What is a beauty swap?

Traditional swapping in the beauty industry has always been informal. You treat a friend in the trade, they treat you back one day, and both of you keep a rough mental ledger. It works until schedules, skills or values do not line up.

Treatment swapping on My Beauty Swap replaces that with four simple steps:

1. Join and get verified. Create a profile, upload your qualification and photo identification, and list the treatments you offer.
2. Give a treatment. Another verified member books one of your treatments in a slot that suits you.
3. Earn Swap Points. When the treatment is completed, the Swap Amount for that treatment lands in your Swap Points balance.
4. Enjoy a treatment yourself. Spend your points with any verified member offering something you want.

A direct one to one swap only happens when two people want exactly what the other offers, at the same time, at roughly the same value. In practice that almost never lines up. A lash artist who wants a deep tissue massage has to find a massage therapist who happens to want lashes that week.

Swap Points sit in the middle and remove that problem. The professional you treat and the professional who treats you are two different people. You are swapping with the whole community rather than with one person, so you are never stuck waiting for a perfect match or negotiating who owes whom.

1 Swap Point equals 1 unit of your local currency. 100 Swap Points is the equivalent of A$100, US$100 or £100. Every treatment on the platform carries a Swap Amount set by the professional who offers it, based on what they normally charge.

• You earn the full Swap Amount for every treatment you complete.
• Points are held safely from the moment a swap is booked until the treatment is confirmed complete, so nobody is left out of pocket.
• Swap Points never expire into thin air and are never converted into cash.
• New members start with a welcome balance so you can book before you have given your first treatment.

You are letting another professional treat you, often in your own space, so trust is the whole product. Every member is checked by a real person before they can swap, on three things:

• Government photo identification, to confirm you are who you say you are.
• A professional qualification, to confirm you are trained in what you offer.
• A clear photo of you, so members recognise the person who arrives.

Identification documents are deleted once the check is complete. Completed swaps carry reviews and ratings, and a clear cancellation policy protects both sides when plans change.

Most professionals have gaps in the diary. A quiet Tuesday morning costs you the same whether or not somebody is in the chair. Filling that gap with a swap turns unused time into Swap Points, and those points into a treatment you would otherwise have put off.

Facials and skin, hair, lashes and brows, nails, massage, injectables, spray tanning, makeup and more. Salon based, clinic based, home studio or mobile. If you are a qualified professional who treats people for a living, you can swap.

Membership is open worldwide, so you can join, get verified and build your profile from anywhere. Swapping itself opens city by city. Sydney is our first city and swapping opens there on 1 November. When enough verified members are ready in your city, we open it too.

Read about beauty treatment swapping in Sydney