Fast Full Faces - My epiphany is a long time coming (a little long)

Great info! I really needed this. I like the idea of a family discount. I don't know what you think of 3 siblings for $10?
I know it's $3 and change, but I don't know. I am doing my my first ppf soon. I've only done hourly before. I have to think stay business minded. Some ppl see I'm a nice person and they tug at my heart strings. I imagine I'm going to get sick of that soon, but boy do people pull out all the stops for the strangests things.

VictoriaS,

How about three siblings for $12.00

I did my first fair in June of last year. There is a whole thread about how the first day was a wipe out but was much better the second because we were upselling a bit into the $5.00 range and it made a huge difference in my attitude about face painting and also the take home pay. I don't know how long threads stay up but you might search "fairs" and get others experiences.

Since you are used to hourly, break it down that way. If your fair lasts 10 hours and you want to make at least your hourly rate (let's say $60.00 per hour) then you will have to make $1.00 per minute for a total of $600.00 gross. So if a design takes you 5 minutes to complete from consult to painting to mirror then you need to charge at least $5.00 (3 minutes of actual painting time). If you only charge $3.00 for that same design you are only making $36.00 per hour for a total of $360.00 for the day...it makes a HUGE difference. The $2.00 difference seems small on a per case basis, but over a whole day the percentage loss adds up.

Now, start taking out your booth fees, lunch & dinner, paints, line help and then amortizing your fixed expenses like chairs and tents and tables...you aren't making even your hourly rate.

I know a lot of us are kind souls and want everyone to have the opportunity to be face painted but the reality is that you have to make enough that you don't get burned out and frustrated and give up all together.


D.

Thanks so much, Denise, for starting this thread. I've been thinking about it and might give it a go at my next festival in April. My lowest price has been $5, which no one has balked at (I'm in NYC). Last festival I charged $5, $10, $15. I don't think anyone bought a $15 face, but I had them on advice from a friend that suggested it might make $10 seem like a steal. I think it worked pretty well, we had almost equal sales of $5 and $10 faces (and $7 glitter tattoos). Which means, if I charged $8 for everything, I might be keeping it simple AND make more $. Only issue is making change, but maybe people would just say, "keep the change"?

Denise, thank you so much for posting this!!! It makes so much sense, and your boards are awesome! (Is that just laminated paper you painted on top of? Smart!)

Yeah, those are just practice boards. They are actually laminated presentation boards my husband brought home but they work really well. I'll make them more official, probably like I did with my other quick design board...the black boards.

D.

hey Denise could you please show us how you do you skull..i get alot of requests for full face skulls..thanks
I love this thread and the forum..i was just thinking about needed some help with the pay per face thing...i have a carnival this weekend..and festivals and company picinics this summer..i would like to tone by design book down for these..I hate doing unicorns also..but the little girls love them..i don't know exactly how long it takes me..i guess i need to time my self..and im thinking all the cheek are will go in my old book...save for other things. thanks Denise

Oh, that's smart! I've been trying to figure out how to showcase my options

Barb, I'll work on it now that I have my Starblends. I did finally get a couple of videos shot with Emma I'm just having a bit of trouble editing...my computer is being really slow.

D.

Denise I would like to personally thank you for this thread..I did a carnival yesterday,,didn't take my book and just made a list and told everyone the price was 5 dollars..worked like a charm..I averaged about 15 faces an hour.and if there hadn't been a 20 min dance performace during the the carnival I think I would of done more..but It worked out great..everyone gave me 5,10, or 20 ,,didn't bother with giving much change.

thanks so much

Cool. Glad to hear it worked! I got accepted into my fair for early June. I'm excited to try it myself.

D.

So this is cool!! Great info..Since Ive been trying to get my paints together, I gotta think about the faces I will be doing! After this I'll cut out the small stuff(really didnt have much anyways)
Im thinking 10 max boys 10 max girls and just practice practice PRACTICE!
yIPPIE!!! Next week I plan on ordering my paints..then start looking for some places to ppf..so far i only have a bday party in June.
Denise you a blessing to us! This forum has me going on the right track

There is a treasure trove of stuff on the forum. I'm grateful that I found this place early on too. It's made the business side of the face painting so much easier.

D.

I prefer full face or half face for the wow factor. I want to stand out from the cheek art painters or the acrylic users

I usually do birthday parties or just paid events. I do about 3-4 festivals in the summer and charge $5 for whatever they want. If a small child wants a butterfly brush design then I'll let it go for $3.

I have several different boards for different events or amount of kids. If a party has 10 kids or less then I bring out full faces so I'm there as long as possible. If it's 20 kids or more then I bring out the faster designs

I think anything less then 5 minutes is great! I know going faster is more money for a festival or PPF event.

Great idea CKC..and your avatar is wicked!

Denise, does the times for your designs include loading paint onto your brush? I find that I sometimes spend another 15-20 seconds just spraying my brush and/or reloading.

Yes, I did Peppermint...but I didn't factor in the extra difficulty of putting a design on the face. I was trying to see how long it took me (brush changes, paint loading, etc.) to do a cheek versus a full design. If you think about the unicorn (the way I do it) it's a rainbow/3/4"brush, white/round, pink/round, black/round, and then I usually do the horn with liquid bling. That's way too many brush changes and colors for a $3.00 design. So if I make that unicorn a winged pegasus type mask, the only change is (obviously more paint) but I've made the rainbow a sponged one over the eyes, the white round is used for the wings and the base of the unicorn, the pink is the same and maybe used for shadowing the wings (if you have time) and black is still only used for the head of the unicorn and bling for the horn (or for outlining the wings instead of the pink) ....so, for the same brush changes and a little more paint I can charge 3 times more for only about 2 minutes more.

You'd have to do your own experiments. My experiment was prejudiced by the fact that I don't like to do outlining very much so in order to get that BANG that other painters are able to get with fabulous line work and cheek art, I like the WOW factor of full designs and using one-stroke cakes with a strong edge so that I don't have to outline so much.

I guess the whole point of it is to look at what you are used to doing and if a design or a style makes you sigh every time someone asks for it, there is a probably a reason for it.

D.

How did I miss this Gem of a Post!?! Love it! I just posted my prices in another thread, but really think I'm going to move to the $5 Booth idea w/ a $5 bling & gem upgrade..... But... I'll keep the Unicorn cause it's still under 3 minutes for me Thankfully... I'm a speed painter!


K, this is a horse, but you get the idea

Love that horse/unicorn face!!! I would much rather do that than the small little unicorn heads that are IMPOSSIBLE to paint nice lines on! *sigh*

I decided to time myself doing a full butterfly mask yesterday. ALMOST 9 MINUTES!! I was so bummed

So I tried doing just 1 color base, and modified it to be a little faster, and it was about 4:30 minutes. Better at least! I'm still so new, so I know it just takes practice. I wish there were videos of people just painting without tutorials or sped up, so I can see how others do it!

StephieBee... it's funny, butterflies are my quickest design! I'll have to time myself, but I think I'm definitely under 2 minutes now.

Do you have any split or rainbow cakes? They make butterflies super quick!

Just load your sponge with your rainbow cake, patpat over the eye, patpat under the eye, then the other side. Poof with glitter, then do some quick black or white line art around the wings... body (I like to use a gem for the butterfly's head) and antennae in the center, and bam! Speaking of BAM, I recently added a BAM stencil to my butterflies and it looks awesome, while only adding about 15 seconds extra.

Maybe I'll have to do a tutorial. I love doing butterflies.

I have never had designs priced under $5. I only do private/corporate partyies or paid events. I don't do PPF events that require hefty booth fees. We have an abundance of festivals on the Jersey shore but most will require like a $250 - $275 fee for a 1 day event. Most people that know me and know my work won't charge me the fee because they want me there, or we will negotiate a percentage of the days take. This way I am always able to work at my pace, not starting behind the 8 ball to make back fees, so I can get into making profits.

My previous pricing was $5 $7 $10 and up This year pricing will be $5 $10 $15 and up. I don't do the upsell. If you want the gems and bling you pay the $10 price. You want the really elaborate you pay the $15 price.

I am also cutting down the number of choices I offer in the $5 category and increase the choices in the other 2

PerfectlyPaintedFaces wrote:Do you have any split or rainbow cakes? They make butterflies super quick!

I have 1 round rainbow cake and some TAG cakes coming (thank goodness)! I really dislike the round cake, because its so hard to get all the colors evenly on the sponge, and I end up having to go back for more paint! I also did the design on myself, so I dont know if that slowed me down.

I would love if you timed yourself, and ESPECIALLY if you'd do a video! Seeing others in action would probably help me a lot!

At the festival I'm doing this coming weekend, I'm doing $5, $10 and $15 pricing. I have 7-$15 faces (my white tiger is one), 36- $10 faces and 32- $5 faces. I have enough $5 faces so that if someone is strapped they can still get something great done, but most of my "wow" faces are $10 and $15. I'm in a new area so I'm not sure what's going to happen. At home, I easily sold $10 and $15 faces (60% of all faces sold). The booth fees are also a little higher here in the new area but that may mean that people have more money maybe? I guess I'll find out this weekend!

At certain events we do all $5 faces and only take the ones that we know we can crank out in 3 minutes or less, but that's usually reserved for venues where customers have to pay to get into the venue. They are much less inclined to pay alot for face painting when they have to pay for parking, pay to get in, and then pay for lots of things inside the venue.

I've been doing fairs for a while. 5 asnd 8 is the usual and sometimes I even just do 8 especially if I have another face painter there. You can;t keep track of if they did a 5 or an 8. plus us face painters like to produce good work so if its not quite right you will psend the time and fix it up

Psalmbook wrote:How did I miss this Gem of a Post!?! Love it! I just posted my prices in another thread, but really think I'm going to move to the $5 Booth idea w/ a $5 bling & gem upgrade..... But... I'll keep the Unicorn cause it's still under 3 minutes for me Thankfully... I'm a speed painter!


K, this is a horse, but you get the idea

Linda i love your unicorn..do you mind if I try to do it..

barb

This is really interesting...
The only ppf I've done was at my local Mom 2 Mom show (which is basically a giant garage sale for moms to sell/buy kids stuff and showcase their businesses). I charged $2, $3, and $5 because I was really just there to get my name out to the locals, and I figured the shoppers weren't prepared to spend over $5 on face painting. I actually ended up making my pathetic hourly rate, but then that got cut in half because I had the genius idea to give away an hour of face painting (the show was only 2 hours)

I do like this concept of "Cut the bullshit" (pardon my french) lol!
We don't want to do the mini designs, so why would we offer them for less or the same? I'm still growing my balls when it comes to raising my prices but I really do love this idea