Beautician’s Day – Vote for Grand Junction’s Best

Friday, June 26 is national "Beautician's Day." Show the love to your favorite stylist by voting in our poll.

Personally, I thought the word "beautician" went away back in the 1970s. Typically, you hear people using words such as "stylist" or "cosmetologist." Do you remember that line from the movie "The Jerk"?

Let's investigate. According to Merriam-Webster, a beautician is defined as:

A person licensed to provide cosmetic treatments to the hair, skin, and nails.

This presents a problem. If you search "beautician" on a site such as YP (Yellow Pages), the site responds by saying "What?" If you continue the search, the site replies with "Duh." It seems as though the term has been phased out. If you search "Grand Junction Beautician" on Yelp!, the results bring back precisely one hit. Sites like Yelp! prefer terms like "Grand Junction Stylist" or "Grand Junction Salon."

On a side note, how much do you suspect it costs to become a beautician? According to the American Association of Cosmetology Schools, a full cosmetology program can range anywhere from $6,500 to $10,000. Personally, if I were to fork over $10,000 for training, I would want to be called a Cosmetologist. Actually, I would want to be called Mr. Cosmetologist or even Professor Cosmetologist. That's a ton of money and training.

Beautician's Day for the year 2020 is going to be especially celebratory. Remember, this is the year we all went March to May without access to a beautician of any sort. Personally, with my thinning hair on top and the hair on the side of my head growing like weeds, I was starting to look like Bozo the Clown. Getting back to the hairstylist at the end of May ranked right up there with graduating high school and buying my first house. It was one of life's milestones.

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So, getting back on topic, there's this matter of the distinction between a "stylist" and a "beautician." Look around and you see several salons offering only haircuts and hair coloring. I know of at least one salon that's eliminated manicures and pedicures from their list of services. So, on that note, it appears this survey will need to be narrowed down to those who cut and style hair.

You might be saying, "Hey, haven't you done this survey before?" Yes, we have. However, it seems as if Grand Junction has several academies teaching hair-styling and other areas of cosmetology. With that in mind, it seems reasonable to assume new stylists are entering the workforce on a frequent basis. So, it seems wise to refresh the survey once every few years and welcome the new local professionals.

Cast your vote, and keep voting. For the first time ever, I'm going to start the survey with a clean slate. The poll will be initiated entirely with write-in votes. If you don't see your favorite, write their names in, and they will be added to the list. For our purposes here, we are looking for the names of people, as in individual stylists, not the names of the salon at which they are employed.