My name is Tina Alberino. I’m not an attorney, but I am a licensed cosmetologist and salon owner with nearly twenty years of beauty industry experience, primarily in salon management. My weird fascination with tax and employment law and exceptional talent for creative profanity are directly responsible for this website, where I do my best to break complex business management and professional development concepts into terms anyone in the beauty industry can easily understand. I work as a salon management consultant, an educator, and a beauty industry advocate.

However, before all this I was like you—whether you’re a passionate student, an enthusiastic new professional, a battered and weary veteran professional, a frazzled booth renter, a perpetually busy salon manager, or an overwhelmed salon owner—I’ve been in your shoes and I learned a whole lot of lessons the hard way. 

I write because although I’ve walked in your shoes, you shouldn’t have to walk in mine.

Over the years, I came to the following realizations:

• Too many professionals in general—employees, solo operators, and salon owners—will perpetually struggle to succeed because the schools they attended didn’t teach them how to excel.
• Too many jaded, ignorant industry veterans will continue to circulate damaging professional philosophies and bad, outdated advice, causing newer professionals to feel inadequate and unworthy, and making it more difficult for them to achieve their professional goals.
• Too many beauty professionals give up and turn away from this business. Many more choose to stay and are punished for it because they don’t know their rights or how to defend themselves from the labor abuses so common in this industry.
• Too many salon owners invest their time and money into businesses that are destined to fail due to their lack of business education and legal knowledge. These owners will unintentionally commit tax fraud and wage theft and will suffer the consequences for it. These owners will lose everything they’ve worked for.

You deserve to succeed in this business in the least traumatic way possible. This site will ensure you’re educated, confident, prepared, and motivated to make this industry your industry for life. You’ll learn all about your rights and responsibilities, what is and isn’t acceptable at work, how to make intelligent career decisions, how to manage your business, and how to be awesome, productive, and profitable every day.

“She wasn’t kidding when she said it was ‘definitive.’ This book really does contain everything you would ever need to know.”
-Jen C.

“Beauty school prepares you to take a test. This book prepares you for every damn thing that follows.”
-Lisa Lozlosa Chakan, LOZLOSA.COM

Students
Professionals
Employees
Freelancers
Microsalon Owners (solo owner/operator).
Salon Owner / Salon Manager
“Independent Contractors”

Legal
Business
Motivation
Professional Development

Contracts 101: All about contracts.
Ask A Salon Manager: An advice column, rife with sarcasm, snark, and facts.
Ugly Business Practices: Professionals beware!
Know Your Rights: Legal information and recent developments that may affect you or your salon.