Self-employment method
Cosmetics, Beauty Supplies, and Perfume Retailers
185,123 people filed as a nonemployer business under this industry code in 2022 — no payroll, no employees, just them. These are gross receipts reported to the IRS, before any expense is taken out.
Median GROSS RECEIPTS for the year — money in, before rent, materials, fuel, insurance or tax. This is not take-home pay.
Share who grossed under $10,000 for the whole year — before expenses.
The middle half, in gross receipts. A quarter of filers took less than the lower figure.
Source: US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
How often it does not work out
Of the 185,123 people who filed under this code in 2022, 61.00% grossed under $10,000 for the entire year — before a single expense was deducted.
That is a floor, not an estimate. Census publishes GROSS RECEIPTS, not net income. Everyone inside that share earned less than the figure suggests once rent, materials, mileage, insurance and self-employment tax came out — and filers who grossed well above the threshold may still have netted nothing. The true share of people who earn nothing meaningful from this is higher than the number above, never lower.
Denominator: establishments_total = 185,123 · US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
Every filer, by what they grossed
The full distribution Census publishes. The median above is interpolated inside the band that holds the 50th percentile.
| Gross receipts for the year | Filers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5,000 | 80,773 | 43.7% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 32,154 | 17.4% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 36,324 | 19.6% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 17,282 | 9.3% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 10,132 | 5.5% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 5,730 | 3.1% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 1,620 | 0.9% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 715 | 0.4% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 306 | 0.2% |
Who this suits
Median gross receipts of $6,826 put the typical Cosmetics, Beauty Supplies, and Perfume Retailers filer well below any full-time threshold. Revenue at that level covers a hobby’s costs and rarely much beyond them.
With 185,123 filers, Cosmetics, Beauty Supplies, and Perfume Retailers is a substantial informal workforce. Enough people do it that local pricing is set by the field rather than by you.
4.5% of filers grossed $100,000 or more — a small minority, but a real one. That group is who the aspirational version of this work describes, and they are roughly one in thirty.
Independent health and personal care retail suits people who can operate inside the licensing and record-keeping the category carries.
Nothing stops anyone filing under this code, and 185,123 people did. Free entry is why the lower bands are as full as they are: the distribution below counts everyone who tried, not everyone who was ready.
Who should not do this
The top quarter of Cosmetics, Beauty Supplies, and Perfume Retailers earns 7.2x the bottom quarter — under $2,864 against over $20,675, a spread of $17,811. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Cosmetics, Beauty Supplies, and Perfume Retailers earns under $2,864 — $47,156 below the $50,020 a typical American job pays. Entering at the bottom and waiting is a live risk here, not a theoretical one, and some people never leave that quarter.
Do not start this without understanding the licensing and record-keeping; the compliance burden arrives before the customers do.
61.0% of the 185,123 people who filed as Cosmetics, Beauty Supplies, and Perfume Retailers in 2022 grossed under $10,000 for the entire year, before expenses: 112,925 people. The majority outcome here is not a small income, it is effectively no income.
Read that as a floor, not an estimate. Census publishes gross receipts, not net income, so everyone inside that share earned less than $10,000 suggests once costs came out — and filers who grossed well above $10,000 may still have netted nothing.
What the spread tells you
From $2,864 to $20,675 is 7.2x — the shape of a field where a minority captures most of the money. The midpoint of $6,826 is arithmetic, not a forecast, and treating it as one is the standard mistake here.
Put in money rather than ratios: $2,864 at the 25th percentile, $6,826 at the midpoint, $20,675 at the 75th. $17,811 separates the quarter of Cosmetics, Beauty Supplies, and Perfume Retailers at the bottom from the quarter at the top.
Getting to $20,675, the 75th percentile, is worth $13,849 a year more than the $6,826 midpoint and $17,811 more than the $2,864 a quarter of Cosmetics, Beauty Supplies, and Perfume Retailers settle for.
$3,962 below the midpoint, $13,849 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Cosmetics, Beauty Supplies, and Perfume Retailers that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Converted to a 2,080-hour year, the receipts run $1.37 an hour at the 25th percentile, $3.28 at the midpoint and $9.93 at the 75th. Read them as revenue per hour worked; the equivalent wage is lower by whatever this work costs to do.
The raw counts, before anyone interprets them: under $5,000, 80,773 filers. $5,000 to $9,999, 32,154. $10,000 to $24,999, 36,324. Over $100,000, 8,371 — and 2,641 over $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $6,826 is turnover — the money that passed through Cosmetics, Beauty Supplies, and Perfume Retailers before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
Treat the per-hour figure as a conversion. It assumes a flat full-time year against $6,826 because we have no verified record of unpaid hours or out-of-pocket costs for this work, and we would rather convert honestly than adjust invented ones.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else