A three-day master class with Joshua Thrash — held in the one town that never apologizes for luxury. You work the floor with the vendor houses that define the category, and on Sunday you meet the salons that came to hire. Not a certificate. An offer.
Seats remaining
—/40
01 The premise
Every education weekend in this industry ends the same way: a laminated card, a tote bag, and a flight home to the same chair at the same price. This one ends in a room full of salon owners who paid to be there because they need what you just learned.
Forty stylists. One master. The vendor houses that define the luxury and medspa category, close enough to touch. And a Sunday afternoon built for one purpose — putting an offer in your hand.
02 The weekend
Friday · Oct 16
Vendor salon & opening night
Check-in, garment bags, chair assignments
Vendor salon opens — botanical color houses, medspa tech, tools, luxury retail
Joshua's opening: “What luxury actually smells like”
Courtyard dinner, ocean side. Introductions on the record.
Saturday · Oct 17
Twelve hours on the mannequin and the model
Consultation theatre — pricing the client in front of you
Master cutting block: dry sculpting, invisible layers, the Palm Beach blowout
Lived-in color: foil architecture, root shadow, tonal repair
Medspa crossover — scalp health, growth protocols, what you can legally say
Live models. Joshua on the mic, you on the chair, room watching.
Sunday · Oct 18
Graduation & the hiring lounge
Business of the chair: rate cards, rebooking, the $1,000 client
Portfolio shoot — every graduate leaves with editorial images
Graduation, certification, class photo
The hiring lounge: 20-minute tables with every partner salon in the room
Offers written. Champagne. Names made.
03 Curriculum
01
Cutting what you see, not what the diagram says. Weight, movement, the four-week test.
02
Foil architecture and root shadow built to grow out beautifully for sixteen weeks.
03
How to open at $400 without flinching, and have the client thank you for it.
04
Scalp, skin, and growth services that belong in a hair house — and the language that keeps you compliant.
05
Editorial finish, phone lighting, and a feed that books strangers.
06
Column math, retail attach, rebooking, and the numbers salon owners hire for.
Joshua Thrash — Master Stylist
04 Your instructor
“Fabulous is a decision.”
Joshua Thrash built a career on the belief that a stylist's ceiling is set by the room they're standing in. He has spent twenty years in rooms where a haircut costs more than a flight — and he has spent the last five pulling stylists out of underpriced chairs and into houses that pay them properly.
The Shear Genius Summit is the weekend he wishes existed when he was twenty-six: the technique, the money conversation, the brand relationships, and the introduction — compressed into three days and handed to forty people at once.
05 Tuition & application
Applications are read in the order they arrive. Tell us where you are now and what you want out of the weekend — that's what decides the seat.
It goes in the queue in the order it arrived. Joshua reads these himself and you will hear back by email — an acceptance, or the two nearest dates if this class fills first.
06 For salon owners
You already know what a bad hire costs: a dead column, a burned assistant, six months of retraining. Palm Beach hands you the opposite — forty pre-vetted stylists who just spent three days being taught to a standard, in front of you, on live models.
Sunday afternoon is yours. Twenty-minute tables, portfolios in hand, offers written on the spot. Twelve houses are already in for October.
One Chair
$1,500
For the salon filling a single seat
Most owners choose this
House
$3,500
Two hiring tables and priority scheduling
Flagship
$7,500
Exclusive to one salon per market
The partner agreement and the current lounge schedule come back to you by email, usually the same day. Tables are assigned in the order agreements are signed.
07 For brands & vendor houses
This is not a trade-show aisle. It is a small, wealthy room: forty hand-picked stylists, twelve hiring salons, and a master educator holding the mic — all inside a Palm Beach venue for three days. Whatever you put in their hands in October is what they order for their column in November.
Categories held open for October Color & careScalp / medspa devicesTools & appliancesExtensionsLuxury retailBeverage & hospitality
Studio
$2,500
A table on the vendor salon floor
Education slot + floor presence
Atelier
$6,000
Everything in Studio, plus the mic
Presenting House
$15,000
One brand per category. Name on the weekend.
The deck, the floor plan, and the categories still open come back by email. Category exclusivity is held for the first brand to sign, not the first to ask.
08 The setting
Worth Avenue, white stucco, bougainvillea, and clients who never ask what something costs. We hold the weekend here on purpose: three days inside the market you are learning to charge like, fifteen minutes from PBI.
09 Questions
Licensed stylists and colorists at any level past school, plus salon owners who want to work the floor themselves. If you are still in school, apply anyway and note it — a small number of student seats are held each class.
No one honest guarantees a job. What is guaranteed is the room: every partner salon in the hiring lounge has committed openings and paid for access to you. Last thing Joshua wants is a lounge full of tire-kickers.
Shears, your favorite brushes, and something you feel expensive in. Mannequin, color, product, and tools for the weekend are included in tuition.
A partner block is held near the venue from $289/night, released with your acceptance email. Palm Beach International (PBI) is 15 minutes out.
Full refund up to 30 days before the weekend, 50% up to 14 days, then transferable to a future class. Seats can be moved to a colleague at any time.
Yes — the second class is planned for Birmingham in spring 2027. Palm Beach is the first, and it is the one the vendor houses are building around.
Palm Beach · October 16–18, 2026