Are you looking for beauty business ideas to start your own business today? The beauty industry is a multibillion-dollar industry. This is great if you want to look for a side-hustle and earn money OR you want to build something you’re passionate about beauty!
Below are 4 beauty business ideas for you to explore and try out.
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Open your own salon
This is quite a tough one on the list and we’re starting out strong. Opening a salon is like opening your own business (I mean, it actually is!) So unless you’re willing to invest time, labour and hard work into your salon, then this one is for you! Some ideas for your salon could include hairdressing, nails & manicures, brow tech, eyelash extensions, or/and makeup tech.
You can outsource and hire people to also join in the growth of your salon. Doing it yourself can be really tough (unless you got the experience and management skills to do so). Either way, hiring other people can be a wonderful way to grow your business. You can post a “for hire” sign in the front of your salon or find employees through Seek.
If you want to go all out, you can create a joint business in the salon like a café (this allows the customer to feel more comfortable and you get more income stream. It’s a win-win!). Find your target market and see what their interest and hobbies are before creating a joint business.
Become a beauty blogger
As someone who has been blogging for over 6+ years, I can say that it takes a while for income and traffic to come in. But that is all dependent on your writing abilities, who your target niche is (i.e beauty and fashion niche), your SEO (search engine optimization) skills and what products you advertise on there.
It’s so easy to open your own self-hosted website (I highly recommend SiteGround for their self-hosting. They have amazing customer support throughout my 5+ years with them)! Now the tough part is customising your website theme and adding and modifying plugins. But all the necessary tough part is well worth it in the end.
If you want to open up your very own beauty blog website but don’t know how to install your theme and customise your site (or if you don’t have the time to do that), I’ll be happy to help you out via purchasing my Pinterest or Instagram bundle! With my expertise and experience in designing, arts and opening a website, I can happily open your website via WordPress and create custom social media templates and digital cliparts so that you can grow your beauty business.
Some beauty post ideas you could create are “top # lists (i.e “of makeup looks to wear”)”. You can also create “how-to” posts where you share your tutorial on how to create your makeup looks, style hair, create different unique nail looks or apply your skincare routine (this combined with creating YouTube videos AND Instagram post/story snippets).
OR if you want to start selling and making some side-income, you can create a “top # list of beauty/makeup/skincare/hair/nail products to use” where you list your affiliate programs (I will share more about affiliate programs below).
So what is an affiliate program? They are programs where you recommend other businesses’ (or peoples’) products through your unique conversion URL links specialised to you. So when a customer clicks on your link, it will track it for 30 days (or depending on your affiliate provider) and when a customer buys something, you get a percentage of the money.
You can find affiliate links to all sorts of popular beauty programs like Sephora, Glossier, Ulta Beauty, Neutrogena, MAC Cosmetics and more! To find them, you can head over and sign up to Flex Offers and ShareASale. There are plenty of affiliate programs that I haven’t listed here.
Freelancer Makeup Artist (MUA)
If you have a knack for doing your own makeup or doing others’ makeup, then you’re going to love being a freelancing MUA (makeup artist). You can do it right at your own home, travel to your client’s location or even rent out your own building (such as a studio space).
With freelancing, you can make your own schedules, create your own cost and do what you love creatively. But this also comes with some cons like where to start from scratch, where to find clients, having to network a lot, having “nightmare” clients and sometimes you might stumble upon a scheduling issue or two.
If you’re not afraid of the cons above, then it’s time for you to take the first step! If you want to be more credited, I suggest finding a cosmetology program near you so that you can have a cosmetology license. This is also a great way to network during your time there and learn new skills.
To build your portfolio when starting as a freelance MUA, showcase your beautiful work online where the beauty community is and start building your reputation from there. You can do this via social media such as YouTube (i.e makeup tutorials), Instagram (i.e show your finished look through photos), Tiktok (i.e storytimes while you do your makeup) or Facebook pages (showcasing your makeup works or/and showcasing makeup YouTube videos).
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Start a small business selling your own beauty products
In this century, many people have decided to quit their jobs to sell their own beauty products. Whether that be scented lip-glosses, vegan-friendly essential oils or even natural skincare products, there will be something there that you’re passionate about creating.
In all honestly, it can be tough like opening your own salon (as this is a business after all!) however with a lot of research and not giving up, you can turn it into a 5-6 figure business.
Again, you need to have really in-depth research on products, materials, stocks, packaging as well as comply with the FDA cosmetics law. Speaking of packaging, I can actually help bring your plain packaging into something unique and specialised customise to fit your new business. If you want me to create your custom illustrations, feel free to purchase a commission here on my Etsy OR if you have any questions, you can contact me via my contact page here.
Now the question is, will you be opening your business online, offline or both?
- If you said online, you can easily create an eCommerce website online using Shopify, Etsy or WooCommerce on WordPress. If you’re not a fan of opening your own eCommerce site, you can also sell your beauty products via Facebook marketplace or Instagram marketplace.
However, the competition online is very high (that’s why it’s best to put your personal branding in perspective to make you unique from competitors) and you will need to do the packaging and send it via UPS. Due to the UPS high demand (because you know, online shopping is a huge thing thanks to Miss COVID), it can get tricky with both the customers and packages getting lost through travel. - Now when it comes to offline, it can be quite costly including the cost of your materials and stocks. You need to rent out a studio or building, you need to hire employees to run the shop, you need to purchase furniture (or you can borrow some if you’re able to) and a lot more hidden costs. But if you have the budget to do that, go ahead (I’m not stopping you haha)!
This is great to find local customers as well as a higher chance to purchase from you as they get to try out the products in person.
The great thing about starting your own homemade beauty business today is that now we have TikTok and Instagram! These are great apps to showcase your products. You can create content such as:
- “Behind the scenes” of creating or/and packaging your beauty products. Like, capture the BTS (no not the kpop boy band) of you photographing your products for example.
- Create a trendy TikTok via “sound” or trends
- Share testimonials and reviews
- Go live and do a Q&A (gotta connect with your audience and potential client)
- and many more.
While I don’t have a physical beauty business, I do in fact create aesthetic digital illustrations and templates for start-ups and well-established beauty businesses. I like to share behind the scenes of me creating digital art on my iPad (take a look at my Tiktok for example).
So what are you waiting for? Pick something from this beauty business ideas list and get started today!
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Sourced from NerdWallet.
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