Do any of your festival clients come back for wedding or baby showers? Make sure you push those services and you can let them know that those are more expensive. Use the festivals as advertising.
I think this is really important to communicate somehow. I would vastly prefer real art on my body, created by the artist to be unique and beautiful and suiting me. One of my favorite henna designs actually incorporated a whole bunch of my moles (which are roughly henna colored) and I just loved it! But I’m always afraid that I’m imposing if I ask the artist to create something just for me, and I fear that they’d much rather just whip out another stock butterfly (poor stock butterflies, I don’t mean to pick on them…) and take my $20 and move on to another paying customer.
Would it be possible to do a “Tell me what you’d like to spend for something I create?” sort of thing? That is, I tell you, “I’d like to spend $30 and have something tribal on my right arm.” and you say, “Yep, okay, no problem. $30 will get you something kind of ornate that goes from here to here or something really ornate that goes from here to here.”
It’s a bit of a risk, of course, in that you’re only getting a vague idea of what the client wants, but some clients (like me) only have a vague idea of what we want!
Can I hijack just a bit? What materials go into a henna tattoo?
I’m have a handful of contact dermatitis issues…nickel, cobalt, colophony, neomycin. I’ve had allergic reactions to belt buckles, band-aids, antibiotic ointments…and other stuff. Am I likely same with a henna tattoo?
-D/a
Zebra- That was the original idea, but it hasn’t worked out that way nearly as much as I would like. I love home parties and weddings and traditional stuff and they mostly miss me. This is changing, but slowly.
WhyNot- HECK no! If you have a kid slinging butterflies at a theme park, okay yeah, get whatever you think they can manage. The rest of us, we offer design books because Americans by and large expect to choose something. Asking us to do what we really want to be doing, which is to create something beautiful that really complements the person, is like candy. It’s like coming by on a hot day when we’re stuck nose to the grindstone for hours and offering a fresh squeezed cold lemonade. PLEASE ask the artist to be an artist! I have a sign saying just that- and hardly anyone does.
Digital- the short answer is that you have to ask every artist. The basic safe recipe is ground henna plant leaves, and some or all of fruit juice, tea, water, essential oil, and sugar. That’s all that should be in it, but that’s not all that ever is. If the artist is using something that looks like a toothpaste tube, or something with a printed label, it’s going to be something imported from a place where they don’t have an FDA, and Ghod only knows what’s in it. I’ve bought stuff that smelled like oven cleaner, and none of it worked very well, except the stuff that clearly had dyes in it. If an artist is using powder sold for hair, it may have metallic salts in it which might set you off, although probably not anyone not specifically allergic to them. It is ALWAYS okay to ask what’s in something that’s going on your skin, and if the artist can’t or won’t tell you, walk away. If they tell you it’s a secret, laugh at them, then walk away. The recipe for henna is about as secret as the recipe for Jello. Of course, everyone has their own variations, but in a world of allergies and sensitivities, not telling people is somewhere between stupid and criminal. A decent artist will proudly tell you exactly what’s in her paste.
I have a friend who tattoos. He has been at it for decades, and the length of his career gives him a certain degree of respectability. He has kids coming in because their uncle sports his work, that kind of thing. Honestly, he is better than average but not great.
Ten or so years ago he began raising his prices. He is now the most expensive tattoo artist around western PA. He does far fewer tattoos, but his income has not dropped. He used to work five 8 hour days a week; now he schedules one or two pieces a week, say three hours a piece. And people talk about him, making him a legend in his own time.
Lots of business models out there.
I am reminded of the story of a consultant who advised his client to immediately double his prices, his client replied shocked “but I would lose half my customers!”.
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There is no reason to think of compensation purely in terms of money. You get psychic satisfaction from charging below market rates. Your total compensation is amount of money received + amount of satisfaction from charging below market rates. If other people do not receive satisfaction from undercharging then in order to get the same amount of compensation as you they will have to charge more.
That said, you are probably overestimating how much you enjoy undercharging. If you think henna drawing is a nice thing you should not be suprised that other people do too and are willing to pay for it. As long as people are still willing to pay, you are charging them less than what they value the drawing for.