Stylist Agreement

You are an independent contractor and an independent business. You are not an employee, agent, partner, joint venturer, or franchisee of Encore, and nothing in this Agreement creates such a relationship. You provide styling services to clients as an independent professional; the client is your client, not Encore’s. You provide your services under your own name as an independent professional, and you are never required to provide them under Encore’s name. Encore’s branding of the marketplace, and any listing, discovery, search-ranking, badge, or featured placement Encore may use, identify Encore as the marketplace through which a client found you; they do not make you Encore’s employee or agent, do not mean that your services are performed by or on behalf of Encore, and do not hold you out as acting for Encore.

Encore provides the software platform and the discovery, booking, and payment tools. Encore does not perform styling, employ stylists, or supervise, scope, direct, control, or monitor your work. Encore does not set your work locations, your hours, your methods, or the terms of your services, and does not provide your tools, supplies, or wardrobe or pay your business expenses.

Because you are an independent business, Encore does not provide, and you are not eligible for, workers’ compensation, unemployment, disability, health, retirement, paid leave, or any other employee benefit, and Encore does not withhold or pay taxes, social-security contributions, or similar amounts on your behalf. Encore has structured this relationship in good faith as a referral-agency relationship under California Labor Code Section 2777, based on how the parties actually operate, and the parties intend and believe that the conditions of that exemption are satisfied; this classification reflects the parties’ genuine understanding that you operate an independent business of your own.

As an independent business, you have and keep full control of your work. You:

• Set your own rates. You set the rate you receive for your services; Encore never sets or caps it. The platform service fee is charged to and paid by the client in addition to your rate, and is not deducted from it (Section 7). You may change your rate for future bookings at any time.
• Accept or decline freely. You choose which booking requests to accept and which clients to work with, without penalty from Encore.
• Use your own tools, methods, and wardrobe, and perform the work in your own way.
• Set your own schedule, service area, and cancellation terms, and decide where and when you work. You choose the cancellation terms for your bookings, and unless you select different terms, Encore’s standard terms apply as a default.
• Are not exclusive to Encore. You may maintain your own clientele, advertise independently, and offer your services elsewhere, including through competing platforms and competing referral agencies.
• Run your own business, including your own marketing, staffing (if any), and operations.

Encore’s review and curation of stylists is a marketplace admission and quality standard, a condition of listing, not direction or control of how you perform your services. Nothing in this Agreement, including Section 8, limits your right to serve clients you knew or developed independently of Encore.

You must be 18 or older and legally able to provide your services as an independent business, and you must not be barred from doing so under any applicable law. You are responsible for identifying, obtaining, and maintaining all licenses, permits, certifications, and registrations required for your services in your jurisdiction, and for performing competently and professionally. You also represent that you are not located in, and are not a national of, any country subject to U.S. embargo or sanctions; that you are not on any U.S. government restricted-party or sanctions list; and that you will not use Encore in violation of any applicable export-control or sanctions law.

Because Encore operates as a referral marketplace for independent businesses, you agree to provide and keep current the following, and to upload supporting documentation where requested:

• Your legal name and business name / DBA (if any).
• Your business entity type (sole proprietor, LLC, corporation).
• A completed IRS Form W-9.
• Your certification that you hold the business license or business tax registration your local jurisdiction requires in order to provide your services there, identifying the license or registration, the city/county jurisdiction, and any expiration date and, where applicable, the certification document; or, if your jurisdiction does not require one, your certification to that effect. You must keep this certification current, and if a required license or registration lapses or expires, your listing is suspended until current certification is on file.
• Your Certificate of Insurance (Section 5).

Encore retains these certifications for at least three years and may verify them. You are solely responsible for your own taxes. Encore does not withhold taxes. Tax reporting (such as Form 1099-K) is issued by Encore and/or our payment processor as required by law, based on your information and reflecting your rate as your gross receipts.

As a condition of being active on Encore, you must carry and maintain, at your own expense, your own commercial general liability insurance with limits of at least $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate, issued by a reputable, licensed insurer of your choice. Carrying your own commercial insurance is part of running your own independent business: Encore does not provide it, does not pay for it, does not select your insurer, and is not named on your policy. We strongly recommend, but do not require, that you also carry professional liability (errors and omissions) coverage of at least $500,000 per claim; many stylist and beauty insurers offer it bundled with general liability in a single policy.

You agree to provide a current Certificate of Insurance (COI) at onboarding and upon renewal, as a record of the coverage you carry. You must notify Encore promptly if your required coverage lapses, is cancelled, or is materially changed. If your required coverage lapses or your COI expires, your listing is suspended until current proof of coverage is on file. Keeping a COI on file is an administrative condition of listing and a record practice. It does not mean that Encore has verified, vouches for, recommends, or guarantees your coverage, your business, or your services, and clients should rely on their own judgment and on the coverage you carry as an independent business. Encore does not undertake to monitor your coverage for the benefit of any client.

You are responsible for any other coverage your business needs, for example, commercial or hired and non-owned auto coverage if you travel to clients, and business or premises coverage if you host clients at your own space (a personal homeowner’s or auto policy may exclude business use).

Your responsibilities and indemnification obligations under this Agreement apply in full whether or not you carry the recommended professional liability coverage, and are not reduced by your decision not to carry it.

Encore lists styling and wardrobe services, advising on, curating, selecting, and coordinating looks. You decide what services you offer and how you perform them; Encore does not direct or control the manner or means of your work.

You represent, warrant, and agree that:

• (a) the services you offer and perform through Encore are styling and wardrobe services, and you will not use the platform to offer or provide services outside the categories you list;
• (b) the platform is for wardrobe styling services only; you will not use the platform to offer or provide any service that requires a state license, permit, certification, or registration, including hair, cosmetology, or barbering services, makeup application, esthetics or skin-, allergy-, or facial-related services, electrology, or manicuring, or alterations or tailoring performed as a service. You are solely responsible for determining whether a service requires a license, permit, certification, registration, or separate insurance. If you offer any such service, you do so as your own separate business outside Encore, and you alone are responsible for any license, permit, certification, and insurance it requires;
• (c) you will not make or provide medical, body-shaping, or health claims or services, and you will not transport clients, through the platform; and
• (d) any person you engage under Section 9 performs only within the scope you represent here and holds any license and insurance their services require.

These are your representations about your own business and your eligibility to list, not directions from Encore about how to perform your services. Encore’s role is limited to listing and the referral and administrative functions described in this Agreement.

• You set your rate. For each service you offer, you set the rate you will receive (“your rate”). Encore never sets or caps your rate.
• The platform service fee is charged to the client, on top of your rate. Encore charges the client a platform service fee for use of the marketplace. The platform service fee is added to your rate to produce the total the client pays; it is not deducted from your rate. The platform service fee is currently 29% of your rate, charged to the client in addition to your rate (so the client’s total is your rate plus that fee). For example, if you set your rate at $100, the client is charged a platform service fee of $29, for a total session charge of $129; you receive your full $100 rate, and Encore’s platform service fee is the $29 paid by the client. We may change the platform service fee on a going-forward basis with notice as provided in Section 19.
• You receive your full rate. You receive your rate in full, without deduction of the platform service fee. The client pays your rate plus the platform service fee through our payment processor (Stripe). Wherever a price for your services is advertised, displayed, or offered to clients on Encore, the client sees a single all-in price that already includes the platform service fee, consistent with California’s Honest Pricing Law (Civil Code section 1770(a)(29)); Encore then shows the client a breakdown identifying your rate and the platform service fee. The platform service fee is charged in addition to (not deducted from) your rate, and that breakdown does not change the all-in price the client was shown.
• You are the seller and merchant of record for your services. Encore is not the seller; it facilitates discovery, booking, payment, and payout through Stripe as the platform operator. The platform service fee is a client-paid fee for the marketplace service; it is not a wage, and Encore does not pay you a wage or salary.
• Payment collection (agent of payee). You appoint Encore and its payment processor (Stripe) as your limited agent to collect payments from clients on your behalf. A client’s payment of the all-in total through the processor satisfies and discharges the client’s payment obligation to you for that booking; thereafter your right to your rate is against the processor and Encore as your collection agent, not against the client. This appointment is limited to collecting payment for your services and rentals and does not make Encore your agent for any other purpose.
• Stripe connected account. To receive payouts you must maintain a Stripe connected account and agree to the Stripe Connected Account Agreement, and you must complete Stripe’s identity verification, including your legal name, date of birth, address, and taxpayer information. Activation and payout are conditioned on completing that verification, and your use of Stripe is governed by Stripe’s terms.
• Payouts, holds, and reversals. Payment is authorized at booking and your rate is paid out to your connected account per the payout schedule. To allow a brief window for the client to report a problem, your payout for a session is released automatically 48 hours after the session’s scheduled end time, unless a dispute or chargeback is pending. Encore or Stripe may also place a hold, reserve, or payout delay on a session only for an objective payment-processing reason, namely suspected fraud, a pending dispute or chargeback on that session, or a specific risk or legal requirement of the payment processor, and funds subject to an open dispute or chargeback are not released while the dispute is pending. Any such hold concerns only the timing of payment by the processor; no hold, reserve, or offset reduces the rate you set, and Encore does not set, reduce, or withhold your rate, and does not use payout timing, as a means of directing or influencing how you perform your services. Where a client disputes or reverses a charge for a session you delivered in compliance with this Agreement, Encore absorbs the resulting processor loss and does not reverse or offset your payout for that session. Encore will reverse or recover your payout for a session only where you did not earn it, meaning a no-show, a session you did not deliver, a material violation of this Agreement, or fraud, and only through the notice-and-review process in Section 8; a payment dispute alone does not result in a reversal. You remain responsible for amounts you genuinely owe Encore, such as refunds or processor fees arising from your own non-delivery, policy violation, or fraud, and amounts under Section 8. Encore may offset those amounts against current or future payouts, and if your payouts are insufficient and your balance is negative, you agree to repay the shortfall on demand. You agree to reasonably cooperate with Encore in responding to any payment dispute, including by promptly providing the booking and session records Encore needs to contest it.
• Taxes. You are solely responsible for your own income taxes; Encore does not withhold taxes. You are responsible for collecting and remitting any sales, use, or rental tax that applies to your services or rental transactions where required by law, except to the extent Encore is required by law to collect and remit such tax as a marketplace facilitator, in which case Encore will do so.

This Section protects the integrity of the Encore platform. It is not a non-compete, a non-solicitation covenant, or a restriction on your business, and it does not impose any fee, charge, or buyout on you for serving a client off-platform. You remain free to keep and serve your own clientele, to market your services, to work through other platforms (including competing referral agencies and marketplaces), to accept or decline bookings, and to serve any client off-platform, including a client Encore introduced to you, at any time, with no fee owed to Encore and without Encore’s permission (Section 2). This Section regulates only your conduct on and through the platform itself.

• No use of the platform to evade fees. While you are using Encore, you agree not to misuse the platform’s own tools, systems, or data, for example, by copying, scraping, harvesting, or exporting client contact information or other platform data for off-platform solicitation, or by using the platform’s automated systems to defraud Encore, a client, or another user. The platform service fee applies to a booking that is made and completed through Encore. This obligation attaches only to the platform’s own tools, systems, and data; it does not attach to, follow, or restrict the client relationship itself, and nothing in it requires you to bring, keep, route, or complete any booking or engagement on Encore.
• Your freedom to serve clients and work elsewhere. Nothing in this Section limits your right to maintain and serve your own clientele, to advertise and market independently, to seek and accept work elsewhere (including through competing referral agencies, marketplaces, and platforms), or to serve any client, whether or not Encore introduced you, off-platform. You owe Encore no fee, commission, conversion charge, or buyout for any off-platform engagement, and Encore claims no continuing interest in any client relationship. You are free to accept or reject any client or booking without penalty of any kind from Encore; declining a booking or choosing not to work with a client is never a breach of this Agreement.
• Notice and review before offset. Before Encore offsets against your payouts any disputed amount you are alleged to owe under Section 7 (such as a refund or processor fee arising from your own non-delivery, policy violation, or fraud), it will give you written notice of the amount and its basis and at least 10 days to respond, and it will not offset the disputed amount until it completes an internal review of your response.
• Account consequences. Misusing the platform’s tools, systems, or data as described above, including scraping or exporting platform data or using the platform’s automated systems to defraud, is a material breach of this Agreement, and Encore may suspend or deactivate your account. Serving a client off-platform, declining a booking, choosing not to work with a client, or working through another platform or agency is never a breach of this Section.
• Messaging on the platform. Encore provides an in-platform messaging channel. Before a booking exists, in the inquiry stage, Encore automatically detects and masks specific contact details (for example, phone numbers and email or other off-platform addresses) and solicitations to pay or be paid off the platform, in the version of an inquiry message shown to the other party, as a safety and fraud-prevention measure, and delivers the remainder of the message; this masking applies only before a booking exists and stops once a booking is made. Apart from that pre-booking masking, Encore does not write, script, template, send, reply as, relay, edit, alter, withhold, or pre-approve your messages, and does not control which clients you work with or what you and a client agree, on or off the platform. Encore processes message content only by automated means, and only to operate the channel, for safety and abuse prevention, and for legal compliance, and it retains messages as records for safety, abuse prevention, and dispute resolution as described in our Privacy Policy. Encore does not screen or use message content to enforce the platform service fee, and the pre-booking masking is a safety and fraud-prevention measure, not a condition of any booking; Encore does not require you to keep any booking or engagement on the platform, and you remain free to share your own contact information and to serve any client off the platform. This is neutral platform tooling and a record practice, not direction or control of your services, and it does not limit your rights under Section 2 or your freedom to serve any client off-platform.

If you bring an assistant to a session or engage anyone else in providing your services, they are your personnel, not Encore’s. You assume full and sole responsibility for their acts and omissions; for their compensation, benefits, expenses, and all required tax and other withholdings; and for their compliance with this Agreement, including the scope representations in Section 6 and the insurance requirements in Section 5 to the extent they perform services. Nothing about your use of assistants creates any relationship between those individuals and Encore.

The following are baseline conduct and platform-use standards and conditions of listing on Encore. They are not directions about the manner or means of your styling services, which you control as an independent business. You agree to:

• Perform your services professionally, safely, and lawfully, and comply with all applicable laws.
• Keep your profile honest and accurate, and not misrepresent your experience, qualifications, or identity.
• Follow our Community Guidelines, which set marketplace conduct and platform-use standards for respectful, non-discriminatory, and safe conduct on the platform. These are conditions of listing and standards for using the marketplace; they are not directions about how you perform your styling services.
• Protect client information you receive and use it only to provide the requested services. Do not export, sell, share, or retain client data except as needed to provide the services or as the Privacy Policy permits; do not save client photos or use client images for your portfolio or marketing without the client’s written consent; do not upload client images, measurements, or other client data to any third-party or artificial-intelligence tool except as the platform provides or the client consents; and notify Encore promptly, within 24 hours, if client data in your control is lost or exposed. Delete or return client data on Encore’s reasonable request. (See our Privacy Policy.)
• Notify Encore within 24 hours of any session-related incident involving injury, property damage, or a safety concern, and reasonably cooperate with Encore and any involved insurer in its investigation and resolution.
• Not misuse the platform’s tools, systems, or data as described in Section 8, and not use the platform for any unlawful purpose.

You grant Encore a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, display, and use the work-sample photos, profile content, and other materials you submit, in order to operate the platform and to display and promote your own listing and profile, subject to your publish controls. You represent that you own or have the rights to everything you submit, and that you have obtained any necessary releases for photographs that include other people.

You also grant Encore your consent and a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use your name, business name, professional title, voice, likeness, profile photo, and other indicia of your identity, together with your submitted work samples, solely to present, feature, and promote you and your own listing and profile on and in connection with the platform, subject to your publish controls. You always provide your services under your own name as an independent professional, and Encore does not require you to provide them under Encore’s name. Encore does not use your name, likeness, voice, or identity to advertise or market the Encore brand itself as distinct from your listing, or to suggest that you are Encore’s employee or agent or that your services are performed by or on behalf of Encore, without your separate, specific written consent. For California purposes, this is your knowing consent to the uses described in this Section under California Civil Code Section 3344. Separately, and only if you choose to provide one, you may give Encore a testimonial or statement about your experience with Encore; if you do, you represent that it reflects your honest, genuine experience and opinion, that Encore did not pay you to make it, and that any material connection between you and Encore is one you have accurately disclosed, consistent with the Federal Trade Commission’s endorsement guidance. You may withdraw this identity and testimonial consent on reasonable written notice for future uses, and Encore will stop new uses within a reasonable time after your notice; the withdrawal does not require Encore to recall, alter, or remove materials already distributed, printed, or placed before that time. This consent does not extend to any use that falsely suggests you endorse a particular client, product, or outcome that you did not in fact endorse.

Encore owns the platform, its name, logo, design, software, and brand. You may state that you offer services through Encore, but you may not otherwise use the Encore name, logo, or marks, or register any confusingly similar business name, domain, or social-media handle, without our written permission. To the extent you create any work specifically for Encore (other than your styling services to clients), such as platform content we commission, you assign that work to Encore, and will sign reasonable documents to confirm the assignment. You retain ownership of your own portfolio and independent work.

You represent and warrant that you are an independent business; that you have the skills, qualifications, licenses, and insurance to provide your services; that the certifications, licenses, and certificates of insurance you provide are authentic and current, and that you will promptly notify Encore of any material change to them; that you have not previously been removed from the platform; that you will comply with this Agreement and the law; and that your content and services do not infringe the rights of others.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, you agree to release, indemnify, and hold harmless Encore and its officers, members, employees, and agents from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or relating to: (i) your services, your conduct, or your content; (ii) your breach of this Agreement or violation of law; (iii) the acts or omissions of anyone you engage under Section 9, including any claim by such a person; (iv) any claim by anyone you engage under Section 9 that they are your employee or personnel, including claims for their wages, benefits, withholdings, workers’ compensation, or expenses, except to the extent such a claim or liability is finally determined to be Encore’s own non-waivable obligation; (v) your failure to obtain or maintain any required insurance, license, permit, or certification; (vi) your rental of your own pieces under Section 16; and (vii) the costs of your business (including your insurance, licenses, permits, and taxes). This indemnification does not extend to, and you are not required to indemnify Encore for, any claim or liability arising from a determination that you yourself are Encore’s employee, or arising from Encore’s own negligence, fraud, willful misconduct, or violation of law. Encore controls its own defense: Encore may, at its own expense, assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter subject to indemnification, and you agree to cooperate with that defense and not to settle any such matter without Encore’s written consent.

Nothing in this Section requires you to indemnify Encore against, or relieves Encore of, any liability that cannot be shifted or limited by agreement under applicable law, including any non-waivable statutory obligation Encore is finally determined to owe to a person who is held to be Encore’s own employee, and including any obligation that Labor Code Section 2802 or other law makes non-shiftable. Nothing in this Section requires you to defend, indemnify, or reimburse Encore for any cost of defending or resolving a claim or determination that you are Encore’s employee.

The platform is provided “as is” and “as available.” Encore is not a party to the styling services between you and a client and is not responsible for a client’s conduct, payment behavior, or any dispute between you and a client.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you release Encore and its officers, members, employees, and agents from all claims, demands, causes of action, damages, and liabilities of every kind and nature, whether known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed, arising out of or in any way connected with the acts, omissions, or conduct of any client or other user, or with any dispute between you and a client or other user. If you are a California resident, you expressly waive the protection of California Civil Code Section 1542, which provides: “A general release does not extend to claims that the creditor or releasing party does not know or suspect to exist in his or her favor at the time of executing the release and that, if known by him or her, would have materially affected his or her settlement with the debtor or released party.” If you reside elsewhere, you waive the protection of any comparable statute or doctrine to the same extent. This release applies only to claims arising out of the acts, omissions, or conduct of clients and other users, and the waiver of Section 1542 above applies only to those released claims. This release does not apply to, and you do not waive, any claim against Encore arising from Encore’s own acts, omissions, negligence, fraud, willful misconduct, or violation of law, any liability for bodily injury or death caused by Encore, or any right or claim that cannot be released or waived in advance under applicable law, including under Civil Code Section 1668 and any non-waivable right under the California Labor Code or other wage-and-hour or worker-protection law; any such claim is excluded from this release and from the Section 1542 waiver.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Encore’s total liability to you arising out of or relating to the platform is limited to the greater of (a) the platform service fees Encore earned from your bookings in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one thousand U.S. dollars, and Encore is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages. Nothing in this Agreement limits or excludes Encore’s liability for its own fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, or violation of law, for bodily injury or death caused by Encore, or for any other liability that cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law.

These limitations apply to the maximum extent permitted by law. If a limitation is held unenforceable, it is reformed to permit the maximum limitation allowed by law, and the remaining limitations stay in full effect.

Encore may review, approve, waitlist, or decline a stylist or listing as a marketplace admission decision, and may suspend or remove a listing for a material breach of this Agreement, a safety or legal concern, fraud, or a failure to maintain a required certification, license, or current proof of insurance. Where applicable and with your consent, we may confirm identity, a license, or that current proof of insurance is on file. These are marketplace admission, listing, and safety standards; they are not direction or control of how you perform your services, and they do not make you Encore’s employee or agent. Encore does not rank, grade, tier, or rate stylists. Any neutral status shown on the platform (for example, that identity or a license was confirmed, that proof of insurance is on file, or that a stylist is newly listed or featured) indicates only that the relevant listing or record criterion was met; it is not an endorsement, a recommendation, a guarantee, a warranty, or an evaluation of the stylist or the stylist’s services, and clients should exercise their own judgment in choosing and working with a stylist.

Renting your own wardrobe pieces to your clients is a customary part of professional styling and is an ancillary extension of your own independent styling business. If you choose to rent pieces from your own wardrobe (“your pieces”) to a client, you do so as their owner and as an independent business. Your pieces are your property and your business: you own them, you decide whether and to whom to rent them, you set your own prices and terms directly with the client, and you bear all garment risk. Encore is solely a technology facilitator. Encore does not own, buy, select, rent, lease, deliver, ship, return, store, clean, sanitize, repair, inspect, mitigate, insure, or take possession of any piece, holds no inventory, and is not a party to, a guarantor of, or a decision-maker in any rental transaction. Encore’s generating and paying for a prepaid label through its carrier account, at exact carrier cost, is a ministerial payment convenience of the kind Encore performs for the rental payment itself; it does not make Encore the party that performs the shipment, a bailee, or a party in possession of any piece, and Encore takes no custody of any piece and bears no risk of loss or damage in transit. The rental contract is solely between you and your client.

• Part of your styling business. Pulling and renting wardrobe pieces is a customary part of professional styling, and you offer pieces, if at all, as part of your own styling service to the client and under your own name and terms. Encore does not require you to offer pieces and does not direct which pieces you offer, your prices, or your terms.
• Your terms, set by you. You set your own rental terms directly with the client, including price, any declared value, the return timeframe, the return method, condition expectations, and any charge for late return, loss, or damage. Encore does not set, require, or standardize these terms and imposes no fee schedule. You choose which return methods to offer. Self-drop is free to the client. For stylist pickup, you set the fee, disclose it in your listing, and receive it in full. For the prepaid-mailer and shipping methods, Encore facilitates the client’s payment of postage at the exact carrier cost; you neither set nor receive that postage amount, and it is postage passed through to the carrier, not a fee to you or to Encore. Encore provides only neutral, optional tooling you may use to present your own terms and to document a piece’s condition. You and the client contract directly, and the client agrees to your terms as renting from you.
• Charges tied to your actual loss only. Any charge you set for late return, cleaning, loss, or damage must reflect your actual, documented loss or a reasonable pre-estimate of it, for example, the reasonable and documented cost of cleaning or repair, or, only where a piece is not returned or is beyond repair, its reasonable and documented value, and may not exceed that amount. Normal wear and tear carries no charge. You may not impose a flat, fixed per-day, or punitive charge that is unrelated to your actual loss. You disclose any such charge, and its basis, to the client before the rental.
• All-in pricing. Wherever a rental price is advertised, displayed, or offered to clients on Encore, the client sees a single all-in price that already includes the platform service fee (Section 7), consistent with California’s Honest Pricing Law (Civil Code section 1770(a)(29)). Contingent charges that apply only if later conduct occurs (such as a late or damage charge) are disclosed to the client but are not part of the advertised price.
• Eligible pieces (safety, hygiene, legality). Rent out only pieces you own and have the right to rent and that are clean and as described. Do not offer intimates, undergarments, or swimwear worn against the body; soiled, damaged, or unsanitary items; or any item you do not own, lack the right to rent, or cannot lawfully rent. These are conditions of listing on the platform, not Encore’s direction or control of your business; Encore does not inspect, clean, or sanitize any piece.
• Condition, cleaning, and care are yours. You provide each piece clean and as described, and you clean each piece to professional garment-care standards between uses, with jewelry and accessories sanitized as appropriate. Encore never cleans, inspects, sanitizes, repairs, or handles any piece.
• Logistics and risk of loss are yours. You handle logistics for getting your pieces to and from the client. Where you offer the prepaid-mailer or shipping method, Encore may, as an administrative convenience, generate and pay for a prepaid label through its carrier account at the exact carrier cost, automatically applying a standard economy service (the lowest-cost available service for the route); you may instead ship with your own carrier and postage. On the outbound label you are the sender and the client is the recipient; on the return label the client is the sender and you are the recipient. Encore generating or paying for the label does not make Encore the party that performs the shipment, a bailee, or a party in possession of any piece, does not place any piece in Encore’s custody, and does not shift to Encore any risk of loss or damage in transit or any duty to guarantee delivery or insure any shipment. Risk of loss or damage in transit remains allocated between you and the client under your terms. Encore continues to recommend, but does not require, that you insure your pieces and your shipments in both directions.
• Your own coverage. Encore does not insure your pieces, and homeowner’s and renter’s policies generally exclude property used in business or rented to others. For valuable pieces, ask your broker about appropriate coverage, such as an inland-marine or scheduled personal-articles floater or rental-business coverage. Encore never insures the pieces.
• Disputes are between you and the client. Any dispute about a piece, its condition, return, loss, damage, or any charge, is resolved directly between you and the client under the terms you set with the client. Encore does not adjudicate, decide, mediate, investigate, or determine fault in any rental dispute, does not decide whether or how much a client owes you, and is not the decision-maker, a guarantor, or a party to the rental. Any optional tooling Encore offers (such as a place to record hand-off and return photos, or to process a payment the client agrees to make) is administrative only and does not make Encore the decider of any party’s rights or liability.
• Collecting your charges. You collect any agreed charge directly from the client. You may use Encore’s payment tooling to process a charge the client agrees to pay, but Encore does not impose, calculate, set, advance, guarantee, or adjudicate any such charge, and Encore does not store a client’s payment method for later off-session charges.
• Payouts. You confirm returns promptly, and your confirmation releases your rental payout. Pieces reserved ahead of a session are held unavailable to others for that date.
• Fees and economics. You set the rental amount you receive, and the platform service fee is charged to the client in addition to that amount, in the same client-paid manner as your services (Section 7); it is not deducted from your amount. Section 8 (platform integrity) applies to rental transactions in the same way it applies to your services.
• Platform controls. Encore may unpublish or remove a listing, with notice, and may suspend listings for policy, safety, hygiene, or legal violations. This is a listing function only and does not make Encore a party to, and does not give Encore custody or control of, any piece or rental; rentals already in progress run their course between you and the client.
• Indemnity and release. Your indemnification of Encore (Section 13) and your release of Encore for client and other-user conduct, including the waiver of unknown claims (Section 14), extend to your rental activity. Rentals run solely between you and the client; Encore facilitates discovery, booking, and payment only and bears no garment risk and no role as owner, renter, insurer, custodian, cleaner, repairer, or decider of the parties’ rights.
• Acceptance. Enabling rentals requires accepting these terms, which are part of this Agreement and versioned like it.

This Agreement applies while you use Encore as a stylist. Either party may end the relationship at any time. Encore may suspend or deactivate your account for a material breach of this Agreement, a safety or legal concern, fraud, or a failure to maintain a required certification, license, or current proof of insurance. On deactivation, confirmed future bookings may be cancelled with full refunds to the clients involved, and earned-but-unpaid payouts are released on the normal schedule, less any offsets under Section 7. The following provisions survive termination by their nature: fees owed, the platform-integrity provision (Section 8), indemnification, the release, limitation of liability, intellectual property, certification retention, and dispute resolution. Account actions and appeals are described in our Community Guidelines; if we suspend or deactivate your account and you believe we got it wrong, you may ask us to review the decision.

This Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You and Encore agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to this Agreement or the platform will be resolved by binding arbitration on an individual basis, governed by the Federal Arbitration Act and conducted in California. You and Encore waive any right to a jury trial and to participate in a class or collective action. This Agreement does not waive any representative claim under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) that cannot be waived under California law. If and to the extent you are ever determined to be an employee such that PAGA applies, then: (a) any individual PAGA claim based on alleged Labor Code violations you personally suffered will be resolved in arbitration on an individual basis; and (b) any non-individual or representative PAGA claim is stayed pending that individual arbitration and is not waived. If any portion of the class or collective action waiver, or of this PAGA provision, is held unenforceable as to a particular claim, that portion is severed only as to that claim, and the remainder of this Section, including the agreement to arbitrate on an individual basis, remains in full force. Nothing in this Section concedes that you are an employee or enlarges any claim you would not otherwise have, and Encore’s agreement to this procedure is not an admission of employee status.

Before starting arbitration, the parties will complete the informal resolution process in the Arbitration Procedure: an individualized written notice of the dispute (sent as the Arbitration Procedure and the Terms of Service describe) followed by a personal telephone or video conference, with 30 days to resolve the matter. Arbitration is administered by JAMS under its applicable rules, conducted in the California county where you operate (or remotely).

Multiple or coordinated filings. If multiple arbitration demands involving similar claims are filed, they will be administered individually under the arbitration provider’s own published rules for multiple or mass filings, applied by the provider as a neutral. Encore does not impose any batching, bellwether, precedent, or coordinated-filing procedure of its own design. Each claimant’s dispute is decided individually on its own facts; no claimant is bound by, and no claimant’s claim may be determined by, the result of any proceeding in which that claimant did not participate, and there are no binding bellwether or precedent cases. The enforceability of the class and collective action waiver is decided by a court, not the arbitrator.

Either party may bring qualifying claims in small-claims court; either party may seek injunctive relief in court for intellectual-property or unauthorized-use claims; individual claims of sexual assault or sexual harassment may be brought in court at the claimant’s election, as federal law provides; and requests for public injunctive relief under California law may be decided by a court, stayed pending arbitration of all other claims. An arbitration demand must be made before the statute of limitations that would apply to the claim in court expires; otherwise, to the extent permitted by law, the claim is permanently barred.

Where Encore is required to pay fees or costs to the arbitration provider to initiate or continue an arbitration, Encore will pay them within the time required by the arbitration provider’s rules and by applicable law, including Code of Civil Procedure sections 1281.97 and 1281.98. The timing and the consequences of any late payment are governed by those statutes and applicable law; this Agreement does not purport to extend, shorten, or alter any deadline they impose.

If you are finally determined to be Encore’s employee such that this arbitration agreement is governed by the standards of Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Services, Inc. (2000) 24 Cal. 4th 83, then, as to your claims, this agreement is automatically deemed to provide for a neutral arbitrator, more than minimal discovery adequate to the claims, all types of relief that would be available in court, a written award sufficient for the judicial review the law allows, and payment by Encore of all costs and fees unique to arbitration, including the arbitrator’s and the forum’s fees, so that you are not required to bear any expense you would not bear if the claim were brought in court. Any term of this Section or of the Arbitration Procedure that conflicts with those minimum requirements is reformed to comply with them, and the agreement to arbitrate otherwise remains in full force.

You may opt out of arbitration within 30 days of first accepting this Agreement by emailing legal@encorestylist.com with your name and account email. The full procedure is set out in our Arbitration Procedure, which is part of this Agreement.

This Agreement, together with the Terms of Service, Community Guidelines, Privacy Policy, and Arbitration Procedure, is the entire agreement between you and Encore regarding your use of the platform as a stylist. We may update this Agreement as Encore grows; we’ll revise the date above. For material changes (including any change to the dispute-resolution or arbitration terms, the platform service fee or payment terms, the platform-integrity provision in Section 8, the release, indemnification, or limitation of liability, or the scope of your services), we will provide notice and require your re-acceptance before the change applies to you. For non-material changes, such as operational, contact, or clarifying updates, we will provide notice, continued use after notice constitutes acceptance, and you may decline by ceasing use and closing your account. If any provision of this Agreement is held invalid or unenforceable, it will be reformed and enforced to the maximum extent permitted by law, or if it cannot be reformed, severed, and the remaining provisions will remain in full force. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision, including the class and collective action waiver in Section 18, any clause of the indemnification in Section 13, or the limitation of liability in Section 14, will not affect the validity or enforceability of the agreement to arbitrate or of the remainder of this Agreement, and a court or arbitrator may narrow any provision (including any provision in Section 8) rather than strike it. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign this Agreement; Encore may assign it in connection with a business transfer, and it binds and benefits the parties’ successors and permitted assigns. The parties remain independent contractors for all purposes, and this Agreement confers no rights or remedies on anyone other than you and Encore. You can reach us with routine questions through our contact page or at hello@encorestylist.com. Formal legal notices to Encore, including breach, insurance, and incident notices and the arbitration opt-out described in Section 18, must be sent to legal@encorestylist.com and, where these terms or the Arbitration Procedure require it, by mail to Encore Style LLC’s registered agent for service of process, whose current name and address are published at encorestylist.com/legal. Encore may give you notice through the platform or by email or text to the contact information on your account, and such notice is effective when sent.

You accept this Agreement by the affirmative electronic action Encore presents during onboarding, such as checking the acceptance box and then selecting the control to agree and continue, which you must complete before your account is activated or you can receive or accept bookings. You consent to transact electronically and to receive this Agreement and related agreements, notices, and records in electronic form. No handwritten or wet-ink signature is required, and Encore accepts this Agreement by activating your account and making the platform available to you.

Acknowledgments. By accepting this Agreement, you confirm each of the following:

• I have read and agree to the binding individual arbitration and the class and collective action waiver in Section 18, I understand that PAGA representative claims are not waived and are handled as described in Section 18, and I understand I may opt out within 30 days of first accepting this Agreement.
• I have read and understand the platform-integrity provision in Section 8, which does not restrict me from serving any client, working elsewhere, or building my own business, and does not impose any fee, conversion charge, buyout, or penalty for serving clients off-platform.
• I understand that I set the rate I receive, that I receive that rate in full without deduction, and that Encore’s platform service fee is charged to and paid by the client in addition to my rate (Section 7).
• I have read and agree to the release, the waiver of unknown claims under California Civil Code Section 1542, and the limitation of liability in Section 14.

How your acceptance is recorded. Encore records each acceptance electronically and retains that record, including your account identity, the date and time, and the version of this Agreement you accepted, together with the acknowledgments above. You may request a copy of this Agreement and of your acceptance record at any time through our contact page or at hello@encorestylist.com.