Skincare Specialists
What the pay figures show
- For once the obvious answer is right. Washington pays skincare specialists best, at $79,320. It keeps that lead after tax. It keeps it after local prices too — $59,534 in comparable money. Most jobs are not this tidy.
- The nominal leader for skincare specialists is also the real leader: Washington at $79,320, holding through tax and through price deflation to $59,534. Both adjustments leave the ordering at the top intact, which indicates a wage premium large enough to dominate the state's tax burden and price level rather than merely offset them.
Compare this career across states
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Pay by state · May 2025 wages · tax year 2026
National median
$45,330
People doing it
72,890
Highest paid
$79,320
WA
Best off, really
$59,534
WA, after tax and prices
Lowest tenth
$29,580
Highest tenth
$82,050
Lowest, really
$28,997
CA
States with data
49
National average
$51,850
mean, not median
Prices where it goes furthest
108.56%
WA, against a national 100
Where this job actually pays best
- Geography does a lot of the work in this job. Pay roughly doubles between the lowest state and the highest. Tax and prices narrow that gap. They come nowhere near closing it — the real range is still $28,997 up to $59,534.
- Only 72,890 people do this job in the whole country. It is a small field, so the pay figures rest on fewer reports.
- Not every state reports this one. The figures here cover 49 jurisdictions, and the middle wage across them is $45,330. A state you do not see is one with no published number, not one paying nothing. Of those published, Washington pays most.
- The nominal spread for skincare specialists approaches a factor of two across states. Deflating for tax and price level compresses it substantially but leaves a real range of $28,997 to $59,534, indicating that most of the dispersion is real purchasing power rather than compensation for local costs.
- National employment in skincare specialists is 72,890. ⚠️ At this headcount the state-level medians rest on comparatively thin samples, and year-to-year movement in any one state reflects sampling as much as wages.
- BLS publishes an occupational median for skincare specialists in 49 jurisdictions, short of the full set. ⚠️ Absence reflects estimate suppression — small samples or disclosure rules — rather than absence of employment, so the state comparison above is over the published subset.
Pay band: Skincare Specialists
The national median for this job
50thpercentile, roughly
| Lowest tenth earn under | $29,580 |
|---|---|
| Half earn under | $45,330 |
| Top tenth earn over | $82,050 |
| This salary | $45,330 |
Positions between the published tenth, quarter, half, three-quarter and ninetieth points are estimated by straight line.
Where these numbers come from
| BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 estimates, time-series bulk download (oe.data.0.Current) | as of 2025-05-01 |
|---|
Steps in Skincare Specialists
The national median for this job
$45,330around the 50th percentile
| Lowest tenth | $29,580 |
|---|---|
| Middle | $45,330 |
| Top tenth | $82,050 |
The five points BLS publishes. Nothing between them is invented.
Skincare Specialists, state by state
The national median for this job
49states publish pay for this job
| Lowest | Idaho · $34,130 |
|---|---|
| Highest | Washington · $79,320 |
| Spread | $45,190 |
One dot per state that publishes this job. A missing state means suppressed data, not zero pay.
Best paid, and best off
The national median for this job
| Texas pays | $49,250 |
|---|---|
| Worth, after local prices | $50,682 |
Median pay against the same pay once BEA price parities are applied.
Every state, three ways
Sorted by what the money is actually worth. "Kept" is take-home for a single filer after federal, FICA and state income tax. "Really worth" divides that by the state's own price level, so a dollar in each row buys the same thing. Tap a state to put your own salary into it. States BLS does not publish for this job are absent — that means no published figure, not no work.
| State | Median pay | Kept after tax | Really worth |
|---|---|---|---|
| WA | $79,320 | $64,632 | $59,534 |
| WY | $62,400 | $52,318 | $57,589 |
| ND | $58,160 | $48,912 | $55,222 |
| DC | $77,480 | $59,720 | $53,897 |
| MT | $58,500 | $47,192 | $52,294 |
| NE | $58,420 | $47,166 | $52,189 |
| ME | $55,850 | $44,606 | $45,939 |
| CO | $54,500 | $44,281 | $43,678 |
| NM | $47,230 | $39,066 | $43,221 |
| TX | $49,250 | $41,752 | $42,966 |
| AZ | $50,470 | $41,873 | $41,416 |
| DE | $50,820 | $40,760 | $41,067 |
| GA | $48,660 | $39,449 | $40,796 |
| KS | $45,760 | $36,683 | $40,775 |
| WI | $46,220 | $37,893 | $40,702 |
| MO | $45,200 | $37,311 | $40,661 |
| IN | $44,450 | $36,614 | $39,718 |
| MI | $45,240 | $36,858 | $39,134 |
| UT | $45,490 | $36,707 | $38,638 |
| MS | $41,160 | $33,698 | $38,603 |
| OR | $52,110 | $40,041 | $38,236 |
| NH | $46,890 | $39,856 | $37,834 |
| SD | $38,230 | $32,898 | $37,344 |
| IL | $45,330 | $36,504 | $36,926 |
| MN | $44,430 | $36,321 | $36,905 |
| PA | $43,620 | $35,890 | $36,810 |
| MD | $46,590 | $37,766 | $36,325 |
| OH | $39,150 | $33,277 | $36,244 |
| FL | $43,880 | $37,438 | $36,188 |
| SC | $39,670 | $33,564 | $36,022 |
| RI | $43,880 | $36,212 | $35,708 |
| AL | $39,260 | $32,054 | $35,627 |
| AR | $36,520 | $30,631 | $35,408 |
| WV | $38,030 | $31,756 | $35,374 |
| KY | $38,580 | $31,946 | $35,312 |
| MA | $47,310 | $38,148 | $35,245 |
| LA | $36,890 | $31,101 | $35,204 |
| IA | $37,080 | $31,177 | $35,122 |
| OK | $37,340 | $31,003 | $35,116 |
| NJ | $45,870 | $38,050 | $34,946 |
| AK | $41,240 | $35,316 | $34,721 |
| NC | $39,120 | $32,561 | $34,588 |
| CT | $43,680 | $35,606 | $34,339 |
| NV | $38,660 | $33,243 | $34,279 |
| TN | $36,590 | $31,580 | $34,135 |
| NY | $42,910 | $34,938 | $32,462 |
| VA | $39,350 | $32,296 | $32,056 |
| ID | $34,130 | $28,648 | $31,335 |
| CA | $38,770 | $32,645 | $28,997 |
Sources and assumptions
- Treat the numbers for skincare specialists as a midpoint, not a promise. The national middle is $45,330, which means half of everyone doing this work earns less than that. Where you land depends on how long you have done it, who you do it for, and which city you do it in.
- One filer, no dependants, nothing paid into a pension before tax — that is the household behind every take-home figure for skincare specialists. It is the simplest case on purpose, so the states can be compared against each other rather than against each other's family circumstances. City income taxes are not counted. On that household, Washington keeps the most at $64,632.
- The price adjustment for skincare specialists uses a statewide figure, and states are not uniform. A city and a rural county in the same state can differ more from each other than two states do, so treat the real-terms comparison as a direction rather than a precise answer — California anchors the bottom at $28,997. The wage data and the price data also come from different years, because that is how each is published.
- These are distribution medians for skincare specialists, with a national value of $45,330. They describe a midpoint rather than an expected offer, and the within-occupation spread — visible in the tenth and ninetieth percentile figures — is wide enough that a state-level median is a weak predictor for any individual worker.
- The household modeled for skincare specialists is a single filer, standard deduction, no dependants, no pre-tax contributions. Holding the household constant is what makes the interstate comparison meaningful; it also means the absolute figures overstate liability for most real filers. On that basis Washington retains the most, $64,632. Municipal and school-district income taxes are not included in any state.
- Real-terms figures for skincare specialists deflate take-home by a statewide regional price parity, which conceals substantial intra-state variation — metropolitan and non-metropolitan price levels within one state frequently differ by more than two states differ from each other. The wage and price series also carry different reference periods, as each is published on its own schedule, so the adjustment is directionally sound rather than precisely dated.