Body
I just need to share this somewhere and hopefully doing so might make me feel somewhat better about my current situation. Apologies if it’s very long and scattered but I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read my story. I’m a 32F and have been self-employed in the beauty industry since 2016 working as an esthetician mostly doing eyebrows and permanent makeup/cosmetic tattoos. Before that, I worked for a popular retailer as a makeup and brow artist for 5 years where I built a large following, which is what led me to be able to branch out on my own and open my own business when I was 24, with what I consider a good amount of success right off the bat.
I worked hard at building my business even though for years I never had to pay for any professional marketing and relied solely on word of mouth, the free advertisement from local Facebook mom groups, my yelp and google reviews, and the occasional post on instagram. I was always consistently busy seeing 20-30 clients a week and was able to earn a comfortable life for myself offering a luxury service and was super proud to be a girl boss~* (/cringe) despite half the time not really knowing wtf I was doing when it came to things like taxes, finances or business management. Probably about 4-5 years ago is when I started to feel pretty burnt out when it came to the business side of things like answering messages and posting on social media. I conveniently used the excuse that I simply received too many messages/inquiries on a daily basis in order to respond in a very timely manner, which was true, and I never hired an assistant to make things more manageable.
In 2021, I moved to my 3rd studio location which is when the burnout really started to kick in for me I think. I upgraded to a 500 sq. ft multi-room space within a shared medical office all for less than what I was paying for my small salon suite. I spent a few thousand dollars investing in the space and worked my ass off for months in order to make it a beautiful and comfortable space for me and my clients and was there for about 2 years. I really loved that space, but the doctor who owned the building was a massive cheapskate slumlord asshole, I was also not welcome by my neighbor who considered herself a competitor to me and gave me multiple issues over the parking lot space and so let’s just say I did not leave there on good terms. Ironically now, I pass by this building every day, and always en route to my current spot.
I moved to another nearby location after that, but around this same time is when I had broken up with my toxic ex (another reason for my depression at the time) who had moved out of the apartment we shared together, and so my living expenses more than doubled basically overnight, while at the same time I noticed things in the industry were starting to slow down a bit more than ever before and I stopped earning as much. Needless to say, a few months later I completely ran out of money. I was at this location for maybe 3 months before I came across an opportunity I figured would be too good to pass up.
One of my dreams since high school was to become an actual tattoo artist. I reached out to a client of mine that’s a tattoo artist, and her shop agreed for me to move my business there, in exchange for a tattoo apprenticeship basically where I work on a commission basis (something I had never done before being self-employed, but I wanted to save money on rent while I get myself situated in this new spot and learned a new skill).
I was there for about a year. During this time, we all watched as not just the beauty industry but the tattoo industry nationwide got slower and slower. It also didn’t help my situation that Google took down my business page when I moved to this new location, with my 100+ reviews, due to the change of address. I appealed it twice, but they would not restore it. After that I just gave up and stopped trying. This location was also the furthest away from where I’ve been based, so I know I definitely lost more than a few clients because of that as well. I was still somewhat busy now that I started doing tattoos, but I still didn’t earn enough to qualify for a 1099K, for the first time ever.
Last December, the owner of the shop surprised us all when she decided not to renew the lease. She closed the shop that month, and the 3 of us decided to share a salon suite in a nearby town at different days and times in order to save money on the weekly rent.
I won’t get into all the specifics but simply put, it has not been going well for me at all. I have tried my best to make it work but it’s just not working out. I hate this location for multiple reasons that are getting harder and harder to ignore. I have not been motivated whatsoever to make a post on social media in months, promote or market myself whatsoever mostly because of how absolutely miserable I am when I’m there. It’s too far, 30 mins away with bad traffic the whole way every time, I’ve been going there probably once or maybe twice a week for a few hours total so it’s hardly even profitable at this rate and just a waste of time. It’s a joke. Back in February I had no other choice but to get a second job as a teachers assistant for some more consistent income. Even still, it hasn’t been enough to pay my rent. Aside from maybe 1-3 clients a week mostly for the people that still come to me for cheap inexpensive brow services that I have been trying to take off my menu for the last year since I no longer have a passion for it anymore, otherwise, my business feels basically dead. Most people can’t afford hundreds of dollars to get tattooed right now.
So now I’m at a serious crossroads. I’m depressed more than ever in my life, due to how things have been with my business and my financial situation this past year. I need to get out of this current studio in order to grow and get my business back to what it used to be, but I’ve been searching high and low and unless another shop nearby lets me work there I simply can’t afford a place of my own anymore at this point.
I have a job interview tomorrow morning for a nursing assistant position at my local hospital less than 5 mins down the road from me. Back in 2015, I went to nursing school for 10 months but was dealing with some health issues that made me have to drop out, I decided it just wasn’t meant for me and so I focused on my business from that point on.
I don’t want to be a nurse’s assistant. But there’s no experience necessary (it includes training) and pays competitively higher than any of the other facilities with good benefits, 401k and a pension which are not things I can really get being self-employed.
I still can’t help but feel really devastated at what my life has come to and maybe need some reassurance that it’s not that bad, or going to be okay. I just don’t understand how on earth I could have possibly been so successful for so long, making almost a million dollars in the 7 years I was in business and now having practically nothing to show for it. Hardly making any money at all, having to get another job, still struggling to get by. Newer artists with less experience are busier than me because they put in the effort that I have been too depressed, stressed out and tired to do like I did when I was younger. Nothing is guaranteed and it can all just disappear. I’m really sad that the several issues I was dealing with location-wise, the shitty relationship I was in for years while this was happening, feeling so overwhelmed and burnt out constantly all led me to this eventual state of panic and despair.
I’m having a full blown identity crisis. How do I get my old life back? Is that even possible anymore at this point, or am I too far gone? Do I even WANT my old life back as a self-employed business owner, wearing 20 different hats all at once? I just want to be an artist. It would be a good idea to have this other job for the benefits though and consistent pay, right? I could still try to do both, save up money and hopefully be able to afford my own studio again one day.
My other option is to get over my fear of social media, get back out there and start posting TikTok’s and YouTube videos about what I do and try and grow my following back up that way. But it won’t be an immediate solution to my financial situation so while I feel like it could help eventually, it doesn’t seem tangible to me or reliable. I also am terrified of putting myself out there publicly like that. It’s just not me but I am envious of those that do. I just feel like with everything that’s happened the past couple of years, I am utterly defeated, don’t know where to start and hardly even recognize myself anymore. I’m just so lost and feel like giving up.
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