Trends · data through August 2026

Specialty Schools in the United States

Iceflower tracks 527 stores from 429 specialty schools chains in the United States. Empire Beauty School grew fastest over the last year, ahead of Fred Astaire Dance Studios and Color Me Mine.

Rankings come from real card and bank transactions across a panel of 130M+ US and EU consumers. We publish relative growth and rankings, never revenue figures. About the data

Tracked chains
429
Tracked stores
527
Consumer panel
130M+

Growth ranking

Fastest-growing tracked specialty schools chains

Ranked by year-over-year growth of share of tracked local spend. Arrows show movement in the rankings since last year. Each dot in the chart is one tracked chain: bigger market position to the right, faster growth higher up, more tracked stores in a bigger dot. Colors match the store map below. Empire Beauty School and Fred Astaire Dance Studios sit in the high-growth half.

# Chain YoY growth
RankChainRank movementYoY growth
1 E Empire Beauty School ▲1 +12.8%
2 F Fred Astaire Dance Studios logo Fred Astaire Dance Studios ▲1 +10.0%
3 C Color Me Mine logo Color Me Mine ▲1 +5.7%
4 N North Star - +2.5%
5 P Pinot's Palette ▲1 -4.5%
6 F FlightSafety International - -16.3%
7 S Summit Salon Academy ▼1 -20.0%
8 P Paul Mitchell The School logo Paul Mitchell The School ▼1 -22.2%
9 A Aveda Arts & Sciences Institute - -22.2%
10 C Canlan Sports logo Canlan Sports - -27.8%
11 E Evans Hairstyling College - -28.8%
12 T The Salon Professional Academy ▼2 -39.5%
13 I Independence - -58.7%
  • Lowest Price Traffic School
  • Tops Cooking School
  • Triple Step Dance
  • Independence
  • Tricoci University of Beauty Culture
  • Maryland Hall
  • Color Me Mine
  • Other tracked chains

Store footprint

Store map

527 tracked store locations in the United States. The 7 largest tracked chains are highlighted.

  • Lowest Price Traffic School (1)
  • Tops Cooking School (1)
  • Triple Step Dance (1)
  • Independence (3)
  • Tricoci University of Beauty Culture (5)
  • Maryland Hall (1)
  • Color Me Mine (20)
  • Other tracked chains

Top tracked chains by store count

  • 1 C Color Me Mine logo Color Me Mine 20
  • 2 P Paul Mitchell The School logo Paul Mitchell The School 16
  • 3 E Empire Beauty School 13
  • 4 P Pinot's Palette 8
  • 5 T The Salon Professional Academy 7
  • 6 S Summit Salon Academy 5
  • 7 T Tricoci University of Beauty Culture 5
  • 8 F Fred Astaire Dance Studios logo Fred Astaire Dance Studios 4
  • 9 F FlightSafety International 4
  • 10 N North Star 4
  • 11 I Independence 3
  • 12 C Canlan Sports logo Canlan Sports 3
  • 13 A Aveda Arts & Sciences Institute 3
  • 14 E Evans Hairstyling College 3
  • 15 O Ogle School 3
  • 16 C Cincinnati School of Music 2
  • 17 T The Dance Company 2
  • 18 B Bridgerland Technical College logo Bridgerland Technical College 2
  • 19 S Salon Institute 2
  • 20 U UTMB Health logo UTMB Health 2
  • 21 P Painting with a Twist logo Painting with a Twist 2
  • 22 T Taylor Andrews Academy 2
  • 23 I ITT Technical Institute 2
  • 24 Q Quality Music Center 2
  • 25 P Patty's Dance Center 1
  • 26 V Visions Dance Company 1
  • 27 S Star Performance Centre 1
  • 28 C Capital Cooks 1
  • 29 T Thrive Dance Cheer Tumble 1
  • 30 L Lejeune Dance Company 1
  • 31 E Expressions Dance Theatre 1
  • 32 A Anderson Music Academy 1
  • 33 A Austin Kade Academy 1
  • 34 P PCI Academy 1
  • 35 F Fancy Feet Dance Studio logo Fancy Feet Dance Studio 1
  • 36 B Brevard Music Center 1
  • 37 U Universal Technical Institute 1
  • 38 L Little Dance Studio 1
  • 39 M Milwaukee Aero 1
  • 40 A Austin Driving School 1
  • 41 B Ballet Arizona logo Ballet Arizona 1
  • 42 B Broadway Dance Center 1
  • 43 D Destination Dance SC 1
  • 44 T Troy Music Academy 1
  • 45 S SPARK PA 1
  • 46 M Music In Motion Dance Studio 1
  • 47 N Norwalk Driving School 1
  • 48 F Forte Music School 1
  • 49 I Indiana ACE 1
  • 50 U UTHSC College of Dentistry 1

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