What: GlamSquad recruits beauticians to go to clients home to do their hair, make-up nails for special occasions. 

Expected pay: $14 – $16 per hour

Husl$core: $$$

Commissions & Fees: NA

Where: New York, Long Island, the Hamptons, Boston, Washington D.C. area, South Florida, Southern California, San Francisco Bay Area and Dallas

Requirements: Appropriate experience and licenses; pass a skills assessment in person or online; undergo a week-long skills assessment. 

Review:

GlamSquad, like Priv, recruits beauticians to go to client homes and do their hair, make-up, nails, etc. for special occasions. While GlamSquad appears to charge clients more, the site also appears to pay cosmetologists less — at least, if the pay estimates on Glassdoor can be trusted.

Unfortunately, GlamSquad is one of the many online platforms that make it practically impossible for workers to find out much about the job opportunity until they upload tons of personal information to apply. The site also failed to respond to our requests for information, which made it impossible for us to verify the relatively paltry pay that Glassdoor shows for their cosmetologists. Assuming that pay is accurate, the site is taking a huge cut of freelancer pay to book and manage appointments.

Freelancers also said that they weren’t getting much work from the platform. However, there were relatively few freelancer reviews and they were not overwhelmingly informative.

Red flags

The site’s customer service representatives, on the other hand, reviewed the company mercilessly, saying they were underpaid and under appreciated. Those reviews also indicated that GlamSquad’s team caters to the freelance beauticians.  (That’s a strike in the site’s favor if you happen to be a cosmetologist.) You pay for your own supplies and gas. But if you have to pay for parking, it appears that the site will reimburse you. 

Still, given that cosmetologists who work here appear to earn less and get less work than they do at competitor Priv, we suggest that you sign up there instead. (Though you can sign up with both since there is no prohibition against it.)

What their users say: (from Indeed)

This job is great for freelancers and for those freelancing for the first time. Receiving clients isn’t always consistent. With the company growing it is hard for them as far as their client experience team to have a connection with the stylists or artist.

This is great company to work for to supplement income. Everybody is approachable and willing to help. You can create your own schedule. The clients are nice, too. This job is perfect for anyone who is tired of working at a salon or retail booth.

(From Glassdoor)

Pros are:  the ability to work as little or as much as you like, you receive a lot of free products from popular cosmetic brands. (MUFE, Bobbi brown,cover FX etc.), Sometimes you get VIP clients. The cons: business is very inconsistent, even during the “busy” season. This is definitely great for a side job, not full time work. The traveling can be exhausting; client experience team (the ones who book gigs) can be kind of ditzy.

Stop hiring new artist. There’s an abundance of competition. We close our books to supplement the lack of income with other means because there aren’t any jobs for us with Glamsquad. Create incentives for new clients to bring in more business.

Terrible pay for all the traveling I do.

No shows/no respect

Because the beauty operators are freelancers, the company allows them to cancel, no-show, and deny certain clients services without being reprimanded and allows them to verbally harass and speak to other Glamsquad employees, particularly the Client Experience department, however they see fit. Glamsquad holds these beauty operators on a pedestal claiming, “without them, they would have no business.” 

When a hairstylist doesn’t show up to a VIP client, you’ll be screamed at by the client, the client’s assistant, the stylist who said their books were closed, and then there will be an internal email asking why the booking was messed up. It’s hard to not feel like it’s your fault somehow. Picture being called stupid, and incompetent by multiple clients because the same stylists are not showing to their appointments and then said stylists giving you an attitude, and still getting booked for appointments and even big things like photoshoots.

STAY AWAY! They will have you work early mornings to deal with the bratty beauty professionals who call out last minute, give you attitude, have you fix all of their schedules and it wouldn’t even be 8am yet. You don’t get OT even though you would wrk 9 hour days, and you have to work almost every holiday and weekend and the bonus isn’t even that great! You would have to deal with the upset people who are mad that their beautician/make up artist is running late.