HERLIFE 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 becomeincreasingly demanding and balancingwork, family and other activitiesbecomes more challenging, there often isn’tany time left to take care of personal needssuch as getting your hair cut, having a facialor getting a manicure. Taking time off fromwork or trying to find a babysitter so you canenjoy some personal time may sometimesseem impossible. Wouldn’t it make life alot easier if professionals who provide theseservices could come to you?You might be surprised to learn thereare some beauty professionals such as hairstylists, estheticians, make-up artists and nailtechnicians who do, in fact, provide on-siteservices at your home, office or wherever youmight happen to be. They call themselvesmobile or traveling cosmetologists. Some areindependent freelance beauty professionalsand others offer their on-site services throughmobile spas.In addition to multi-tasking mothers andbusy executives, others who can benefit frommobile beauty servicesinclude new mothers, homebound individualsrecovering from an accident or illness, theelderly and individuals preparing for specialoccasions such as weddings, anniversaries,proms and graduations.Finding a mobile beauty professional inyour area, however, can be a frustrating challenge,because there currently is no onlinedirectory or resource that focuses exclusivelyon this particular niche market. If you type“mobile cosmetologist” into a search engine,you’ll more than likely get search results thatlist cosmetologists in Mobile, Alabama. Unlessyou happen to live in Mobile, that’s notvery helpful!So how to do you find a mobile or travelingcosmetologist? We searched extensivelyand identified a couple of online directoriesthat promoted themselves as nationwideresources for stylists and other beauty professionals.Unfortunately, neither lived up totheir hype—the information was poorly organizedand not many listings were featured inany given city. We did find one site, however,called Spa Finder (www.spafinder.com) thatdid provide a fairly good selection of mobilespas, which mostly offer services such asfacials, pedicures, manicures and therapeuticmassage.Simply searching fora mobile/traveling hairstylist (or other professional)in your city can generate someresults, but the choices may besomewhat limited because manysmall business owners cannot affordto pay for search engineranking.The best resource we found for mobilebeauty professionals isn’t exactly the first placeyou would expect to look. It’s called TheKnot (www.theknot.com)—a very popularwedding website with extensive listings foreverything you can imagine you might needfor a wedding. Among those listings is acategory called health and beauty, as well asseparate categories for hair stylists and makeupartists. A significant number of beautyprofessionals listed in these categories offermobile services. In order to access vendordetails and contact information, you’ll needto set up an account, which is free. Then justclick on local vendors, select your city andselect the type of service you’re looking for.Vendor profiles include a short description oftheir services, contact information and a linkto their website. Of course, some cosmetologistslisted may focus exclusively on weddingclients, but many offer their mobile services toothers as well.Once you’ve identified a few mobilebeauty professionals who provide the type ofservice you’re looking for, you’ll want to reada few customer reviews to determine if you’vefound a good match. There are some reviewslisted on ww.theknot.com site, but other helpfulsources for customer reviews can be foundon www.citysearch.com orwww.yelp.com.It’s also important to make sure mobilecosmetologists you are considering have theproper educational background and meetstate licensing requirements. Most cosmetologistsare required to be licensed and28 HERLIFEMAGAZINE.COM