Should You Start Offering Lash Training? Pros, Cons, and How to Start 

Thinking about offering lash training? Well, there's a couple of things we think you should know before you embark on this journey! If you're a lash artist looking to level up your business, offering lash training courses might be your next big move. Teaching others how to apply lash extensions not only opens new doors financially but also positions you as a leader in the beauty industry. However like any new venture, it comes with its own set of challenges. In this blog, we’ll explore the pros and cons of lash training and the steps you should take to become a successful lash trainer. 

The Pros of Lash Training

 Higher Income Potential

One of the biggest benefits of becoming a lash trainer is the significant earning potential. While lash appointments can bring in a great income, training classes can be far more profitable. Why? One of the main reasons behind this is if you are running group classes you can earn more for each extra student for the same hours, where as you can only physically lash one client at a time! You can charge more for students who want to have 1:1 training and can also offer mentoring for those who want additional guidance after their initial training course. It also allows you to offer another service potentially alongside your treatments, many lash techs offer training alongside their client diary to fill up their schedules so they are always busy! Providing both treatments and training helps to expand your business and create additional revenue streams, allowing for future growth. 

 Flexibility

Another major perk of offering lash training is the flexibility. As a trainer, you can decide how you run your training, when you offer your training and how you offer your training, giving you full control over your work. You can choose whether you run 1:1 or larger classes, weekdays or weekends,1 day or week long courses, online or in-person etc etc. This means you can choose to offer training full time, part-time or or even as a side hustle!

 Establish Yourself as an Industry Expert

Teaching others also helps to position you as a leader within the lash community. It builds your credibility, authority, and brand which can also help other aspects of your business. For example, potential new clients may book in for lash treatments with a trainer as they see them as more experienced and trustworthy. Being a trainer will also give you more of an opportunity to meet and network with other people in the industry and can lead to collaborations with other professionals and brands. For example, you could become an affiliated trainer or brand ambassador for Pinkfishes! Your students often become loyal followers and future collaborators. You’ll connect with other pros, brands, and beauty educators—opening doors to more opportunities and partnerships.

 Make a Positive Impact

There’s something incredibly rewarding about helping someone kickstart their lash career. As a trainer, you get to empower others, boost their confidence and watch them succeed. Therefore becoming a trainer can be very fulfilling and rewarding on a personal level as you can help others become their own boss! Equally it can be hard to find good quality trainers that actually care about their students and want to provide them with quality training, feedback and guidance and you could be a trainer bringing this to the industry! 

The Cons of Starting Lash Training

Time-Consuming Setup

Building a quality training course doesn’t happen overnight. From getting qualified, writing manuals and developing lesson plans to organising kits and marketing your course, the initial setup takes time, effort and attention to detail. Firstly, you are going to need some funds to invest into becoming a trainer, you will need to pay for a level 3 Award in Education & Training course. You will then need further money for things like; insurance, equipment, kits and so on. There is then the logistics side like when will you find the time to do your AET course, write your manuals, market your courses? How many students can you fit in your current location? Is there enough parking? You'll need to think about even the smallest details such as how students will pay for the courses, do you offer payment plans, what about cancellation policies? All of the above will take time and/or money, so ensure you have the availability and funds to dedicate to a project like this! 

Requirements

In terms of becoming a trainer we would always recommend having experience in the treatments you are going to teach before starting your Level 3 Award in Education and Training Course so that you feel fully confident in the treatments themselves. In terms of how much experience you need depends on the accreditor you use to accredit your course. It can vary, but is normally 6-12 months of experience before you can then teach in that treatment. As mentioned you will also need to get accreditation for your own courses as well as teacher training insurance.  

 Not Everyone is a Natural Teacher

Being a talented lash artist doesn’t always mean you’re ready to teach. You’ll be dealing withdifferent learning styles and you will come across various challenges with your students. Teaching requires patience, clarity, and structure. You will come across different types of students with different personalities, who have different learning preferences. Some students may be more visual so benefit more from demonstrations and practical hands on training. Some may like interpersonal learning so can thrive in group settings learning from others, whereas others could be more solitary so prefer learning on their own. It can be difficult to adapt from student to student and not one way of teaching will fit all! You will more than likely have to deal with tricky situations involving students such as disruptive behaviour, frustrated students who aren't getting the hang of it, students who are not listening or paying attention, and it will fall on you to manage your class. You will also need to be good at providing constructive criticism, you don't want to be passing students who aren't ready, so giving the correct feedback without discouraging them is important. Students will have lot of questions so it is really important to ensure you are confident and knowledgeable in lash extensions yourself before passing your expertise onto others. 

Continuous Learning

Leading on from the last point you do have to be knowledgeable as a trainer to be able to answer student questions, but this will also mean you should be constantly refining your skills and keeping up to date with new and emerging trends, techniques and styles in the lash industry. This may involve research and extra courses for yourself so that you are progressive and don't fall behind. Products and techniques have evolved throughout the years so it is vital to make sure you are 'in the know' in case you have questions or maybe even have to adapt your own courses and teaching. 

How to Start Offering Lash Training

Ready to begin your journey as a lash trainer? Here’s a quick step-by-step guide of how you can get started as a lash trainer in the UK:

Award in Education & Training

First you need to enrol on an accredited Level 3 Award in Education & Training (AET Level 3 Course). We offer this as an online course here at Pinkfishes so that you can complete this in your own time - with no deadlines. Our course includes a variety of topics including; lesson planning, teaching & learning approaches, constructive feedback and more. Another important part of this course is a micro-teach session where you deliver a short 15-30 minute lesson to showcase your learnings. This course at Pinkfishes costs £395. 

(Pinkfishes AET Course)

Location

Next you need to work out what courses you want to offer and if they will be in-person or online. From here you can then decide on the class sizes i.e. 1:1 or groups, if in person you will need to consider the space you have available to fit equipment such as lash beds and lights. You should also consider whether your students will be practising on mannequins, models or each other. When deciding on a premises you also need to think about transport and parking for your future students/models. Consider timings will the courses be week days/evenings/weekends? If online will it be a LIVE course through a platform like zoom or will it be a pre-recorded downloadable video? 

(Pinkfishes Multimedia Pro Light Kit)

Manuals

Next you need to start thinking about the running our your own courses. You are required to write manuals and create your lesson plans which must be submitted for approval and meet the governing body accreditation standards. Here at Pinkfishes we also sell white label manuals templates that are already prepared for you which you can edit to brand yourself ready for submission and printing.

Kits

You also need to decide on kits: will you provide them, sell them as an add on or require your students to buy their own products? At Pinkfishes we work with trainers and training schools to offer customised kits for their students so that trainers can choose exactly what products they want included in their kits at a discounted price. If this is of interest to you, please contact us directly to discuss your kit options. We have a large number of pre-made kits that you can choose from or tweak to suit your requirements.

Pricing 

Once you know more about how you will run your course and what it will include, you can then start working on pricing your courses. We recommend working out all of your costs; rent, courses, kits, bills and equipment. Take a look at what other people are charging in your area, work out how much you want to make for your time and go from there. It is also important to consider whether you will take deposits, ask for payment in full or offer payment plans for students. We would definitely recommend writing booking and cancellation policies so that students are aware of these before booking. Here at Pinkfishes we require a £100 deposit to book a course with the rest of the balance required a week prior to the course date. We also offer payment plans through Klarna and PayL8r. You also need to list any booking requirements such as the minimum age and if they need any prior qualifications - which will be stated by your accreditor should there be any pre-requisites.

Marketing your courses

Ideally it would be great to have a website or booking system that allows students to book onto your courses. Having an online booking system or website allows you to put lots of information about the course and potential students can book 24/7! Having a way for people to contact you is also important as they may have questions about your courses before wanting to book. Social media is a great platform that's free to use to help promote your courses, creating content (i.e a day in the life training course edition, what's included in your kits etc) can help attract new students. 

Student Follow up 

Another really important step of your course should be student follow up. Here at Pinkfishes Training academy on most courses we ask for further case studies before passing students to ensure they are confident and have practised on a variety of different clients/eye shapes. Not only is this a requirement from our accreditors, but it also ensures student's can complete the treatment when they don't have you there with them. It's good to check in with students after they are passed or give them a way of contacting you if they have any future questions or enquiries. Providing students with certificates is also a nice way to congratulate them and also if displayed in lash rooms and salon helps promote your training courses. Collecting reviews and feedback from students can also allow you to continue to improve your courses and potentially help attract new students as they can trust other peoples experiences. 

Top Tips from Pinkfishes Training Academy

After training hundreds of lash students throughout the years there are some really handy tips and tricks we would recommend to trainers and academies. We include lunch as part of the course, not only is it an added benefit for students but we found that many student would forget and it can be a long day training and with not a lot of options nearby our location, so we found that providing lunch made the most sense! We also started creating a list of back up models who lived or worked locally as we have experienced students models cancelling last minute. We also moved our training room to a slightly larger space to add in a waiting room as we found that some models would come with the students at the start of the course and had nowhere to sit and wait. As a marketing technique we also offer kit upgrades to include more items and 10% OFF future course bookings for students who have already trained to encourage them to come back to us for more courses. 

Conclusion 

So there you have it - the perks and drawbacks of becoming a lash trainer. If after reading this blog you think lash training is for you, book onto our AET Course TODAY to get the ball rolling! If you have any further questions or would like to arrange customised kits for your training courses get in contact with us - Email : training@pinkfishes.com
Tel : 01245 477433