How to Start a Face Painting Business for Parties and Events

Parties are filled with fun, food, friends, and family members. You can become part of the fun by offering face painting services. There are several items to paint your customers from ladybugs and flowers to jungle animals and cartoon characters and a wide range of options for adults and kids.

When face painting, you get a chance to share your art skills and express your creativity. Do you find enjoyment in painting people’s faces, and can you work on kids and adults? If yes, you can change your artistic hobby into a lucrative chance. Here is a guide on how to start a face painting business for parties and events.

A kid with painting on the face

1. Where to Start

Start the artistic job by making and accepting open doors. Familiarize with places and local events where kids attend during weekends. Make contact with the planners of forthcoming events and local kid attractions, for instance, zoos, farms, museums and jungle gyms, etc.

When you’re beginning, try everything to know what goes well. During every session, you’ll have the chance to develop confidence and painting skills. You can only learn from making mistakes and experiences. Thus, just start the assignment.

Make banners and hang them in neighborhood libraries, schools, kids shops, and playgroups. You want to start with places where parents can see your artistic work adverts. After you’ve settled and started to make income, you can then commence putting more resources in advanced equipment and kit.

2. Face Painting Skills 

The task needs artistic skills and creativity. You should be capable of panting different cartoon characters as per the requests of various clients. Do you lack face painting skills? You should consider enrolling in a related institution. It’s not a must you join a regular school, since somebody who’s in the business can mentor you. Knowing how to paint faces from your customers is the bottom line.

Regardless of whether you were born with artistic ability, face painting entails specific techniques, similar to other crafts. You need proficient training to produce the best results in a brief timeframe. Sometimes back, painting a few basic designs was merely enough. The body and face art industry is experiencing fast growth. Today, there’s a bigger demand for original, artistic, and neat touch. 

3. Register Your Business 

Typically, a few people might feel free to operate their business without following the correct procedure of enlisting the business. While you can do the same, it’s usually fitting when you’ve plans to establish a face painting business that can develop into a bigger business. You should thus come up with the business structure. It’s among the essential factors when it comes to figuring out how to start a face painting business.

The primary obligation when setting up the business structure is to come up with a name. Then, get it enrolled with the corporate undertakings commissions of your nation. You might also require a corporate bank account and liability cover.

4. Working Tools & Supplies 

To start the business, you need supplies and working tools. Some of these items include brushes, color packs, towels, apron, bowl, and disposable shower caps, among others. You may visit shopping centers in your city to buy the full business kit or even check it from online stores. The items are easily accessible, and you should get them at a moderate cost.

5. Source for Business Deals 

To market your face painting business, you might require to converse with occasion coordinators who plan for children events in your locale. Since there are different schools within your community, visit these institutions to offer your services.

If your business packaging is good enough, you’ll certainly get some to patronize your services. It won’t be an ill-conceived notion if you utilize different online networking platforms. Use the platforms to market your business. Instagram is a great platform to kick starts the showcasing of your business.

6. Big Outdoor Gigs 

If you’re hosting a major event, you’ll have to hire or get items such as a high chair, folding table, and canopy. You’ll also need advertising posters, banners and a bit more of smaller stuff.

7. PLI Insurance 

As a face painter, you might need PLI insurance for your peace of mind. But if you’re doing the task for a fundraiser or charity, inquire from the event organizers whether they would give the cover in case of an occurrence against you.

8. Face Painters at Work 

Most expert face painters will request to be paid a certain amount of cash for the time spent. They might then spend the day and possibly earn more. But some will give their services on a pay-per-face basis and give a portion of their income.

Whichever way, face painting isn’t risky business, and as long as there are kids, there are high chances of making a profit. Keep in mind; you may engage other options such as tattoos to optimize your benefits.

a kid with painted face

9. How to Charge 

As mentioned above, some will charge their clients a specific amount per hour while others pay for stalls and pitches. But commonly, some charge per face. When you’re starting, it’s recommended that you try all sorts of charging methods. With time, you’ve to familiarize yourself with the method that works best for you. You’ll also need time to earn enough experience and for the people to know your name.

You just learn through experience and mistakes regardless of whether you engage for a task where you bring in no cash! That’s how the majority of people start and pick up in the future.

10. Part-Time or Full-Time

As you begin, it’s improbable that one or a few events will offer you a full-time wage. But as a part-time obligation, you have an ideal chance to earn substantial sums of money and engage in a lot of fun.

If you love entrepreneurship and some but of creativity, you’ll enjoy painting faces. Let it all out; you will learn new abilities; meet new and intriguing individuals, including other entertainers. As you advance the activity, you’ll earn more income and start running a full-time business. You can likewise run a face painting business part-time.

11. Taking It Further 

But you don’t have to limit yourself. As you begin, you can also start a full-time business and then expand it later. You may incorporate other forms of entertainment; for instance, magic shows, henna, balloon modeling, and the potential outcomes are inestimable.

You might also consider hiring workers or include a whole party package. All you need towards the day’s end is to experiment with new ideas and get to know what suitably works for you in a specific area.

12. Paying Taxes 

If you’re operating an authentic business, then include the tax charges into your costs too. The estimate is around 10 to 20% for self-employed business, and at times the amount goes up according to your country. You also need extra costs for a bookkeeper. Are you speculating on how to start a face painting business? Keep reading to familiarize yourself with more facts.

13. Invest in Time 

Time is money as you’ll need to invest enough of it to make income and to ensure your business grows. You also need sufficient time besides the time you spend with customers. The extra time is for preparations, setting up, driving, learning, cleaning tools, researching new ideas, and practicing. More time will also be spent on business promotion and painting on models, among other items. You may have lost a portion of eagerness after you’ve realized what you will need to commit. But don’t surrender; it is all justified, despite all the trouble!

14. Things Going South 

You should be prepared to handle negative circumstances such as low turnout of visitors, bad weather, or meeting another face painter in the same venue.  Whenever you’re set in a terrible position, you end up losing some huge amounts of money, not to mention the expenses to incur.

15. How Much to Make 

This relies upon various factors, including the amount of work and type of customers you’ll serve. To build a big business, you’ll have to start small. Marketing your business in your local community is the best way to start. Make use of leaflets, business cards, and posters.

16. Essential Things to Remember

  • Ensure you purchase safe face painting items that conform to the FDA and EU toy and cosmetics guidelines.
  • If you’re giving services to kids, there are chances you’ll need a DBS certificate.
  • If your business is based in public places, check with the local authorities on whether you’ll need public liability insurance or license.
  • As a face painter, you should perfect your design. Even when working with regular jobs, keep upgrading your designs. 
  • You can enroll in a class if you desire to take your business a step higher and keep over the competition. 
spiderman face painting/How to Start a Face Painting Business

Winding Up: How to Start a Face Painting Business

Before you decide on venturing into a face painting business, know that you’ll invest money and time, not to mention passion and dedication. That is because; you’ll need to figure your prices and costs and plan on the profits. The above tips should help you on how to start a face painting business.