Some sobering figures for those who are interested in makeup demo work.

Average rate of pay $18-$25 an hour.

Assuming $20 per hour X 8 hours = $160
Travel Time, 2 Hours
So pay is for 6 Hours = $120 a day
Weekly pay = 5 X $120 = $600
Monthly pay = $2400 gross = $28,800 a year
Subtract Gas and Vehicle Wear = $160 a month, $1920 a Year (based on combined travel wear and gas at $8.00 day)

Net Earning Before Tax = $26,000 a year
After Tax at %25 rate = Take home $19,500 per annum


Expected Target Sales Per Day: Range

Bourjois and other Mass-Tige = $600 - $1000
Prestige such as Lancôme = $1000-$2000


So a makeup demo who did this full time would take home less than $20K per year based on a full time schedule.

My numbers are averaged across the spectrum but you get the idea.

Makeup Demonstrators live at poverty line if they are to rate their work as a sole source of income. Even as supplementary income, the figures are not strong. If sales fall, the demo is dismissed, leading to downtime in earnings until they secure a new post.

Examples of Pay Rate

Guerlain - $17 an hour
Lauder - $13- $18 per hour
Arden - $18 per hour
Smashbox - $25 per hour
MAC Part Time - $25 an hour

As you can see, even at the high end of the pay scale, contract industry workers are still going to live at poverty line.

Just a FYI from someone who has probably worked for most of the major lines at some point.

Lets compare other careers such as Office Admin Assistant: $40-$60K per year. Usually includes benefit package or is factored into gross pay per year.

Summary: Make Product Demos, even working for MAC (part time casual) will continue to live at poverty line with no upward mobility in wage. A permanent wage freeze, in other words.

So, if you are going to supplement your makeup artistry career, you are far better off finding a reasonable support position in a field such as education or commerce.

Eye opening information when you put it in writing.  Some things seem so glamorious at first glance.  Retail isn't what it is cracked up to be at any counter, from cosmetics to clothing.  It's a ruff job with little pay, long hours and not much reward.  Thank you for the post.  R-

Yes Rick, it is eye opening. Many makeup artists are tempted to go this path, and I certainly did, initially to supplement makeup gigs such as photoshoots, book covers, promotional headshots, there was an income gap at times

Unfortunately, the cosmetics industry has found a workaround for spending almost no money, while pressuring demos to produce in the range of $500-$2000 a day per site. They provide no job security, fail to reimburse for travel, fail to reimburse for benefits and effectively increase their sales without hard costs. This has become SOP and is really taking advantage of artists. The competitive MUA environment has seduced many artists to examine demo work as a secondary income stream. However, parsing the cost-benefits of this sideline, it is easy to see that it falls well behind dedicated counter work, where both commissions and benefits are accrued. The difficult part is that any job has its own "momentum", ie. demos often tend to rely upon this income to the exclusion of other sources, because bookings continue, especially for "producers".

Then there are the really deplorable examples, such as the Factor brothers, who owned Smashbox and later sold the company to Estee Lauder, releasing the majority of their demos at the same time. The Factors made no allowance for the livelihoods of many MUAs who regularly worked for them covering Fashion Week events and major designers. Some artists lost $1500 off their monthly income within weeks of the company sale. Lauder pushed trainers to the point that they quit as well, and local trainers were replaced with importation of US trainers who now serviced increasingly large territories.

Elizabeth Arden is a particularly cruel  company with respect to demos. I have seen entire teams promised 3 months of work, only to find it cancelled, leaving single mothers in a lurch prior to the Holiday Season. Since there were no contracts per se, they were entirely within their legal right to do so. Arden is going through a troubling time with respect to human resources, releasing many of their top producing executives in recent years. Their products, the same as Smashbox, are stellar, but their treatment of staff is not in keeping with modern hiring practices.

The makeup retail industry can be a solid base for supplementary income, but not in product demonstrating. Artists do have to procure their materials, as do customers. Mary at CRC is an example of a solid, ethical business person, many do exist.