Erica - HER LIFE Magazine

herlife | beautyMobile CosmetologistsBeauty Specialists Who Come to YouWhen You Can’t or Don’t Have Time to Travel to a Salonby linda marannoAs our daily schedules become increasingly demandingand balancing work, family and other activities becomesmore challenging, there often isn’t any time left to takecare of personal needs such as getting your hair cut, having a facialor getting a manicure. Taking time off from work or trying to finda babysitter so you can enjoy some personal time may sometimesseem impossible. Wouldn’t it make life a lot easier if professionalswho provide these services could come to you?You might be surprised to learn there are some beauty professionalssuch as hair stylists, estheticians, make-up artists and nailtechnicians who do, in fact, provide on-site services at your home,office or wherever you might happen to be. They call themselvesmobile or traveling cosmetologists. Some are independent freelancebeauty professionals and others offer their on-site servicesthrough mobile spas.In addition to multi-tasking mothers and busy executives,others who can benefit from mobile beauty services include newmothers, homebound individuals recovering from an accident orillness, the elderly and individuals preparing for special occasionssuch as weddings, anniversaries, proms and graduations.Finding a mobile beauty professional in your area, however,can be a frustrating challenge, because there currently is no onlinedirectory or resource that focuses exclusively on this particularniche market. If you type “mobile cosmetologist”into a search engine, you’ll more than likelyget search results that list cosmetologistsin Mobile, Alabama. Unless youhappen to live in Mobile, that’s not16 HERLIFEMAGAZINE.COMvery helpful!So how to do you find a mobile or traveling cosmetologist? Wesearched extensively and identified a couple of online directoriesthat promoted themselves as nationwide resources for stylists andother beauty professionals. Unfortunately, neither lived up to theirhype—the information was poorly organized and not many listingswere featured in any given city. We did find one site, however,called Spa Finder (www.spafinder.com) that did provide a fairlygood selection of mobile spas, which mostly offer services such asfacials, pedicures, manicures and therapeutic massage.Simply searching for a mobile/traveling hair stylist (or otherprofessional) in your city can generate some results, but thechoices may be somewhat limited because many small businessowners cannot afford to pay for search engine ranking.The best resource we found for mobile beauty professionalsisn’t exactly the first place you would expect to look. It’s called TheKnot (www.theknot.com)—a very popular wedding website withextensive listings for everything you can imagine you might needfor a wedding. Among those listings is a category called health andbeauty, as well as separate categories for hair stylists and make-upartists. A significant number of beauty professionals listed in thesecategories offer mobile services. In order to access vendor detailsand contact information, you’ll need to set up an account, whichis free. Then just click on local vendors, select your city and selectthe type of service you’re looking for. Vendor profiles include ashort description of their services, contact information and a linkto their website. Of course, some cosmetologists listed may focusexclusively on wedding clients, but many offer their mobile servicesto others as well.Once you’ve identified a few mobile beauty professionals whoprovide the type of service you’re looking for, you’ll want to read afew customer reviews to determine if you’ve found a good match.There are some reviews listed on ww.theknot.com site, but otherhelpful sources for customer reviews can be found on www.citysearch.comor www.yelp.com.It’s also important to make sure mobile cosmetologists youare considering have the proper educational background and meetContinued on page 18