As Promised...

Come November I will be attending John Casablanca's Institute... as most of you already know if you've been reading this for longer than a week.

I have been following hair trends for years now. I have always screwed around with my own hair, dyed it, cut it, styled it, you name it I've pretty much tried it. I've styled, coloured, and even cut other peoples hair as well. Cutting I don't do often though, I'm still a bit iffy on doing that as I really don't have any training in that department.

I've been asked to style hair for several weddings now, several grad events, as well as just nights out. Most of those things have been done for friends, but I've also done them for people I hardly even know.

Oddly enough, growing up my parents would always tell me "oh you should be a hairdresser, you're such a natural!!" ... and I would tell them "no I don't want to." I enjoyed it then as a hobby basically but never thought that one day I would take it seriously as a career. Instead I said I wanted to be a paediatric neurologist. Yes you heard that correctly. I wanted to be a doctor.

This all came about around grade 9 or 10. Basically I had three careers I could pursue. Doctor, teacher, and a hair stylist. Hairstylist was third on my list and I always said "it might just be something I do just for the hell of it." Again, not thinking that I would one day change my mind.

The weird thing was that hair was still a huge passion of mine, but not career wise. It was still just a hobby, just something I enjoyed and I have always feared that if I used it as my career that it would suck the fun out of it. But it wasn't long before I decided that maybe going to hair school would be a good thing to do as a back up plan and to help pay for the rest of my aspirations. I figured if I sucked horribly and didn't end up in med school, then I'd become a teacher. So I enrolled at JCI but had to wait a year. In that year I started working at the mill and as the time drew closer to head off to hair school I backed out. I decided I wasn't ready to move and couldn't afford to live in Vancouver yet so I would wait, work more and save up.

That all changed because I then moved out of my parents house, partied like no other, maxed out a visa, and bought a 30 thousand dollar car.

Eventually I met Dario, and I decided I was going to up and move to Vancouver but just to work. At this point my career choice had no moved to welding, and so I searched for a job at a place that I could possibly apprentice through. I ended up lucking out, finding a job at a steel fab shop and within 6 months I was offered a 4 year steel fab apprenticeship. I completed two years and, as most of you already know, I no longer work at the shop. I have quit that in order to better my health and have yet again enrolled into my hair program.

What most people don't know is that a few months ago there came a point in mine and Dario's relationship where me dropping out was becoming an option. I was a couple grand in debt and Dario made mention that the only way I was going to be able to pay off my visa and help with the wedding, would be to not go to school.

I ACTUALLY considered it and after calming down a bit and some better judgement, said that I wouldn't drop out yet again. I was not going to pay them 3000 dollars over the course of 3 years, just to NOT go.

So that leads me to where I am now. Working in an office, going to school on weekends from November until April, and then I will be making the switch to start my hairdressing full time.

In preparation for my course I heard of last nights hair show, got ahold of Danielle and Alicia, and planned for us to check it out. It was a great chance for me to get an idea of what I will be experiencing come April of next year, but also just something fun to do with the girls.

So here are some pictures from last nights show.

This guy was flaming gay but I loved him, pit stains and all! He did an awesome job with the cuts and colours, won an award for being the top achiever of this class, and put on a very entertaining little skit for the show.

The graduates had to demonstrate 4 basic styles. Surprisingly in hair dressing there's a few basic fundamentals and the rest is just combinations between those. They had to have a long layers model, a soft edge/hard edge cut (typically it's a bob) and a vertical cut (typically a mans hair cut.)

They demonstrated colour techniques, razor techniques, as well as a few updos.

Overall most of them did a great job, there were a few that were a little slack so I've only posted my favourites. However as much as I loved the gay guy in the purple shirt, going back through the pictures now I'm realizing that in my eyes the top stylist of the night was the girl who styled these next few pictures:

This is her in the red dress below. She did an incredible job. The execution was amazing, it was edgy, high fashion, and very trendy. I loved it because that to me, is what hair is really about. Minimal effort in the clothing, in the skits, and maximum effort in the hair. Her hard edge bob was incredible. The blunt bob with the blunt bangs gets me every time. So do finger waves, it just screams high fashion. Overall she was incredible, I think she topped it for sure.

This was one of the other stylists, she did a pretty good job as well but my pictures of her girls sucked so I'm not bothering putting them up there... however HER hair was AMAZING and I wish I had it. I took a picture because I think Danielle should do this with her hair.

It was such a great experience and already I'm thinking of ideas of what I'm going to do for my own graduation show next year. There's so many amazing things you could do.

One of my goals for school is to graduate the top of my class. It would be huge to do that because it's what differentiates you between the others when it comes to finding a good job. I think what I enjoyed most about the show was the fact that I'm really starting to see the potential I have for this industry.

These are some of the updo's I've done over the last few years. I can't wait until I can actually get into the colour and cutting portion, that'll be the exciting stuff for me. Colour especially!