Average salary for shaitel macher

amother

Aqua

Sun, Jul 16 2017, 10:43 pm

It varies so much on where you live and how much the going rate is and how many clients you have and how many hours you want to work. I was a shaitle macher for almost a decade. I made about 2000$ a month and I was wodrking all morning and several hours at night, only wash n sets. It was extreamly frustrating that I was working so many hours and making so little money. At some point, I realized that if I wanted to work less and make more money, the only way would be to make this a real Business. Meaning, I needed to get a real salon, hire at least two employees, be open the entire day, advertise, and offer a-z shaitle services, including cuts, sales, dyes, repairs, treatments, etc. If you think of yourself as a hairdresser, you can expect to make 20k a year. IF you think of yourself as a "Shevy" with an entire business under you, you can obviously make a whole lot more. There is some sort of middle ground, where you do exclusively sales and cuts from your house. If you have a very good reputation, you can make upwards of 70k a year. You also have to have excellent people skills, work well at night/erev shabbos/erev yom tov/under a lot of pressure, deal with annoying difficult people, and have your own shaitle looking nothing but perfect every moment of the day. As your family grows, having a home based business becomes extreamly unprofessional and uncomfortable. There is no such thing as work being "over." You work when the people want you to work because you need the money. (in the case that you are a home based wash n set shaitle macher).
Sales are a whole different topic. You have to really know hair, companies, and know how to do costumer service. You have to absorb the cost if you make a mistake or if a costumer is unhappy with what you did. You are a little shaitle macher, the company is a big established place. Guess who pays if you sold a wig that constantly knots and the costumer wants to return it? Each company you work with will have you put down around 10k to get the ability to sell their shaitles. It is extreamly easy to ruin a 3000$ wig in one minute. Turn the heat up too high and forget heat protectant ONCE and the hair you touch is dead forever. switching out that hair can easily cost you 500$, not to mention the embarrassment of notifying your costumer. Cut those bangs a drop too short and bam--700$ to take them all out, replace them, and start over again.
And annoying costumers who come back to you 4 times after the cut, or are never happy, or contradict themselves, or don't show up, or are always 30 minutes late, when the next lady is already there, or are only available at 10:30 at night on Thursdays once every other week.
Next point--don't think that your three cuts you can do perfectly--the long glamor, the wavy bob, and the messy pony--are going to be cool anymore in 3 years. To be a good shaitle macher, you need to have continuous training. There is no such thing as being done with school when you are in the fashion business. The really sucessful shaitle machers go to hair shows regularly, travel to see new products, tecniques, and meet top stylissts around the world.
And I haven't even gotten to how to buy supplies wholesale. You have to buy in bulk to get a good price, but how do you know that product is perfect? How do you know you will be able to use it all up? Often, copying another shaitle macher is not the way to go, because you have different hands and artistic talents and you need to put your unique stamp on the way you do wigs.
Another thing: being a shaitle macher is a physicaly taxing job. You are standing all day, bending over sinks, transfering things. I found it very difficult to do my job while pregnant, which was bh pretty often.
now. Hashkafa. How do you feel about being the person people go to to become as attractive as possible? Yes, there are some holy ladies around who have their tzniyis shaitles, but the vast majority of wigs today are not making anyone look more modest. I don't have a problem with other people doing what they do, but I do have a problem being the one to enable them to do it. This is the main reason I quit being a shaitle macher and went to collage.
Unfortunately, a shaitle course/knowing how to cut hair is a very small percentage of what it requires to make a good salery as a shaitle macher.

For the pros--you work alone and one on one and have some great conversations with people which makes it feel like you socialized.
You are working with (usually) all frum women
It is a way to be artistic
Often you work from home or close to home.
You don't have to go to collage and training is relatively short.

Some people are successful and make good money. They work very, very hard. They are mostly the business women types who have half a dozen employees (at least!), a stunning salon, and go the whole nine yards, being totally dedicated to the business. If this is what you are envisioning, go for it. If not, just know that the smaller people are often discouraged when they realize that "being really good with hair" isn't what brings in the money.