BEING A MOBILE LASH ARTIST
Being a mobile lash artist comes with its own set of challenges, both for you and for the client. From the client’s perspective it sounds pretty ideal. No fighting with traffic or parking. No having to rush back to work. Hell, they can be in their pajamas or have a glass of wine and take a nice comfy nap,right? Plus you come in, lash, and leave without any hassle on the client’s part. I definitely see the appeal for the client’s, and I myself have done mobile lashing when I was in between locations, and did start to build a clientele while doing mobile lashes.
Based on my experience, let me break down the pros and cons of being a mobile lash artist for you to consider:
The Pros:
1. The biggest pro of being a mobile lash artist is first and foremost the convenience to the client.
There are client’s who have insanely busy schedules who would love lashes and would get them done regularly, but the extra travel time and constant maintenance may be a deterrent for them to even start. Client’s with kids who are in school would find it especially beneficial not to have to rearrange their whole day’s schedule to get some self care in. I have a client who is a very successful massage therapist who solely travels to people’s homes to do in-home massages and many of her client’s have been with her for well over a decade as there is this comfort and trust that is built over time when you invite someone into your home on a regular basis. So loyalty becomes very high.
2. Premium Pricing
Whether you are a brand new baby lash artist or you want to offer mobile appointments to start to build a clientele outside of your “day job”, always charge more than you would if you had a physical location to lash out of. Client’s must pay a premium for the convenience factor otherwise you will train them to pay lower rates and when you do finally get a physical location, if you attempt to raise your pricing so you can cover your new overhead (a.k.a. fixed costs associated with having a physical location like rent, utilities, etc) then you may find your clients become resistant. Think about it, if you were paying someone $30 a touch up to come to your house to offer you a lash service, and then that lash artist finally found a physical location that was a 20 minute drive from you without traffic and wanted to start charging you $50, you might start to question how worthwhile that lash artist and drive might be.
If you do have a physical location to lash from and are looking to add the option of mobile lash services to a select group of clients who may be interested…triple your rates! I’m not kidding! Again, the convenience needs to be factored in. Keep in mind there will also be wear and tear on you, your vehicle and your equipment that needs to be taken into consideration.
3. Little Overhead Costs + Huge Tax Savings
Let’s face it, if you already own your own car and the basic equipment like a massage table, mag lamp, stool and lash kit…you’re pretty much set to go! There’s no rent to pay, no utilities, no leases to sign. You’re kind of this traveling lash gypsy going around a spreading your lash magic all over your town!
Your car payments, insurance, gas/mileage all become a business expense that you can write off on the days that you’re working. That means “more money in the bank, shawty what you drink!” <dance dance>. Sorry, Lil Scrappy rap reference, I’ll move on. This really is a great option to “test out” what working for yourself would be like “on the side” of your day job without committing to a lease or getting in over your head with a lot of overhead costs. Or if you’re in a pinch and left your job as a lash artist and haven’t found the best location to offer your services yet, it’s a fine “in-between” option until you find the right space to establish your business.
The Cons:
I really hate to break it to you, but from a business standpoint, I do not recommend being a mobile lash artist unless you absolutely have no choice.
1. Limited Time with Little Ability to Grow
There are only so many hours in the day and the amount of clients you can take in one day is severely limited due to travel time between clients. You also have to account for traffic, which you can’t always predict which means orchestrated dance of precise arrival and departures times from appointment to appointment could get hijacked and cause you to delay or cancel appointments altogether.
From my experience, the most number of clients I could squeeze in one day without breaking any traffic laws was around 3. I tried 4 once on a busier day out of necessity and that was the deciding factor to never do mobile lash appointments again! A typical mobile lash day would be starting at 9:00 a.m., which meant I dealt with morning traffic getting to my first client. I would then drove all over town because I couldn’t line up my clients by location. Wouldn’t it be nice if all of my clients within a 10 mile radius booked and kept their appointments every single time. I didn’t have that many clients to begin with, so it’s not like I could do one part of the city in one day and another part on another day. I would drive 30 to 40 miles in between clients out of desperation and a need to make money. When you don’t have a plan in place, you will do whatever it takes to make any form of income and that puts in a tough spot like driving 120 miles in one day (which equated to about 3.5 hours of drive time due to traffic and signals). It was not an effective use of my time. By the time my day wrapped up, I’d be anywhere from 30-50 miles away from home and fighting rush hour traffic to get back. A 10 hour day for 3-4 clients, when it’s broken down hourly was not a great living and was especially taxing on my body.
When you are mobile, it’s hard to scale (grow) your business in a way that is hugely profitable and beneficial to you. If you did become fairly busy and you want to bring on other lash artists, you would need a fortune to cover insurance costs associated with their vehicles, workers comp for potential injuries, not to mention the added insurance for damaging anything within a customers home, and the list goes on. You have so much less control when you are mobile that it becomes cost prohibitive to expand your lash biz.
2. Liability and Safety
As much as it’s a con for you working out of your own home, it’s an even larger con working out of someone’s home where you cannot control the disruptions to the service not to mention that you’re walking into a stranger’s home.
Ever tried to lash a client when they’ve brought their child along with them? How about their dog? Their spouse? The gardener? Did they ever have a roast in the oven they needed to check on? They’re going to have their eyes closed for the duration of the appointment and if they have kids that are not being supervised because the client thought it was ‘no problem for her to get her lashes done with their kids running around’, that’s a HUGE liability for you. God forbid a kid should get injured or trip on your light’s electric cord, and the client holds you accountable for Suzy’s broken ankle and sues you. What if the cat knocks your jade stone with glue on it off your table and onto their $10,000 Persian rug that is now ruined? What if the client is running late and her sleazy roommate lets you in to set up and you start to feel unsafe?
Now, maybe these are some worst-case scenarios, but the unpredictability factor of doing mobile lash appointments out of someone’s home is too great, especially for women in my personal opinion. It’s like going on a Tinder date. Make sure a close family or friend knows where you are at all times, what time you’re arriving and what time you should be done. I advise that you are in constant communication with a friend for your own safety.
3. Lack of Environmental Control
LASHPRENEUR LIGHTBULB
I find to be the biggest con against providing mobile lash services is that your adhesive may just flat out not work for you. Our adhesives needs very specific temperature and humidity levels to perform at their best and in someone else’s home, you can not control any of those environmental aspects. You may choose to carry several types of adhesives to try to give yourself options depending on that individual’s clients home, but how often are you having to replace those 3-4 adhesive bottles and will that cut significantly into your income?
The second most challenging environmental issue you may run into is clients’ lives do not stop when you’re entering their home. They may not factor in the possible distractions if this the first few times you’ve seen them and it’s up to you to do your best to control the situation.
Here are some real-life examples that I ran into during my short tenure as a mobile lash artist that convinced me being mobile was a short-lived offering of mine:
One client had her elderly parents visiting her. She was constantly getting up in the middle of her appointment to assist the elderly parents, one of which had messed himself about an hour into our full set appointment. What was I going to say “no, you can’t help your dad struggling with Alzheimers, I’ve got a tight schedule today.”? That took an hour out of our appointment time.
Another first time client was filing a restraining order with the police against her “stalker” while I was setting up my equipment. Talk about being in an uncomfortable environment before I’ve properly introduced myself.
Another client lived in an 2000 unit apartment complex where she lived on the top floor in the unit furthest from the elevator and guest parking was about 1/4 mile away. I wasn’t aware of this until I had arrived. Setup alone took 45 minutes and I was a sweaty, shakey mess by the time we actually started the appointment. Forget that take down took just as long. If we continued with regular touch up appointments, I would have to allot 2.5-3 hours for one touch up appt. for this particular appointment (20 min drive time, 45 min setup, 60 min appt, 45 take down, 20 min drive time). How could you possibly charge a reasonable rate to account for 2.5-3 hours of your time for one touch up that would compare to what you could charge having 3 clients at a physical location for the same amount of time? It’s just not feasible.
Even for the sane clients, you cannot maximize your time if your client treats their appointment as a social visit. Your time is valuable whether you are there for 10 minutes or two hours. Most of my client’s while I was mobile were fine and are still my loyal clients to this day. They’re kind hearted women and are a pleasure to work with. But when I would come to their home, they’d want to offer me a drink or snacks. They’d want to introduce me to their house guests or show me the new backsplash they just installed. If you charged them your “normal” touch up price of $50 and factored in the distractions and travel time it takes you, you’re looking at around 2-3 hours per touch up appointment…and broken down into an hourly wage, you’re looking at $16-25/hour which does not factor in your supply costs, gas and ongoing car maintenance, insurance, etc. As a side note from my experience, when I was mobile, my clients would not tip. Those same clients who now come to my physical location tip me every time. When you are mobile, the assumption is that the majority of the money is going in your pocket, which is mostly true. When you have a physical location, the assumption is there are a significant amount of over head costs that would impact your take home, which is also true…but maybe not as much as the client perceives, but that is the basis of client’s being more inclined to tip at a physical location as opposed to mobile appointments.
4. Wear and Tear on Your Body
As if being a lash artist wasn’t physically challenging enough, adding on the strain of hauling your lash equipment in and out of people’s homes ups the fatigue and risk of injury to your body ten-fold. How do you carry a 20-40 lb massage table up two flights of stairs in an ergonomic way?!? If you choose to forgo carrying a massage table around with you either due to space in your car or the strain of lugging it around, then what do your clients lay on? Their couch? Their bed? Where will your knees go? Ideally a client’s head is positioned around chest height with your knees directly underneath them. Hopefully you have also have light that you can bring with you as well, because normal room lighting is not going to be enough for your eyes to really see lashes without eye strain. All it takes is one significant injury to your hands, neck, back or eyes and your lashing career could be over. Protect those babies at all costs!
I’ve known a few lash artists who have made decent money doing mobile lashes, and if you have a very high end or celebrity clientele where money isn’t an issue for them, this is absolutely the way to go. But if you’re just starting out or you’re interested in offering mobile appointments to your services, I do hope you’ll take into consideration the pros and cons listed for you here. These pros and cons meant to give you the full picture of what being mobile entails and to set you up for success at whatever step you’re on in your Lashpreneur journey!
Have you found success offering mobile appointments? Do you have any pros or cons that were not mentioned here? Leave a comment below with your experiences as a mobile lash artist.
Have a good one!
Tara Walsh, The Lashpreneur