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Chelsea: Someone said, "Have you used jagua? If yes, any advice on how to apply it and charge to clients?"

Uh, yes. Okay, so I do use jagua. I don't advertise it very much. I have a lot of thoughts on how jagua can be confused with black henna and I'm still doing a lot of educating in my local market about the importance of natural henna. And so jagua kind of comes in and throws a little bit of a curve ball. But it is a service that I offer. People have to know what it is. On my booking site, they have the option to upgrade to jagua. So if they know what it is, then they can select it. Otherwise I don't push for it.

Um, and then of course on my website, on my business's website, I have a blog post that that describes, you know, what jagua is, what's the difference and so forth.

As far as advice on how to apply it, I'm not sure. I'm not sure what that means, um, as far as the question is concerned. So I'm going to attack this in a couple of different areas and hope that I get it, okay? So in terms of application, I use a hengua mix. So I mix my jagua juice with henna powder. That's how I prefer it.

I also—I have jagua gel. I'm not crazy about using jagua gel and so I tend not to use it as much. Um, I like having the consistency of henna and so mixing my hengua fresh is perfect. Um, I don't knows, as far as, like, the application process, it goes on just the same as henna. There's a little bit of difference in as far as aftercare is concerned when you're working with jagua, in that your clients don't have to have the paste on forever and ever. They can have it on for anywhere from, you know, 2 hours and they'll still have a very, very nice stain. Also with jagua you can wash it off with soap and water and you still have a very nice stain. So there's not that, um, that fear of like, "Oh, you can't wash it off with water. You have to remove it with oil and all this." Jagua doesn't require that. But, um, that's like the application part from the technical perspective, I guess.

Um, and as far as how to apply it, I can only imagine because we've coupled the words apply and also the word charge with our clients that we're also—we're wanting to know specifically about the business aspect. So, jagua is significantly more expensive than henna, so we have to be mindful of the way that we set our prices because we're not pricing, like, pricing is not—Oh my gosh, I'm going to—I'm not going to go on a rant here but pricing is not a personal choice. Pricing is not a personal choice. Pricing comes down to a formula. You need to have a formula of how you're assessing your prices in your business. Part of that formula is what's the cost of you doing that business? What's the expense relative to that business? So with jagua having a significantly higher cost associated with it, you have a lower profit margin when you offer that service. So you are left with two options. You can either charge at the same rate as henna and lose on the profit margin or you can raise your prices when you're offering jagua to cover the difference or to make up or compensate in some way for the would be, um, loss, that's there in between.

In my business, I do the second because I'm paying more for the product. It costs me more to produce. So it's going to also cost more for my clients to be able to purchase. So, um, I have a surcharge when they—on the booking site, when they check that jagua option, it gives them—it automatically tacks on an additional fee that's specific to jagua, and that varies depending on their service type.

So, like, if that person books, uh, I want to say, like if they book a mini session, then I want to say that the difference is only like a $5 difference or a $10 difference, I think it's a $10 difference, versus if they're booking at an hourly rate then it adds on an additional, I think, $35 an hour. Based, you know, based on that package that they've purchased. So I recoup, I—there is an adjustment. There's a surcharge if they choose to get jagua and um, and I just explain to them. If they have the question about it, I just explain to them that it's a different product and it has a—it is a more costly product. So the service is going to be more costly as well. I've never had any push back on that at all, at all. But as far as charging them, it's charged still in the same way. They're, basically, they're just being charged for the service time that they're receiving with me and then an additional surcharge for the use of that more, uh, I'm not going to call it a premium product, but a more costly product.