The holidays can be a very busy time for makeup artists! While other people gear up for vacation time, you might be doing their makeup for themed parties and corporate events. Don’t let an upswing in business so close to the holidays stress you out! Particularly if you’re a freelance artist or are in charge of your own schedule, there will be time for relaxation when everyone settles down for some family time. During that time, why not reflect on the busy weeks you had and consider which things went well and which could have gone better? Taking the opportunity over your Christmas break to evaluate your working habits is a great way to prepare for the coming year. Here are some effective New Year’s resolutions for makeup artists!
1. Clean out your makeup bag
If you’re going to make a fresh start for the New Year, why not freshen up your makeup kit too? Even professional makeup artists can be guilty of holding onto products for too long or carrying around too many things. Look at all of your expiry dates and throw out anything that is too old to be used in the coming year. Also clear out things that are broken or empty, and clean tools or compacts that have become messy looking. As a professional, you clean your brushes regularly but do you also clean and sanitize the case that holds all of your makeup? Check it for excess powder, clutter, dustiness, or anything else that might look messy to a client. If you have more than one kit (for example, if you have a small travel kit of basics, a kit for special effects makeup, and a larger kit of more detailed jobs), make sure you clean and organize each one. If you don’t have separate kits, maybe now is a good time to consider whether or not that might be an effective strategy for you? Going into the New Year with a fresh, organized kit will help you feel more prepared to take on your bookings after some time off. Resolve to keep the kit organized and free of old or messy products throughout the rest of the year!
2. De-clutter your communications
Particularly when you’re networking and dealing with potential new clients, it can be easy to let your phone contacts get out of hand and your email inboxes get cluttered. Instead of letting that bogged-down feeling follow you into the New Year, take some time over the holidays to sift through your contacts and emails to reduce the clutter that builds up when you’re busy. If you’re receiving junk mail from a company whose services you aren’t using, unsubscribe from their thread. If you have numbers in your phone that you don’t use or recognize, clear them from your contact book (just make sure you really don’t need them first!).
Consider creating labels in your email to file away old correspondence that you might want to refer to later. This way you still have easy access to those emails, but they’re not taking up space in your central inbox and distracting you from newer information. Clean out your texts, your voicemails, your Facebook messages, and even your physical mailboxes. The more open and organized your channels of communication are, the less overwhelmed you’ll start the year out feeling. Resolve to keep on top of correspondence clutter the best you can moving forward!
3. Revamp your online presence
Do you have pictures of new projects that you haven’t had a chance to post online amidst your pre-holiday rush? Is your profile picture six months old, or your page’s description the same as it was when you first created your professional account? The holidays are a great time to give your social media presence a facelift in preparation for the New Year! You can do this both in terms of your own content so that your friends, followers, and clients are seeing your most up to date information and materials, but also in terms of what comes up on your own social feeds. Just like de-cluttering your communications can reduce stress, clearing your online networks of posts that you don’t want to see reduces distractions and makes your profiles better business tools. If you can resolve to keep on top of managing your accounts like this throughout the coming year, you’ll find social networking a less tedious process!
4. Master a new technique
You will probably want to use some of your holiday time to take an actual break, but playing with new makeup techniques on your time off can be fun! After a busy spree doing other people’s faces, why not learn something new on yourself at home? Maybe this will be beneficial with clients later! It’s important to make sure that you get relaxation time, but try resolving to use some of your spare time in the coming year learning new tricks and keeping your skills up to date with recent trends. This might save you from feeling like you’re stuck doing the same daytime look or evening smoky eye all the time, and will make you feel more prepared for a challenge if a client requests something unique, especially if it’s a trendy look that you’ve already tried on yourself!
5. Refresh your outlook
Adopting a positive outlook on the coming year right from the outset is technically something that everyone should do, but it can be a particularly useful resolution for makeup artists! You work in an industry where passion and personal style fuel your skill, so staying positive and excited about your work is crucial. Don’t look at the year ahead as a looming hurdle, or you might start to feel intimidated and overwhelmed. Instead, look at the exciting things you’ve got planned in the near future, and all of the time you have for new experiences throughout the year. As cliché as it sounds, a new year is a great time for a fresh start, so try to shed lingering pre-holiday stress and face the new year with a cheerful mindset!
