Beauty Schools Exposed, A State Board Examiner & A Students Email Tell All

[00:00:00] Hey Jason, are you ready for State Boards today? Uh, fuck, is that today? Yeah. Oh, fuck, yeah I guess, let me get my water bottle. um, that water smells a little funky, what's in it? Uh, vodka? I don't give a shit, whatever, I need a fucking drink for this shit. Do you want to pass? I don't fucking care, this will get my fucking money.

[00:00:36] Real hairdressers telling real stories about their experiences from behind the salon chair. And we are now saying the quiet parts out loud. This is Sh!t I Told My Hairdresser. Welcome back to another episode of Shit I Told My Hairdresser. Paula, how are you?

[00:01:05] I'm doing great, I'm excited for this interview. How are you doing Jason? I'm doing good man, can't complain one bit. Alright guys, thank you so much for going through and following us, and subscribe. If you haven't, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you go through and get your podcasts. We really appreciate it. We are a word of mouth podcast, just like the industry. So make sure you go through and tell 10 of your friends and 20 people that you hate. So that way we burn their little ears off. All right, follow us on TikTok and on Instagram.

[00:01:34] Also go through and give us your stories. We definitely want to hear your shitty stories and we want to get you on our podcast. So, uh, go through and go to Shit I Told My Hairdresser.com and leave us a email or leave us a voicemail there and get on the show. But in the meantime, you guys have been giving us a ton of shit about not knowing our stuff. And you want to know what? Good. I'm glad you have been because we brought in one of the state board examiners to go through

[00:02:04] and talk to her about some of the shit that they were seeing from an state board. So we have Kimberly joining us today. Kim, how are you? Good. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. So here's the thing. We have this like bill everyone's pissed off about and everyone's like trying to back up to schools and to tell you the truth, the schools that they're kind of backing up, you know,

[00:02:30] along the way here, I think they're being told to back up these, all these like Instagram posts and stuff like that. I think they're being told to make them to go through and kind of keep their jobs because some of these schools are just, they're saying that, oh my God, they're amazing. We can't lose them. We can't lose the funding. And yet you get the backside of when they come out of school and they come to state board. Right. Right. And to tell you the truth, majority of them don't even make it to state board. So you don't even get the majority of them.

[00:03:00] That's the, that's the thing of it. Yeah. I mean, so having said that you're a hairdresser, your hairdresser still now to today, right? Kim. Oh, respect. Yeah. Still doing Kim's. I was, I was texting you while you were doing clients and couldn't get ahold of you. Yeah. This is my 30 years in the industry. There you go. So you've been around the block once or twice. Right. Yeah. So, and then you became a state board examiner.

[00:03:29] And so you kind of know you've been, you've been to beauty school, didn't you? Right. You got your license. You had to pass your test. You had to pass your examiner's test. How are these, what would you rate the majority of these schools? If you give them like a letter rating, what would it be? D. D. Oh, wow. That's low. That is low. That is really low. And why would you say that? What would you, what's your experience for these people?

[00:04:00] D. D. That's why you carry, you know, liability insurance. I carry it. So just in case. D. And I just cut hair. I mean, I mean, I guess if I get really pissed off at someone and stabbed him in the face with their scissors, then I guess I get some insurance with me. I'm not quite sure. D. Some of them are just. D. Maybe not.

[00:04:30] I'm not. Sometimes. There's a few. There's a few. There's a few. Just like, ah. D. Exactly. Right? Yeah. So how is it that you see that some of these students don't come prepared? And not just personally, education wise. D. So a lot of them don't have the capability of following instructions. You need to show up with your license and your letter. And a lot of them can't even do that. Oh, God. And you have to prove your identity.

[00:05:00] Like, you have to show us you are who you are. They come in with kits that aren't complete. Uh huh. Like no mannequin head, no mannequin stand. They have to have their water bottles full before we start. So we, we. So I, I actually had to go through and my school had like. A state board, like mock-up test for us to take while we were at school. And you went through like everything.

[00:05:28] And this is back when we use live models and you had to do everything. Everything. And you had to have them committed to four hours of their time. And you had to do a 90 degree haircut on them. And if they didn't like it, you have to fix it later. I mean, facials on them, even an acrylic nail and show that you can do. Um, all of the massage treatments on their face. That was what we had to do. Yeah. And some teacher gets their own mannequin head. Do they even know their first fucking name? Sometimes.

[00:05:58] Some. Yeah. Yeah. I can't guarantee all the time. Right. It's like, and you are banana. You're like, what the fuck? You know what I mean? That's that. It's even my, like he, my son's six. And sometimes he gets startled. Goes what, you know, what's your name? I don't know. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like dealing with a bunch of five-year-olds. 25% of the time. They could not use the correct door to get to state board. What? Correct door. Yes.

[00:06:26] We had a door that was marked state board this way. They would use a salon door. We've had them go under a chain and upstairs. Even when there's a sonic. Yes. Even though it said state board right there. Well, then maybe some of these shouldn't be hairstylists. Yeah. So, and that is the thing. That's one of the things that we talked about as well, though, too, is that some of these schools are having kids come in and they're just taking their money and they know full well.

[00:06:54] That they shouldn't be doing here. You know, do you think that's the case with some of these kids? It sounds like this is like exactly what we're talking about. Competency test before they even enter into school. Yes. A preliminary test would be wonderful. Can you, do you know your math? Do you know your science? Do you know biology? How is your financial literacy? How's your EQ? How's your people skills? I mean, like all of.

[00:07:23] I don't think these, these schools really care about that. You know what I mean? You want to know what? Now that you mentioned a bit, I had to take a test before I started beauty school. And this was back in 1992. And I started beauty school. And I remember that I had to sit down and take some type of competency test that they gave me at the school. Now that you, you say that, I remember this. It was more than a Myers-Briggs. They will give Myers-Briggs a lot of schools and a lot of jobs.

[00:07:53] Now it's just bringing them a check. That's all they care about. Exactly. Shit, man. So, okay. See, this is getting kind of interesting. You know what I mean? Because that's the thing. It's like, these schools are like all in fear of losing their accreditation. And would you say the majority of the students that come out, they shouldn't even paid the $30,000 to even go to school? Oh God, no. So see, these schools probably shouldn't even have their, have their accreditation, you know? And that's the, and that's the thing is we talked to someone who is one of those accreditation

[00:08:22] counselors as well too. And she was just saying that the majority of schools, like she says, yeah, they will close down. Like they're saying, you know what I mean? She's like, but the 90% that they say are going to close down are from their own schools. So that, that, when you look at it in that direction, it kind of makes a lot of sense on why they're going to run through and pushing it. You know what I mean? So one of the other things that you were saying that was one of the major concerns was sanitation. Now, do these kids like, do they just, I mean, forget to wash their hands? I mean. Mm-hmm.

[00:08:52] And it was, what's, what's the worst that you've ever seen that it's a little bit redonkulous where you're like, really? What made you think even as a human being, not just a cosmetology student, but as a human being, what made you think that that was okay? A lot of them in the wiping of the nose and heading right back, you know, wiping of the forehead, heading right back. Come on. Sanitize your hands. Sanitize your hands. Sanitize. Because if you don't, what happens?

[00:09:17] What are the bad things that you've heard that has happened to people because shit was not sanitized? There was a 16 year old girl who went in to get her eyebrows waxed. She ended up with a sore on her, on her eye, went to the doctor and she had herpes of the eye, vaginal herpes in the eye. Where has that happened? How does that happen? I mean, really? I had herpes of the eye. So they placed it back. Did the waxer straddle her face or something like that?

[00:09:47] Like what were they doing? No. She had used a wax spot on somebody with an active open infection and then reused double dip and reused that pot for this girl's eyebrow wax. Oh, shit. So for 16 years old, she's infected for the rest of her life, basically. Correct. And coming from the culture she does, she has to tell somebody, yeah, no, I'm still a virgin. Haven't done anything sexual.

[00:10:15] And now I have herpes of the eye because of an eyebrow wax. Well, and this shit, when it breaks out, it goes all over your face. It's not like you can't hide that. It's not like you can hide it in your pants. You know what I mean? But when you're going through and you're waxing someone, I mean, you see that shit. It's not like it's, you know, you know, what are you gonna tell them? Oh, that's a mole. No, it's not. It definitely does not look like a fucking mole. If you guys have not seen herpes on a vagina, go look it up. You know what the shit that is. I mean, you know.

[00:10:45] Herpes on any genitalia. You know what it is. You know exactly what it is, man. It's like we all went to school. We all had to go through sex education. They showed you the pictures of this stuff. You know what I mean? You saw it. It's not like you don't know what the fuck that is. The beauty schools aren't teaching them this. They don't know what this looks like. They don't know that somebody can be colonized with MRSA. MRSA? What happened with MRSA? Yeah. Yeah. I gotta hear this.

[00:11:13] There was a bride getting her makeup done on her wedding day and her makeup artist used dirty brushes and she ended up coming down with MRSA on her cheek from a pimple that she had that got infected. Wait. So a makeup artist came in and used dirty brush? How do you? How the fuck does that happen? I mean, you're brushing between clients or in between models or in between anybody. And the cleaners are super inexpensive and easy to use and quick.

[00:11:41] I don't think a lot of people use EPA either. I mean, was she using makeup on a corpse or something like that? Then you used on this woman and it was kind of like, I'm going to eat your face apart. You know what I mean? Like, what the fuck? No, MRSA can be colonized on somebody's body. It can be colonized on someone and you use the brush and then you go use the brush on somebody else. Well, the MRSA is on there and the other person doesn't have an active infection, but then you can transfer it over. Just like pink eye. Not planting your brush. Yeah. Wow. Holy shit.

[00:12:11] So then half her face got eaten away. Come on. Whoa. Okay. All right. All right. All right. Sanitation is important. Okay. Because I'm kind of like, yeah, you want to know what the sloths I've worked in? I've never seen anything fucking weird. It's not like people come in with fucking headlights or some shit. You know what I mean? I've never seen that before. You know? And if you ever heard of it, it's like everyone just dumps all their stuff. You know? I'm not saying that it doesn't happen. I know it does.

[00:12:38] But I've never worked anywhere where that kind of shit happens. Yeah. I've seen it burned off because the stylist didn't know. The waxer didn't gauge her the hot wax. She didn't test it. And so she used the bride two days before the bride's wedding. And she broke out in just all of these red bumps and everything. And the bride came in and I had to fix it all. That she was, what, two months into fixing that burn? Oh.

[00:13:05] But see, that is not, that's not sanitation though. That's just stupidity. True. That's safety. That's another thing I wanted. We want them to be safe. We want them to test the wax on the inside of their wrist. Show us that when you do a wax. That that's one of the first things you're going to do. I test my wax right here. If it's too hot for this soft part, yep, then it doesn't go on the eyebrow or anywhere on the face. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right.

[00:13:34] Now I'm starting to get it. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, they're not even showing them their state. Are they just forgetting when they come in because they're nervous? Or? I think a lot of it is also monkey see, monkey do. The instructors are not practicing themselves. The students don't prioritize it either. Either. Right. Okay. Yeah. People testing for their instructor's license and they fail because they can't even wipe the table down. And they want to become an instructor.

[00:14:04] Right. Now, let me ask you a question. How many of the instructors don't pass their exams? You know what I mean? Is there a lot of them that don't? Yeah. Funny. I can make a syllabus. I think my 16-year-old can make a syllabus. Yeah. Wow. Wow. These are the people who are teaching inside the schools. You know what I mean? How, what does it take to become a beauty school teacher? You know what I mean? Just to kind of take a course real fast, go take the test and you're good?

[00:14:33] You have to take kind of a teaching class on how to construct a syllabus. And then you can take your instructor's license, I believe. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's it? Yeah. That's it. And you have to take a test because I have my instructor's license and you have to study. And it's, I studied quite a bit. It was absolutely amazing. Because I like what I learned, but I love learning. And then you have to go and take a test. I think you only have to test out at 79%.

[00:15:02] But still, I mean, it's like, here's some paperwork. Read this over while you're drunk. You know what I mean? You're flipping through the pages. You're like, okay, I got this. I'll go take the fucking test. And sometimes out of luck, you just might pass it. And then you go to the school. But you want to, I've, okay, I've had friends that have actually worked at some of these beauty schools without a license. Are you serious? Very much so. Uh-huh. I know. That's because they need instructors. Because they don't pay them shit. So you have someone who's like, hell, I need a job.

[00:15:30] You're paying me like 18 bucks an hour. I'll go take that. And not even have a license. So now did you go out in the field at all to go through and check salons or just as an examiner? Just as an examiner. Okay. So you've never been out in the field going to check salons. Okay. I definitely want you to talk to someone about that shit. That's for sure. So I know those fuckers are doing some shit. Oh, yeah. Yes. What was your role as an examiner? I mean, define that to us, please.

[00:15:57] So when you come in, I basically walk up the aisle and down the aisle. I'm looking to see if everything's labeled. If all your equipment's clean, your utensils, everything needs to be clean. I don't want to see anything marked. I don't want your combs marked at an inch. It's cheating. You got to know an inch right now. But the combs had the ruler. Remember the ones that had the rulers on the side? They had ruler on them. Yeah. Some of them do. Some of them don't. Oh, so they have it marked on purpose so you would know.

[00:16:27] They would know what an inch was. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Really? Is it that straight to take an inch off? Is that strict? I mean, we want to see an inch off. At least cut some hair. An inch is not that big, though. It's not a lot. You would be surprised at how little they will cut off because the mannequins are pre-cut. Oh. Well. Yeah. You know, if you're going to be cheap, be cheap. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, my God. So here's the thing.

[00:16:54] You mentioned something to me a while back when we first started talking about how you had to have a gag order against you after you left state board. What the fuck is that about? Well, I was amazed that you couldn't talk about your job to anyone except for maybe your husband. We couldn't talk about it even while we were doing it. We could tell our close leg, if you were married, your boyfriend, your kids, whoever was watching the kids, hey, I have to do state boards. But you couldn't divulge any information afterwards.

[00:17:24] They said it was for our safety. They didn't want anybody to try and bribe us. They didn't want anybody to try and come after us if they had failed. So we had to keep it hush. And then I'm not sure why we're not allowed to talk about it two years after termination. Two years. Two years after termination. Is the Iran nuclear plans at state board or what the fuck is going on? I mean, you can't talk about it to your friends. And did you have these students come up afterwards?

[00:17:52] No, most of them don't care. I mean. What the fuck? I mean, it's like, oh, top secret. Don't fucking tell anybody. Yeah. And how are they going to if you can't tell anybody with what we expect, how are they going to pass? Second point. Right. Well, you want to know what, though? Maybe they don't want them to pass. Maybe they want them to fail. So they come back and spend more money and take the test again. Could be. That is one of the things that kind of shocked me, though, is that I thought state board was just a board.

[00:18:19] I didn't know there was a separate entity, a business that actually ran all the examinations. I thought it was huge. Went to state board. Yeah. So the state contracts out with the companies. The companies are the ones that have the gag order and the state board allows it. Wow. Has it always been like that, though? In the years that I was doing it, it was. Wow. Yeah. Because they know the cure to cancer and they can't tell. Can you tell now? Can you tell us now? Yeah. What the fuck?

[00:18:50] It's kind of the stupidest shit I've ever heard. You know what I mean? I'm sorry. I just find it ridiculous. But I just don't get it. I don't get it. But that's the thing is that you would expect state board to be doing a little bit more, especially because they go through and they take our tax away. I say they tax us because we have to pay for our license every two years. Right. And they're making all this money is going in to go through support something that, man, you can't even get an answer at them when you call them up.

[00:19:20] And it drives me fucking crazy. But I think the bigger the bigger thing is that they got these these examination companies have gotten beginning to kick back, kick up to the state board. So the more money they're making, the more state board is making as well, too. They got to be getting a cut because state boards aren't just going to go through and let an examination company just come in and take all the profits. That might be going to be kicked up to the company. So do you think that there are some people out there that come in who just do not want to go through and pass the exam for a certain reason?

[00:19:49] They just like fail on purpose? Yes, I think there are people who suffer from generational poverty and they get assistance from the state for their tuition. And honestly, after they've learned all this, do they really need to piss their state board if they're going to be doing it on the side? Oh, OK. Right, right, right, right.

[00:20:16] So get money, go to school, get paid while you're going to school. If you go to school and you do get your benefits or you go to you get money because you pass your boards and you get a really good job, then you're not going to get your benefits anymore. So why pass it? Kind of. Yeah. Well, at least you tried. You showed to the government you tried. Yes, you tried.

[00:20:43] I mean, really, after you go through schooling, do you need to get your license? Are you saying that some of these people go on to do hair without a license then? Yes. Yeah. OK. All right. All right. You want to know what I had? You want to know now that you say that you want to know what? There is a person out there that I know really, really well who actually never got her license and went on to be very, very successful and actually had her own product line.

[00:21:13] So you want to let the double edged sword here, guys, you know what I mean? I'm like, I can see both sides of the coin, but sometimes I'm kind of thinking like, hey, you know, this one's worth 80 million and she never even got her license. So I'm kind of like, I don't know, man. I'm kind of on the fence on that. I'm bitter. I'm bitter. I worked hard for my license and I work hard to keep it. So, yeah. Right. No shit. I know. Wow. All right, guys. Well, Kim, thank you so much for the information. We really appreciate it.

[00:21:43] Yeah. Yep. If you want more, I'm around. Definitely got back enough for more. Thank you so much. Shit. Right. I swear to fucking God. All right, guys. And we are back with another email from a listener. Again, dealing with the whole beauty school kind of issue, which has kind of like been the theme.

[00:22:11] Well, it is the theme for the day after we got done talking to the examiners. But we did get an email from somebody and it's letting my dumb ass read them. I just like I'm going to read some of this with some dyslexia, but I'm going to let Paula take control of this one. What do you say, Paula? You read a lot nicer than I do. Oh, why? Thank you, Jason. Yeah, this is a doozy. I was quite surprised at this one. So here we go. Dear listeners, this is going to chap your head like it did me.

[00:22:40] Here's another anonymous story for the archives, LOL. I attended Paul Mitchell in Pasadena in early 2021, right in the middle of COVID. My tuition was around $24,000. And from the beginning, something about the school left me a little put off. The culture felt less like a beauty school and more like a motivational seminar.

[00:23:02] There was a constant emphasis on Mr. Robbins and other various self-help guru content shoved down our throat. There's nothing wrong with being optimistic, but I feel like I was trapped in an herbal life nightmare. Yeah. Okay, that's one way putting it.

[00:23:21] And my first aha moments came when I realized part of our tuition included a book written by Wim Awa, one of the founders of Paul's school system. The book had nothing to do with learning hair, color, cutting, or preparing for state boards. It felt like more of a book bundled into tuition. Way to boost your sales, Wim Awa. The school ran tuition through Saturday, Tuesday through Saturday. Tuesday rarely had consistent curriculum.

[00:23:52] Sometimes we have guest artists. Some more often we'd have motivational speakers or outside organizations giving presentations during our instructional paid hours. The nonprofit presentation stood out the most. One, I remember, involved an organization that funded Water Welles in Africa. representatives would spend one to two hours speaking about their mission.

[00:24:18] And at the end, the students, many of whom were recent high school graduates already carrying significant tuition debt, were encouraged to donate money directly through Venmo. Okay, here's the thing, Jason. What the fuck? These people are fresh out of school. They are probably working part-time. They have school tuition, not just tuition, but student loans. And they're trying to get money from people that don't have money.

[00:24:45] I mean, get some money in their pockets first and your students, but get them graduated. Get them into a livable career and then ask for money because I'm all about giving back. But if you don't have shit to give back, then that's just really not fair. When I was going to school, literally, I was working a full-time job at a movie theater. I went to school from 8 o'clock in the morning until 4, 35 o'clock in the afternoon. And then I would start work at 5.30 and work until 2 o'clock in the morning. And I was doing both five days a week.

[00:25:14] When you're 19, you can pull shit like that. You know what I mean? And barely get like just kind of like skirt through like a couple hours of sleep at night, you know? Yeah. What would you think of your organization? I had nothing. Yeah. I had nothing back then. And especially in today's economy and what schools are charging now. I mean, $24,000 in school tuition. I mean, yeah. Fuck that. Okay. Do you want me to keep on reading? Because this gets good.

[00:25:44] Oh, yeah. Let's keep going. Yeah. Okay. October was heavily dedicated to what the school called fundraising. Students were encouraged to donate money. Fundraising as in like capital F-U-N. F-U-N. Fundraising. Fundraising. Right. Students were encouraged to donate money, raise money, volunteer, and participate in fundraising campaigns. Community service can absolutely be valuable, but it often felt like educational time was

[00:26:14] being directed towards fundraising activities rather than cosmetology training. Another scam concept was the required makeup kit. Every student had to purchase the full makeup kit. Okay. So this kit didn't even come with a regular kit. They had to buy the kit separately. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. So this is like getting really, really scammy on the school. Not only bringing in people to go through and get money off the students, but it's like

[00:26:44] you're participating in fun. What fundraisers? The only fundraiser I needed to know about was my own. My fund. I need my new raising my funds. I don't need to be raising funds for anybody else. Yes. School should be about learning how to do hair, passing your state board exam, and that's it. Yeah. Oh, fucking hell. Wow. That would make sense if makeup were a significant part of the curriculum, but I can barely remember receiving any meaningful makeup education.

[00:27:11] To the best of my recollection, we spent only a few hours on makeup during my entire time there. As time went on, teacher turnover became a major issue. We had one learning leader who was fantastic and genuinely cared about students. Beyond that, many of the capable instructors seemed to leave, only to be replaced by new teachers who often appeared unprepared to educate students effectively.

[00:27:41] Yeah, that seems like those schools are all like that. Yeah, exactly. The school also pushed students into the clinic floor very early, around 300 hours. In theory, I think that's one of the stronger aspects of the program because it exposes students to real salon life. The problem was the lack of supervision. Students were often assigned major services like partial and full highlights with limited oversight.

[00:28:10] The p***ing s***ing name attracted a steady stream of clients, but there never seemed to be enough instructors available to properly supervise the number of students performing service services. We were also pushed to sell products quite a bit, which can be great in the theory, but overwhelming when learning simultaneously. That's a really good point. Yeah, no, it really is, though. You know what I mean? It's just kind of like, yeah, you need to go through and learn how to retail, you mean?

[00:28:38] But it's like, when you have a large school that their majority of their income is product, of course, you need to be pushing that s*** on the people. Exactly. But the exact same time, though, it's just kind of like they're just pulling for money on any way they possibly can. A book, a makeup kit, fundraising directly to the Venmo. I mean, that is some bullshit. All right, let me go on to here. So one Tuesday, the entire school was gathered into a classroom for what was described as

[00:29:07] an entrepreneurial development exercise. We were instructed to call local Pasadena businesses and ask for donations to the school. Are you serious? Are you serious? Donations were sent to the owners Venmo. What the f***? Asking for donations in behalf of the school. You're getting $24,000 from each student. Why the f*** do you need donations? Holy s***.

[00:29:37] Because they can't. I wonder how they told that concept to them. This is a good life learning skill. And if you learn how to call around and ask for donations and beg for money, you're going to be able to be very successful in building your clientele. Fuck that. No. How did they sell that whole concept? Can I start calling people around my neighborhood and sort of saying like, hey, why don't I own a hair salon? Any donations for my... What was... What? Oh, holy s***. I imagine what the reaction would be on something like that.

[00:30:07] Like we need donations for our, you know. I got an idea. How about you and I for should I told my hairdresser do a once a week go fund me? Yeah. No s***, right? And I'll pull their heartstrings. I've got cats that need to be fed, man. Yeah. Dude, I got a kid. I got a wife. I got a... Feel sorry for me. I'm married. You know what I mean? Oh, s***. What the f***? All right. So participation was technically... Wasn't technically mandatory.

[00:30:35] And I don't blame the learning leader because I suspected she was simply carrying out instructions. Still, the entire experience felt surreal. Every time a student secured a donation, the room erupted into applause. I bet it did. Yeah. I remember sitting there thinking I felt less like a cosmetology student and more like I was working in the sales boiler room. Most students participated. A handful of us refused. I'd be like, f*** you.

[00:31:05] Yeah. You got my money, b***h. Which one student became so uncomfortable that she walked out and threatened to report the situation to the state board, which they f***ing should have. They should have. Hell yeah. The incident... Oh, sorry. No. What are they offering these students? I mean, oh, the top three people that get the donations get a popsicle or a lollipop or something like that. I mean, was there a reward system? Did they sell it that way? Bullshit. Or is she just had a pat on the back for making me more money? Yeah.

[00:31:34] You know what I mean? Like, what the f***, dude? That was it. Job well done. Here's a firm handshake. Yeah. You know? Jesus f***, man. Are you kidding me? Holy crap. I mean, I need to do this s***. You know what I mean? I got little league to pay for, motherf***ers. If you're listening to this show right now, send me money. I mean... Oh, the incident that concerned me the most involved the state COVID relief grant. Ooh, okay.

[00:32:03] That became available during the pandemic. Students were directed to apply through a portal connected to the school. Oh, s***. Oh, s***. Okay, here we go. Yep. After applying, I never received any communication about whether I had been approved or when funds would be distributed. Because if you're getting COVID funds, that should be going to you, right? That should be going to you. Shouldn't be going to school. Yeah. I only learned something was wrong after speaking with another student who had already received her grant. Oh, s***. Okay, yeah.

[00:32:33] She asked whether I had checked the small box during the application process. I had no idea what she was talking about. Apparently, there was a checkbox near the bottom of the application that would authorize funds to be applied towards tuition rather than being distributed directly to the student. A box that was nearly impossible to see and meant to swindle us. Oh, s***. There you go. Okay.

[00:32:58] So then it was the money to go directly to the school and not be distributed to the – but you already paid your – you already paid your money. So that was through the school's portal? Yeah. Oh, s***. So I bet it was already checked through the school's – yes, it was directly through the school's website that they went through and did this. Oh. My tuition had already been – oh, there it is. My tuition had already been covered through a combination of financial aid, grants, and student loans. So this money should have been going back to her. Back to her. Yes.

[00:33:28] Let's not add additional funds to the school's – fuck that. Wow. What a piece of s***. Okay. When I eventually raised concerns with financial aid, I was ultimately issued my grant funds. The money received from the state of California was clearly being used to accrue interest in the owner's business account. Also adding that the check was issued to the students who did receive their grant money was from the owner's personal LLC check.

[00:33:58] Oh, hell no. Oh, no. Uh-huh. And did they give them the full – I mean, if you're cutting a check from your LLC, though, that would be like – if you got that check into your account, if the IRS saw that, that would be income because you're just coming from a business account. Oh, s***. And that way then the owner can go through and write that off in their taxes because it seems like a legitimate payment to somebody else. Yeah. Hmm. Son of a s***. Right?

[00:34:27] That's some creative accounting right there. Mm-hmm. The owners themselves – let's continue on. The owner themselves would occasionally give motivational speeches. These talks would focus on how much money students could potentially make in the beauty industry. What I found missing was a serious discussion about realities of building a career after graduation. There was almost no conversation about assisting, client retention, building a clientele, marketing, rebooking, or the financial hardships that many stylists experienced during the first few years in the industry.

[00:34:57] I understand cosmetology schools primarily exist to prepare students for state board exams, which is, in my opinion, the core issue of the whole skewed system. If that's the goal, then let's be honest about it. What felt contradictory was presenting the school not only as a launchpad for higher successful careers, but to build a strong-skilled stylus and reinforce the newcoming wave of professionals into the industry. Looking back, many students left with unrealistic expectations.

[00:35:25] A large percentage of the graduating class had no interest in assisting because they genuinely believed that they were ready to jump directly into taking clients, renting a suite, or operating independently. See? Mm-hmm. And they're pushing that because they look like they're gainfully employed, and that way the federal government doesn't come after them. Yeah. And for students that are with their naivete, I mean, it's good in theory. Right. Yeah. Yeah, because I went right into Booth Rent, and it was a hustle for the first couple of years.

[00:35:55] Fuck yeah. It was a big-time hustle. But majority of people don't want to do that. They don't want to do the hustle. And then they fall out. That's why I'm saying 95% of them don't make it. You know? Well, now 92% of the schools aren't going to make it, and I can tell you which ones, motherfucker. They're talking about themselves. They're not talking about, oh, 92% of the schools around the entire nation. No, 92% of the p***ing schools probably is what they're talking about. Let's be fucking clear here. They're talking about that.

[00:36:23] They only care about themselves. They don't fucking care about you. And they're trying to make you make videos and tell people, like, oh, my God, we're going to be losing out. No, no, no. They're going to be losing out. They're the ones that we should be fucking watching, making sure that they go away so this shit doesn't continue to happen. Yeah. I know. I know. So years later, many of these same people have either plateaued in their careers or left the industry entirely.

[00:36:53] Imagine that. The irony is that one of the most valuable things a school could teach isn't how to become a salon owner, it's how to survive a difficult transition between being a student and becoming an established professional. That's the stage where many people struggle, and it's the stage I felt where we were least prepared for. The final issue happened when I was nearing graduation. Around 1,500 hours, I went to the financial aid to make sure everything was in order before applying for licensure.

[00:37:22] That's when I was told I allegedly was behind 800 hours. And here's the thing. If you're running late, if you're running behind on hours, then they make you make up those hours and pay them for it. Exactly. That's the gotcha thing. And if you don't document your hours and document everything and leave everything up to them, then they can say, well, I don't know what to tell you. These are the hours that we have. I mean, I saw three students that that happened to at schools. And I said, why don't you document your own hours?

[00:37:50] They said, well, we were handing in our hours to them. And I said, well, and then they were sad, too, because they did. Some of them did. Well, two of them did go back to school and paid extra money to get those hours that were not documented. The third girl, she was heartbroken. And she said, I'm just I'm quitting. This industry is too hard. Yeah. And I was actually talking to a beauty school student. We're going to have come on the show. And she was telling me that they'll go through and get you onto the floor going through and doing certain procedures.

[00:38:19] But if you don't finish the other ones by the time you're done, say, if you need like 20 pedicures and 100 haircuts. We did your 100 haircuts, but you didn't do your 20 pedicures at the end. They make you still finish the 20 pedicures. You take more hours and still pay for it. Yeah. And it's like, well, how come you didn't get it done during beauty school? And how come the teachers weren't going to like, hey, we need to focus on what you need to get done. So by the time you reach your hours, you have everything ready to go. So they're not interested in that. They're interested in taking your money.

[00:38:48] So they're really interested in. So I have to continue on. So this made no sense. I had attended consistently, had even come in on Mondays to make up on missed time whenever necessary. Students clocked through an app and those hours then those hours were then supposed to be transferred into a school's office reporting system. Somehow what my app reflected and what the school's record reflected were completely different.

[00:39:16] The teacher that was in charge of inputting hours was so overwhelmed and overworked that she couldn't even keep up with properly inputting hours for each student. What the fuck? I know. Yeah. The discrepancy affected my financial aid and forced me into a lengthy process of waiting for the issue to be resolved. I completed my required 1600 hours and should have graduated in February, but I couldn't obtain the paperwork needed to move forward with licensing.

[00:39:43] For months, I called, emailed, follow up looking for answers. Most of the time I got nowhere. Ironically, the person who ultimately helped me wasn't even assigned to my as my financial aid advisor, but the person who finally took the time, but she was finally the person who took the time to help me with my, with my, with help me with my aid advisor. A woman I barely knew because of our schedules. Never our schedule never overlapped.

[00:40:09] She was one of the few people who generally seemed to be invested in helping students. After months of confusion, she was one who finally helped me move the process forward. See, that's the thing. If you have no one to help you out, you're going to end up owning more money. Not only that, you're stuck. You can't go get your license. Yeah. Well, we had that at a salon I worked in and we had this young girl come and assist. And four months later, I said, how come you're not licensed? She said, well, my school that I went to never gave me my paperwork. And she said, I don't know where to go.

[00:40:37] So I took her downtown to Doppel, Division of Professional Licensing. I said, this school is not giving her her paperwork. Can you call them? And they called them. And then I drove her out to the cosmetology school. And I was teaching guest classes at the school doing makeup for a couple of years. And so when I walked in the door and I sat there with one of the instructors, I said, not good. I said, Doppel is supposed to be calling you. She said, they already did. I said, how come she's not getting her paperwork?

[00:41:06] And they said, we just, we didn't really think about it. We don't. And one of them said, we didn't know we were supposed to fill out her paperwork. And when she was finished, the other girl said, well, the owner said it really didn't matter. And I said, no, let's get her paperwork now. And so we got our paperwork. Everybody signed off on it. She went downtown to Division of Professional Licensing. And she took her test and she was licensed a month later.

[00:41:29] But what they're doing is this girl, now she's saying that she had to wait for months to get her license. That's months of income gone. Yes, gone. So now they're ripping you off on the other end of it. Exactly. I mean, she even says here, you know, that, you know, finally I got all of my paperwork, paperwork, you know, handed to me. And they act like nothing even happened, which is so stupid. Not, hey, we're sorry. We're, you know, my bad, you know.

[00:41:57] And she graduated, she says, I graduated in February and I didn't get my paperwork until June. Four months later? Are you fucking kidding me? Four months of income. Wow. So looking back, what stands out the most isn't any single incident. It was the overall pattern. For a school that projected an image of success and professionalism, there often seemed to be more focused on image than substance.

[00:42:21] Students were regularly corrected on dress code violation and appearance standard, while larger issues like teacher turnover, inconsistent instruction, lack of supervision, and administration problems often went unresolved. At times, it felt like maintaining an appearance of a well-run institution mattered more than actually being one.

[00:42:42] For a program that cost roughly $24,000, I expected a level of organization, transparency, accountability, and educational quality that I simply didn't experience. Wow.

[00:43:24] Well, like they teach, fake it till they make it. Totally. That's fake. That is fake. You want to let seriously? It's knowing that, though, if you're looking at people and you're impressed by the way they dress and things like that because of the labels and that, you show me something like that and I'll show you someone who's broke. Because anybody has a projected image with a label, I guarantee doesn't have the money you think they do. They really don't. And half that shit's fake anyhow. Yeah. Fake shit that they bought online. Yeah.

[00:43:52] Well, look at the college school you went to and you still made it through. Oh, I went to it. Yeah, it was bad. I mean, it's no longer there. I think the owner died is probably why. You know what I mean? But that's the thing. This is the shit that people have to go through and put up with. Thank God I didn't have like, you know, a boiler room where we had to go through and, you know, make phone calls like some freaking, you know, sweatshop. You know what I mean? And, you know, Honduras or something. You know what I mean? They're going to be able to get donations to us.

[00:44:21] But what the fuck? Hopefully you guys hear this shit. And if this is happening in your school or anything like that, put a stop to it. Call your state board. Call a counselor or something. Because this should not be, you shouldn't be fundraising. And if this shit's happening and you're being charged extra, threaten that you're going to go talk to a lawyer. Talk to somebody. I ended up having to do that with my app. I had to do that with my apprenticeship because I paid a girl cash, eight grand for my apprenticeship.

[00:44:50] And I shouldn't have given her the money up front. She bought a condo and everything like that. And so she really wasn't efficient in teaching. And she would ask me to go walk her dogs, pick up their poop, go get her mail, go get her lunch. And I'm all, this is not working. And then she kept on asking like I was the difficult one saying, I need more education. I need more time. She would only let me do one haircut one day a week on Wednesday evenings. And that was it. So finally one day I called my cousin's wife's dad, who's a lawyer.

[00:45:18] And she overheard my conversation because she'd sit on the phone and press in my number to listen to my conversations. And I knew she was doing it. So I said, I need some help. This girl is telling me things aren't working out. I gave her eight grand cash. I don't know anybody else because at that time to change from one apprenticeship to another and transfer your hours, you had to find somebody that had an instructor's license and willing to take you on. And then you have to pay them the money. So I was kind of stuck.

[00:45:47] But when she heard I was getting a hold of that lawyer, she came to me a week later and said, how about we just pretend the rest of the hours and you've got your training. You work with bedhead. You are looking at going to another salon. They do Vidal Sassoon training. I think that, yeah, we've kind of worn out our welcome with each other. And I said, I agree. So I went to another salon and waited out the final three months. And she filled out.

[00:46:14] And I made sure she filled out all the paperwork and signed it before I left that salon. And then I went and got licensed. But the thing is, a lot of these students don't have that ingenuity or that tenacity just to say, fuck you. Some just don't know. No, that's true. That's true. You want to call your state. Hey, we're telling them. Call your state board. Ask questions. Find out what can be done at this point. And fight. If you need to, fight. Because I know there's people lots of that do. So go and fucking do it.

[00:46:49] Let's get down with some shitology. Hey, Jason. I want to do a fundraiser for the Humane Society and battered women and children. What? Fuck them. You want to do a fundraiser? I got it for you. It's called me. You want to raise some money up? Guess what? I need my payment on my Bentley and my third house in the Bahamas. You let me know what you want to do and I'll send you my Venmo. Rich white trash. Now with that, stay shitty. And see you next time.

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