Can You Work as a Loctician From Home?

This is a question I get asked more than almost any other, and it comes from every corner of the world. My students stretch from New Zealand to Hawaii and everywhere in between, and no matter where someone is writing to me from, the question tends to sound the same: can I actually work as a loctician from home?

I want to answer it properly, because I think the honest answer matters more than a quick yes or no. So let's sit with it together.

Start With the Regulations, Not the Dream

Before you imagine anything else, I want you to go and check the regulations wherever you're living right now. Not where you hope to live one day. Where you actually are, today.

The rules are different everywhere. Some places require a separate entrance into the home. Some have other specific requirements you'd never think to ask about until you're already deep into building something. This isn't the romantic part of the conversation, and I know it. But I believe strongly that we should follow the rules and do things properly — what we put into the world in the way we build our businesses tends to come back to us. So this is always where I tell people to start, even before the dreaming.

Once you know what's actually possible where you are, then the real conversation can begin — the one about what kind of lifestyle you're actually building toward.

Why This Question Is Really About Lifestyle

Being a loctician is one of the more unusual jobs in that it gives you real freedom to design the shape of your own life, if you approach it with intention. This is something I ask my students constantly, and I ask it long before we ever get to technique. What are you actually dreaming about? What kind of days do you want to be living? Because the way you set up your loctician business should move you toward that life, not just toward a full appointment book.

Maybe your dream really is to work from home. If the regulations allow it, there's nothing wrong with that at all. Let me tell you how I've built my own version of this, here in Provence.

My Own Setup, Here in Provence

Right now, I'm sitting in our garden as I think through all of this. During the summer months, this garden becomes part of my working space. If a client wants to, we sit in the shade under an umbrella and I make their dreadlocks there, surrounded by everything we're growing. I also have a space set up indoors for when someone would prefer somewhere a little cooler, or simply a different kind of quiet.

I have a vision I'm holding for the future, too — a small tiny house, somewhere further back in the garden, with big windows looking out over the mountains. A proper salon, separate from the house itself. I don't know exactly how that will come together yet. I'm simply holding the vision and letting it take its own shape over time, the way most good things in my life have.

When clients come to work indoors, I rearrange our living room into something closer to a salon space. We opted for a smaller house with a much bigger garden when we moved here, because we wanted to grow our own food and live closer to the land. It means my working space isn't a fixed, dedicated room the way a commercial salon would be — it shifts and adapts, and that's simply part of the rhythm of building a home-based practice.

Why I Still Travel Back to Stockholm

I built my full loctician business in Stockholm before we made the move to France. When we left, we let go of almost everything we had there, because I wanted to fully commit to the new life we were creating — I was practicing exactly what I teach my own students to do.

I still travel back every three months to take care of my long-time clients there. Rather than working from a traditional salon, I rent a space in an apartment hotel that has everything set up properly — a mirror, a desk, a chair, a full working station. It suits the way I like to work far better than a commercial salon would. It lets me create something more intimate with each client, which is really the whole point for me.

The Household Conversation Nobody Talks About

If you're going to work from home, there's a conversation I think is more important than almost anything else, and it rarely gets mentioned in the practical guides. Sit down with whoever you live with — a partner, children, another adult in the household — and talk honestly about what it means to invite strangers into your home.

Is everyone actually comfortable with that? Not just informed of it, but genuinely at ease with it? I'd encourage you to set up a dedicated space rather than working at the kitchen table or somewhere that feels too private, like a bedroom. Choose somewhere that can be honored as a working space, even if it has to be reconfigured each time.

And this isn't a conversation you have once and then forget. After the first client, the tenth, the fiftieth — check back in with your household. What's working? What isn't? What needs to change? So much unspoken irritation in a home can build quietly for months when it could have been resolved by simply adjusting a rule or two. I'm a strong believer in keeping that conversation open.

Setting Ground Rules for Your Space

Once you've had that conversation with your household, you'll also need to think through the rules for your clients themselves. Are they allowed to bring other people with them — partners, children, pets? If they bring food, are they welcome to use your kitchen to heat it? Are smoking, drinking, or anything else acceptable while you're working? Are there rooms in your home that are simply off-limits?

I say this having learned some of it the harder way. I've had clients steal from me, from my own salon, and it's not a comfortable thing to admit. But the truth is, you can't assume everyone can be trusted, and setting clear boundaries around your space isn't about being unwelcoming — it's about protecting the environment you and your future clients both need in order for the work to happen well.

Keep your space clean, calm, and clearly set up for the work you're doing. Put the dishes away. Make it feel considered. Your space communicates something to a client before you've said a single word.

Why There's No TV in My Salon

Here's something I feel strongly about, and it comes back to why I do this work at all. I have never had a television on in front of my clients. I remember, once, a client watched a football match on her phone while I worked — some kind of World Cup game — and it wasn't my choice, but it stayed with me as an example of what I try not to create.

We live in an age where people have less real human contact than ever before, even though we're more digitally connected than any generation in history. I believe the more we can create genuine space for real human interaction — being fully in the same room with someone, actually getting to know them — the more valuable the work becomes. As a loctician, I get to meet extraordinary people, and I still feel honored by every single one of them.

So when I'm working, I lead with the intention of holding space for my client. I don't answer calls unless I know it's a client arriving. I don't respond to texts while I'm with someone. I'm simply there. This is the deeper reason the work matters to me at all — it was never really about the hair. The hair is the doorway. What happens in that chair, over those hours, is something else entirely.

You Don't Need to Know How Yet

So — can you work as a loctician from home? If the regulations where you live allow it, yes. Whether that looks like a corner of your living room, a converted garage, a tiny house at the back of a garden, or something else entirely that hasn't taken shape in your mind yet, it's possible.

You don't need to know exactly how it will come together. You just need to hold the vision, take a small step toward it, and trust that the rest tends to reveal itself over time. That's certainly how it's gone for me.

I'd love to know — did anything in this land for you? Have you already started imagining your own version of a loctician space? Let me know in the comments, and tell me what other questions you're sitting with. I read every one, and it helps me know what to share next.

Sending you so much love.

— Ann-Marie