“Oh, so you paint nails for a living?”

“Oh, you paint nails for a living?”

I’ve had that said to me more than once and it drives me mad.

Working in the spa world is often misconstrued as an easy, airy fairy, (mainly) girly job for those who like makeup and painting nails, often put down by many school career advisors and teachers alike or suggested for the student who perhaps isn’t academic.

When I decided to go to college to train to become a beauty therapist instead of doing my A-Levels, my teachers were discouraging and told me I might as well do ‘Mickey Mouse’ studies. I was a bright student who “Could do so much more.” How incredibly insulting and disheartening to a 16 year old who actually knew what she wanted to become.

Luckily my mum was fiercely supportive and saw beauty therapy as a chance to travel and explore the world while earning a wage, which was exactly what I wanted. I grew up in a small village in Cornwall so was on the hunt for my ticket out of there.

I find this stigma and immediate reaction or perhaps assumption to our profession extremely frustrating, insulting and completely unwarranted to the majority of the highly trained therapists I have met and worked with over the past 16 years. However, more and more I can sadly see why the assumption is there.

Is it because the media portrays us in that way? That reality programmes with salons drenched in pink battle it out to be crowned ‘Top Spa’ or films display characters like Paulette Bonafonté Parcelle from Legally Blonde or Frenchie from Grease to portray workers or that spas are used in Real Housewives of *insert any City* as locations for ladies who lunch to be seen cat fighting?

Of course there is a place for all of these stereotypes and I am sure they aren’t doing too much harm but I can’t help think this doesn’t help the reputation, standards or view of our industry, especially for a bright 16yr old leaving school and deciding on a career path.

Could it be because over the years the criteria to train as a beauty therapist has been lowered to get numbers through the door? No longer are GCSE Grades C and above required or, once enrolled, extensive anatomy and physiology expected to be learnt. You can train in a six week course and have the same job title that some took teo years to gain. Now I’m a dinosaur when it comes to training and believe the longer and more in-depth the better. I find the new training schools that pop up on the high street a true concern for our industry standards and also for the students who are paying high prices for often substandard training.

School students are being pushed into the courses to keep them learning (and the colleges funded) even though they might not be suited for a career in a spa or beauty therapy full stop. The Industry needs caring, giving, customer-service focused and creative individuals, not a group of passionless students who didn’t know what else to do and were coached into staying in higher education. It really isn’t their fault, they should be guided, developed and given more choices. Once qualified, it is often a stark contrast to what they expect even before you’ve told them their hourly rate and massage count.

Why should we care? What does the intake of quality students into college have to do with me?

I think it’s clear, the less suitable, qualified and passionate therapists leaving college, the less arriving for interviews for the newly opened spas (which are popping up daily), the harder for employers to staff these spas. This means the more overworked and exhausted the current team will become, making it almost impossible for employers to offer development and ensure wellness for each team member. Retention and loyalty will be non-existent and the cycle will begin again and again.

All the while the spa will be expected to achieve target. Causing stress at every level.

So having been the exhausted therapist and the frustrated spa manager, I see how taking a stand and trying to remove the stigma and ditsy image beauty therapists have could in turn help avoid the Industry from imploding.

I’m arranging a meeting with the Head of Beauty at the College I attended (a mere 18 years ago) as I want to see if they want change also as well as to reach out to the students there. I might even partake in a flapjack from the canteen as if I remember correctly they were the culprit for my ‘college stone’.