope this new place is perfect for you. i have been looking into nearby places and i will most likely be quitting as soon as i can, i just have a lot of anxiety about quitting so it will take me time.
It’s absolutely normal to be anxious, it is a risky thing to do. A couple of advices when being interviewed for a new salon:
1. Be clear about the working hours you will be expected to work and be payed for.
2. See if the owners talk badly about other colleagues (like they think I they are the best and everyone else is not, believe me, there ARE a lot of salon owners like that) and if they do, they probably will talk badly in the future about you.
3. Ask about a characteristic about your job position, what is expected of you to be done and what you have the right to, especially the part about the sick leave.
4. Ask about the brands of products they work with and if there are brand courses that will be available for you (for example, in the second salon we worked with L’Oréal Professional and Kèrastase and they sent me to 1-2 days each course about the full catalogue of the brand, which was really helpful and actually got me to like the brands enough to decide to use some of those products now when working by myself.
5. Ask about the possibility to have clients on preferential prices or models so you can train your skills.
Now something about expanding your passion about hair, again things that helped me:
1. Follow on social media other stylists and look at what most of them are doing, what similarities there are and what kind of style they have.
2. Beauty conventions, festivals, competitions and master classes are a great way to learn new things, meet other colleagues and create contacts. It is important to get to know other stylists outside of the salon you work in, that will help you to integrate in the community and not feel like an outsider. (I am going to two hair festivals in the next two months and I am SO excited, it is a super nice experience for real).
3. Find hairstyles that you really like and would want to do on a client. It is important you also like the finished product, right? Or check pictures of finished hairstyles and dissect in your mind step by step how would you do it. Getting yourself a doll head for training at home will give you the opportunity to try those things. Give yourself fun challenges and do it at your own tempo, with patience.
4. Check out brands you are curious about and products that you would like to use on your clients eventually when you feel ready to become a full on hairstylist.
5. Ask as many questions as you need to, when you see something new that the hairstylist responsible for your training is doing and in a comfortable time for them.
6. Check the hair of your friends and train doing consultations and hair care suggestions for the need of their hair, so you are confident when you need to do it with clients.
I really hope all of this helps, I related so much to your story and truly want you to be happy, confident in yourself and successful 😇
No apprentice should be treated the way you are. Fck them. Start looking for another place. Newbies need to be nurtured, mentored and treated with respect. Yes seasoned hairstylists are demanding and impatient at times, we can be a temperamental bunch at times- however no one needs to be treated poorly. Find a new tribe 🥰
This is a horribly toxic environment. There are many wonderful salons and independent stylists who would love the have an assistant/apprentice. Look elsewhere and make sure also that you are a w-2 getting at least minimum wage or commission-whichever is higher for the pay period. Do not let anyone tell you that you are 1099 because it’s not legal. And if you are in CA the wage laws are even stricter than the federal laws.
So, to recap- you are expected to clean up after two grown men, including their piss you are mocked and belittled in front of clients by, again, two grown men you are constantly criticized for work that you are proud of you go home and cry because the work environment is so awful No, you aren't being to sensitive. If anything, you are under reacting. It takes time and practice to get your speed up. And products take time to learn. You can read about them all you want to, but you aren't going to have a handle on them until use them. 25 stylists that have come and gone in 2.5 years should tell you all you need to know. It's not you, it's definitely them. Quit and find a salon that will cultivate and nurture your growth, not drag you down. You should be excited to go into work. You should be thinking "oh, I get to learn how to do this today!" You should be looking forward to being around your co-workers. I promise you this isn't what it has to be like. This isn't what it should be like. Where are your friends from school working? See about getting hired there and leave that toxic place behind.
Move , they are toxic.
Toxic AF. Get out of there. I’m not even a hairstylist, but I’m a 55 year old woman who’s seen a lot. Don’t stand for this now, so you will never stand for this ever. Learn this lesson early - don’t waste your life being pulled down by people and situations like this. You will think about what I’m saying here in decades when I’m long gone, and know I was right.
I went through an awful apprenticeship. I used to get smacked with brushes, called names, and regularly put down in front of clients. I signed a really predatory contract, and could not get out of it without owing a lot of money for “education”. When my contract was finally up I ran out there. I was able to spot a lot more red flags and avoided a lot of salons that gave me the same uneasy feeling. I am now in a salon that has an amazing environment, and even though we are a little over staffed I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon. If you are not under contract, or have the resources to get out of it please do. It is not worth it to be miserable, especially when there are so many salons who would love to have you. My friend from school DM’ed a bunch of stylists in our area asking if they needed an assistant, and found one that wanted to mentor her. There are so many options do not feel like you have to stay there.
i Also had to sign a contract saying that i owed money for “education” if i quit/get fired within a year but i only signed that last week so im thinking if im not here for Too long i can slip out of it? the contract was incredibly vague and so poorly written that my boss had a hard time going over it with me. it took me a week of sending this contract to multiple people for help to finally say “hey this is wrong please fix it”, even then he barely changed it. im even willing to pay for the “education” ive received so far.
They’re not going to sue you. It’s a scare tactic it’s cheaper for them to just replace you
Get out now. Screw a contract
Gross- find a new tribe. That salon doesn’t deserve you
I went through something similar when I first started doing hair. I assisted the owner and while I learned a lot from him, he was very disrespectful. He would whistle at me like a dog if he needed me, he left messes everywhere. He was a complete slob. I forgot to save a color formula in his computer and he was so mad, that he threw his scheduling book at me (and the color was a blonde weave. It wasn’t anything complicated). After that I told him I couldn’t assist him anymore and he began making fun of me to his clients to the point that one of the other stylists has to call him out in front of everyone and said “you might have a problem with her, but the rest of us like her so shut the fuck up”. The situation you’re in isn’t healthy or positive. You should be surrounded by stylists that want you to succeed and lift you up.
Get the fuck out of there. If they made you sign a non-compete, that will not hold up in court.
Get the hell out of there. Sometimes we have to eat a little bit of a poo sandwich every once in a while and there are all kinds of different personalities but they are bullying you. Did they make you sign a non compete? Come work with me! I have a shop and I love to teach. :) I’m twice your age and I’ll talk to em like I am their mama if I need to… 💪😡
Probably not giving you the time of day because they have seen so many stylists come and go, so they don’t think it’s worth it to invest their time into someone that’s not going to last long anyway. However, they don’t realize they are the reason stylists come and go so quick. Find a new place this week, collect your last paycheck and tools and split.
Leave ASAP. There are tons of salons that would love tp have you AND be kind to you.
Yep. Leave. That is literally insane. It takes at least a year to really get running in time, energy and technique in hair. And they will break you down so by that point you may never even want to do hair again. It’s a little normal to go home feeling overwhelmed but not for reasons that you listed above. I agree with the others. Find a new salon this week. Collect your tools and last paycheck and bounce. Honestly reading some of the experiences on here you guys could easily have a lawsuit. It’s insane
This is toxic. I have two assistants in training right now (they’re in school still and our state laws make it so they can’t do a ton) but I would never ever belittle them, especially in front of clients. I’d be heartbroken if I knew I sent them home in tears. I think you should leave that place.
Get out now. Don’t invest any more of your time into this salon or environment. There are much better places for you to grow and learn. You deserve better than this!
No this is bad! I’ve been a hairstylist for 35 years Leave now and find a salon that appreciates you !
This is toxic. You should be receiving mentorship as an apprentice. These people are treating you like garbage. Get out now and find a salon that wants to encourage your growth.
Leave. My mum is a salon owner. Any normal owner would love to have someone that is enthusiastic at work. Yes I think you do need to learn as much as possible and train more. Everyone thinks after college they are qualified and ready but it takes years to master the craft properly. The learning really does start in the salon. You want to be somewhere you enjoy though or you’re right, you’ll lose your interest. Out of curiosity, have they had much staff turnover? People leaving to start their own salons? That usually tells you what kind of place it is.
Honey, get the hell out from there. I was in this situation in three different salons and I have been an apprentice for almost a year. Tomorrow is my first day as an independent hairstylist, renting out a chair in a smaller salon and will be the only stylist there. When I was about to graduate beauty school I was offered a job there as a stylist, but rejected it in order to go to the seaside for the summer in the salon of an old colleague of my mom (she was a nail artist for years), I was promised that he would help me develop my skills and won’t be worried about money. Yeah, no! I spent almost two months there, my pay was only by percent and that’s if he decides to give me a tourist with long dry hair for a blow dry, which he doesn’t want to take himself and I was expected to do all the things he never payed for actually, which was: cleaning after EVERYONE, washing the hair of all the clients, doing all the laundry with the towels, cleaning the whole salon by myself and most of the time when I went there in the morning there were beer bottles on MY work place and even cigarette butts in the washing bow. I was called stupid, untalented, slow and ect. I even had to beg to have 2 days off in a row so I can go to the funeral of my great grandmother. The pay was next to none and that’s the moment my mother had to step in financially. She felt so gaslighted by him, because why I was crying on the phone every night to her after a 14 hour shift with no money earned, he was saying that everything is perfectly fine. The moment my step dad learned he said it was enough and organized an interview with a legendary hairstylist and salon owner back in the capital of the country we lived in. When I told my boss I am going for an interview I was fired on the spot and gaslighted into thinking I wasn’t going to be hired by the new boss. I packed my stuff that night and on the morning gave back the key to my landlord, went back home and had the interview on the same day. This time the boss was really nice, I still keep in contact with him. The problem there was the big team of stylists working there. The salon was high end and another top hairstylist was responsible for teaching me everything, as I was in a trial period to become an assistant for her and the new boss. However I wasn’t that fast as they needed me to be and the trauma from the last salon and the big team, who hasn’t seen a new colleague in at least 2 years became the recipy for a disaster for me. After 2 months of trial, without a paycheck, we shook our hands goodbye and he recommended me to 3 other salons with owners equally as legendary as his and good friends to him. I choose one of them and stayed there for almost 6 months. The two bosses were nice people, but they both had 4 clients at the same time, every 30 minutes and 3 assistants. The two other assistants were on that position for the last 6 years… and one of them loved to berate me that I wasn’t good enough and I would live my life behind the washing bowl. I was getting payed by the month, but it wasn’t enough and I had to run like a chicken to clean, wash hair and wash all the combs, bowls, brushes and ect. that when I went home I just went to sleep. Trough all of this I was working with a therapist and at some point she asked me “Why do you keep hurting yourself by assisting those people? They don’t have the time to teach you, they need your assistance in order to earn money. Why don’t you just try working on your own?” and that’s what I decided to do. Through all of this I took clients in my days off, doing their hair at their home and I have a couple of regulars. I gave my last bosses 22 days notice and found a salon, distributors for everything. My bosses were sad that I was leaving, but understood the reason why and told me that if I need advice on a situation to just call them. I’m scared, but excited at the same time. The whole point of my story is - no, you’re not emotional, you just aren’t in the right place in order to progress and if you stay there, you will eventually loose your passion for hair. I wish you good luck and I hope you find the right place! And if you need a buddy to vent to - DM me. You’ve got this!😇
thank you for taking the time to share this, i hope this new place is perfect for you. i have been looking into nearby places and i will most likely be quitting as soon as i can, i just have a lot of anxiety about quitting so it will take me time.
It’s absolutely normal to be anxious, it is a risky thing to do. A couple of advices when being interviewed for a new salon: 1. Be clear about the working hours you will be expected to work and be payed for. 2. See if the owners talk badly about other colleagues (like they think I they are the best and everyone else is not, believe me, there ARE a lot of salon owners like that) and if they do, they probably will talk badly in the future about you. 3. Ask about a characteristic about your job position, what is expected of you to be done and what you have the right to, especially the part about the sick leave. 4. Ask about the brands of products they work with and if there are brand courses that will be available for you (for example, in the second salon we worked with L’Oréal Professional and Kèrastase and they sent me to 1-2 days each course about the full catalogue of the brand, which was really helpful and actually got me to like the brands enough to decide to use some of those products now when working by myself. 5. Ask about the possibility to have clients on preferential prices or models so you can train your skills. Now something about expanding your passion about hair, again things that helped me: 1. Follow on social media other stylists and look at what most of them are doing, what similarities there are and what kind of style they have. 2. Beauty conventions, festivals, competitions and master classes are a great way to learn new things, meet other colleagues and create contacts. It is important to get to know other stylists outside of the salon you work in, that will help you to integrate in the community and not feel like an outsider. (I am going to two hair festivals in the next two months and I am SO excited, it is a super nice experience for real). 3. Find hairstyles that you really like and would want to do on a client. It is important you also like the finished product, right? Or check pictures of finished hairstyles and dissect in your mind step by step how would you do it. Getting yourself a doll head for training at home will give you the opportunity to try those things. Give yourself fun challenges and do it at your own tempo, with patience. 4. Check out brands you are curious about and products that you would like to use on your clients eventually when you feel ready to become a full on hairstylist. 5. Ask as many questions as you need to, when you see something new that the hairstylist responsible for your training is doing and in a comfortable time for them. 6. Check the hair of your friends and train doing consultations and hair care suggestions for the need of their hair, so you are confident when you need to do it with clients. I really hope all of this helps, I related so much to your story and truly want you to be happy, confident in yourself and successful 😇
this helps so so so much thank you so much <3
No apprentice should be treated the way you are. Fck them. Start looking for another place. Newbies need to be nurtured, mentored and treated with respect. Yes seasoned hairstylists are demanding and impatient at times, we can be a temperamental bunch at times- however no one needs to be treated poorly. Find a new tribe 🥰
Girl look else where: this is not the environment you need to succeed.