Quote Originally Posted by Joni Marie Cruz View Post
Anyone can go into a salon and get a makover for a reasonable price, anyone can go to a photo studio and have their picture taken professionally and pay a reasonable price. As a for instance, the pix in my "Just Another TGirl" album were part of a package deal through the salon I used to go to before I moved to Seattle. I had a makeover, then drove over to the studio and had pictures taken, the price included an 8x10 print and five additional photos of my choice on a disk all for one price. The photographer took about two dozen pix total, I had my choice of the ones I wanted to keep. How much was it? I paid $75 total, though I did choose to get more pix which were extra. Was it worth it? I think so.

As in so many things, we can be taken advantage of only if we let it happen.

Hugs...Joni Mari
Quote Originally Posted by celeste26 View Post
Those services are mainly for the closeted CD who just cant or wont get out of their closet and they do pay extra (sometime much extra) for the security of knowing that they wont ever be exposed to anyone.

For a CD who can and does get out on their own there really is little need for such services. Yes of course to the outgoing CD there is a whole world out there of shopping, makeup studios, and photo shops.

But for someone who is desperately afraid of losing wife and kids if they were ever exposed this does offer an outlet. The xformation studios need to have on hand clothes that fit a wide variety of people's size and taste. Just a good size wardrobe might run $ thousands and the makeup schooling and styling schooling goes for thousands of dollars too. They should at least have wide variety of experience in make up and hair styling (preferably certified with whatever local licensing requires), and they should have some valuable experience in photography.

Obviously, there is great variety in the quality of such studios and therefore is a variety of prices that a person might pay, hopefully there is some correspondence of quality with price. The ones I've seen advertised on the net have photos (used with permission) of people who have used their service so one can guess more accurately of what is possible for their own session.

From the business side of things there is only a very narrow niche market for such services and therefore few customers, so their mark up must be high. But some neighborhood girl who just offers to do a makeover is merely an amatuer and has little invested. They might be good, might not be, but they are less likely able to service a wide variety of clients that some professional service would be able to work with.

So I dont begrudge the service fees they charge and since I am not one of those closeted people I just go out and get what I want done without the need for such special care.
Lots of great comments here but these two really struck me and fall in line with what I want to say.

Celeste's point about security is very important in this discussion. Imagine how many of "us" are out there who are unwilling or unable to step even their pinky toe out of the closet and for them, secure and private services like this are so beneficial.

The other point though is the difference between what I call a tg based and gg based makeover. Many in our community can not only benefit from the lesson aspect of a several hour session but also need to work with someone who has the skills and product on hand for beard coverage. This is why I always recommend that for anyone looking to go to a department store for a makeover, they should have their foundation down first because the counters simply don't have the product that many require, nor have the artists necessarily been trained in those kinds of coverage needs. So for that reason, I have to add caution to Joni's otherwise excellent post, not everyone can find what they're looking for out of a salon-based makeover if teaching and/or beard coverage is desired.