Not all curling irons are made equal!

This week we continued with our styling chapter, which includes blow drying, flat ironing, and curling. Curling irons are different in the cosmetology industry, because our tool is modified for professional use. Curling irons that most people are familiar with have a spring in the clamp that holds the hair in the iron as you curl it. Professional curling irons, called marcels, don't! They have a second, smaller handle that you have to manipulate to control the pressure on the hair and wind the hair around the barrel.

Marcels, like almost everything we learn, take a lot of practice to get the hang of. They feel totally awkward to work with and require of a lot of learned dexterity to use them correctly. When you are winding the hair, you have to click the hair in and as you rotate, you have to learn how to move your hand around the two handles without releasing the hair. I know this sounds confusing when I explain it, so imagine how difficult it is to actually use them!

For state board exams we have to use marcel irons, but when we are out of school and working we can use whatever irons we like. Now that I'm starting to get the hang of marcels, I can see that they have some advantages for certain hairstyles. I think when I'm out of school, I'll have a combination of marcels, spring clamps, and no-clamp curling irons, because they all give different looks!

One of the first things we learned with marcels (after a lengthy demonstration on how to use them and about 30 minutes of practice with them turned off) was how to use them to mimic a ROLLER SET! Who would've guessed? We had to do three of those heads, and then we learned spiral curls. Spiral curls are what you would think of as someone simply curling their hair - vertical curls all around the head.

By this point, I was already moving pretty quickly with the iron and flew through my spiral curls. I love when we do something in class that I can actually see someone wearing in the 21st century or that I would do on myself, and spiral curls are exactly that!

I'm slightly ahead of most of the girls in my class, so after my spiral curls my instructor let me have some free time. I was super excited because I saw this technique on Shear Genius (a hair competition on Bravo) that I was dying to try. The girl on the show, Janine, did something called a "zig-zag set," which I had never heard of. It looked like she took oversized hair pins and weaved the hair in it, then set it with a flat iron. We didn't have any large hair pins at school, so I tried it with regular hair pins.

It was harder than I expected, but I imagine it would be a lot easier with bigger pins. We also only have 2 inch flat irons in the classroom, which made it really hard to grab the pin with the iron without burning myself or the hair unraveling. I finally got a few done and pull the pins out and brushed out the hair.

It's hard to see the texture in this picture, but the set created the craziest, most extremely curly style. When you touched it, it was so light and airy it almost felt like cotton candy. I can't imagine how else to achieve this texture if the client didn't have it naturally. A couple of girls in my class said it looked like pubes - gross!

I don't like the way it turned out with the small pins at all. On the show, the style was much better and more wearable, although still quite avant garde. It definitely wouldn't be something I would be able to use very often in my career (unless I somehow start doing a lot of fashion hair for shows or photoshoots :D), but it was fun to figure out how Janine did it. I think it's a unique technique to have in my back pocket in case I ever need it!

In theory this week we are learning about electricity and electrical safety. It is a mostly common sense chapter, but nonetheless important because we use electrical tools all the time in cosmetology. Our test is on Tuesday and it should be a breeze!

100 Hours!

As of Saturday, our class officially hit our 100 hour mark :) Technically, I'm only at 92 hours since I missed the first Saturday, but I've decided I deserve to celebrate anyway! On the one hand, 100 hours seems like such a long time and such an accomplisment, but on the other hand, 100 hours is only 1/15th of the way there!

This week, I finally started to believe that we are getting out of fingerwaves, pincurls, ridge curls, and skip waves. I know I'll see them occasionally, but we are, at long last, moving on to skills we will use on a more regular basis. Hurrah!

On Saturday, we started learning blow outs, which as you know are one of my favorite things to do. A perfect blowout is such a simple, polished statement and it's the best way to show off your cut. 

The outside mannequins are two of my blowouts, one of them just a standard round brush, and the other a spiral set. I wasn't too happy with the spiral set, but I didn't have any product at my disposal, so I didn't take it too hard. 

See that mannequin in the middle? That's a whole different story. Remember how excited I was to be done with roller sets, only to discover I would be doing more roller sets? Then remember how excited I was to be done with those roller sets? I should've seen this coming - more roller sets! 

These roller sets are actually intended to mock rollers, because we don't actually use them in the style. You use a round brush in the same manner you would use a roller, but you roll and set it with heat at the same time using a blow dryer. Stick a pin curl clip in there while you finish the whole head, and you've got a faux roller set. It's actually a much easier and more tolerable method than roller sets, but I'd still rather not have to do any more roller-esque styles for a couple of weeks. Wishful thinking!

Drugstore Shampoo is the Devil!

Wraps are officially the coolest hairstyle we have learned so far because they turn out with completely ridiculous volume that even Snooki would be jealous of.

This is the finished flat wrap. Unfortunately, I wasn't neat enough in the crown area and I had to wet a small section and dry it to sit correctly, so that killed a little bit of the volume. But oh boy, if I was ever disappointed in the volume of the flat wrap, the doobie wrap certainly made up for it.

This is my almost-finished doobie wrap. I did a little more tweaking with a flat iron and some teasing to blend the crown after I took this picture, but you get the idea. 

We had an extra long night in theory on Thursday because we did some pH experiments with drugstore shampoos like Pantene, Dove, Suave, and Herbal Essences. 

Naturally, hair has a pH of 5. While some extreme pHs are required for certain chemical services, ideally we don't want to use shampoo and conditioner that strays too far from a pH of 5. For instance, if your shampoo is a 6, you would want to use a conditioner with a pH of 4 to balance you hair.

Of all the brands we tested, no shampoo/conditioner set would balance the pH of your hair. We did conclude that Tresemme was the best drugstore brand, though! My philosophy on hair care is this: you wear your hair every day, so why not spend a little more money on it?

A Visit from "The Man"

Wednesday was a long day for everyone at school, from the instructors, to the students, to the director. We had a visit from State Board all throughout the day, and they weren't too kind to us. A lot of the daytime advanced class students were grilled at their stations about safety and sanitary regulations, and apparently a lot of the areas of the school were not up to par. Of course, the school isn't at all filthy or unsanitary, but we just have some areas that we need to improve. Luckily, we didn't drop a grade, so we just have to make cleanliness a higher priority and we'll be prepared the next time they come.

Our instructors and the director of the school were definitely NOT happy with us and the whole school got a decent lecture before we started class. Once my class and the advanced class were dismissed, my class spent about an hour painstakingly cleaning our kits. Some of our brushes took 5 minutes a piece to clean, and the hair had to be removed strand by strand.

Lesson learned (and this doesn't just apply to cosmetology): if you clean a little bit every day, things never get out of hand. Our kits had been neglected for too long, and now our instructor has rearranged our class schedule to allow for kit-cleaning time at the end of each class.

When we were finally done with cleaning, we only had a short amount of time left in practical, so we learned a relatively simple new technique called wrapping. This is mostly popular with clients with ethnic hair, and is basically a really low maintenance style. You literally wrap the hair around the head and it ends up looking like a chocolate donut (if the hair is brown!). It's either set in the dryer, or you sleep in it. When you brush it out, the ends are smooth and the crown has crazy volume.

There are two kinds of wraps:

A flat wrap

and a doobie wrap!

I picked this up on my first try, but I had a little advantage because my roommate freshman year of college was black and I watched her do this every night. I was always so intrigued by the idea of brushing your hair in a complete circle and it turning into a socially acceptable style by morning (mine sure wouldn't turn out that way!). I never knew much about African-American hair until I lived with her, so I'm glad I finally got a chance to use some of the knowledge I gathered from her :)

Brush Ups and Down Time

On Tuesday, we didn't do much in practical class. Most of us had a brush up style (6 rollers on top, ridge curls on the side, and square base half-stem pincurls in the back) to brush out, which was more difficult than any of us anticipated. The style just required a lot of manipulation and fine tuning that I think we will all become better at as the weeks go. There's a certain finesse with hair that our instructors and a lot of the advanced class students have that I can't wait to achieve. It's not something you can study or a technique you can learn, it's just something that comes with lots of experience and practice with hair.

This is my final brush up style. It's not the most modern style or my favorite style, but it tests a lot of our basic skills and I can appreciate why we need to learn it. I actually needed a lot of help from my instructor to get the front to sit right (which you can't really see in this picture), as well as to get the definition between the ridge curl and the pin curls behind the ear to stand out.

After we did our brush ups, we spent about an hour and a half working in our textbook and workbooks, which is a rarity in practical class. We also did about an hour of bookwork in theory on our new chapter, chemistry, which I was surprised to find out was literally about chemistry, not chemistry and hair. I got decent grades in high school chemistry, so I've been able to breeze through the material pretty quickly.

Texas Hair vs. Jersey Hair

A short and sweet post for my ever-curious mother, who wanted to know the difference between Texas hair and Jersey hair. I think pictures explain this better than I ever could, so behold:

Texas Hair

Jersey Hair 

1,431 Hours to Go

My first month in school is over, and I couldn't be more tired, exhausted, excited, or proud! There has been a lot of drama in my personal life this month, but I've had school and new friends to keep me busy and help me stay sane.

To continue with the Texas Hair Week saga, I bring you roller set #34958223852958 of my life:

At about 11:30 on Saturday, the whole class finally finished rolling the 3 sets of each base type we needed to move on. Little did we know, we'd be moving on to...more roller sets. Now, instead of doing a standard set, we are learning how to place the rollers and how to roll a variety of directions and bases in the same set to create a style. This is my attempt at style #14, which I also photographed to show how ridiculous it is that someone thinks a roller set will produce that look (but more on that in a second...)

I followed the instructions on the back perfectly, but the end result was what I think 98% of rollers produce - a poofy, unwearable hairstyle with lots of parts that are sometimes impossible to hide, even with ungodly amounts of teasing and brushing. Personally, to achieve the look in this picture, I would've blown out the client's hair with a paddle brush, flat ironed if necessary, and used texturizing wax. 

I'm hoping that as I get more practice with the roller sets I will discover techniques and styles that I like and that I can achieve, because I have been a little disheartened this week with how similar every set looks. 

I also had an exam on Thursday night, it was our toughest so far and I studied quite a bit for it. Thankfully, it all paid off and I got another 100%. The material in theory can be difficult, but it is so much easier to study something when you are interested in it!

Last night, my friend Emily came over to the house and I did her hair for a formal she was going to later that night. On a whim a couple hours before she came over, I decided to do an updo - my first one ever! I was really nervous because I hadn't completely planned out how I was going to do the front of the hair and also because I wasn't sure if the rest of my plans would work on her gorgeous, but incredibly thick hair.  I have to say, I'm super proud of the way it turned out!

I'm quite the nit-picker. so I don't think it's perfect, but I think it's a great starting point. This is the only picture I have of the style since she had to rush out the door to finish getting ready, but I can't wait to see more pictures from different angles from later in the night. I hope more friends will let me play and experiment with their hair very soon because I had a blast :)

Texas Hair

I have dubbed this week "Big Texas Hair Week," also known as "The Higher the Hair, the Closer to God Week." Roller sets are quickly becoming one of the most fun things we've done so far.

An update on the setting technique: I still think it's dumb and I still think it makes no sense. When our instructor isn't looking, we like to cheat and roll a couple down the back so we don't have to fuss with the corners of the head row after row after row. Bottom line, I'm very glad that once we get on the floor, we can do our roller sets however we want to!

Just like pincurls, roller sets come in three different varieties too: on base, half base, and off base. In order to move on, everyone in the class has to set three heads of each base type, plus we have to finish styling one of those three heads for every type as well. That means we have to dry it, brush it out, and tease it into the largest, tallest, most unnatural beehive in the world.

For our roller sets we are practicing on the long neck mannequins in the classroom, not because of their neck length, but because of their hair. The long neck mannequins have extremely thin hair and since a lot of the women that get roller sets are elderly and have thin or thinning hair, it is good practice. The only bad part about this is, the long neck mannequins are the creepiest, most alien-like mannequins in the classroom. Yeelch!

This is the roller set I rushed through on Saturday, totally brushed out, but not teased.

The body you can achieve with rollers is just crazy! And once you start teasing, things really get out of hand.

This is my finished style on base roller set. It took quite a lot of technique adjustment before my instructor would approve the teasing I had done and let me move on to half base rollers. But, I did learn something in all that technique adjustment that I can't wait to try on someone for an updo - when you teasing, instead of just raking the hair back and forth, it is much better to hold the hair perpendicular to the scalp (and give it some tension!), then in fluid motions, push the teasing comb or brush from where you are holding the hair all the way to the roots. As you push, rotate the comb or brush towards the scalp, and it creates a very sturdy, teased base that will last a lot longer than simply moving your comb back and forth on a section.

I set my first half base rollers today, which means I have two more half base (one teased) and three more off base roller sets to go!

In theory this week we are still learning about the hair and the scalp. Today we did a hair and scalp analysis on partners to determine hair density, elasticity, texture, porosity, wave pattern, growth pattern, and hair/scalp oiliness/dryness. My partner was Hannah, who works next to me during practical class and who I like to call my hair twin. We both have a nearly identical shade of brown hair, which we part on the right, blow out straight, and wear in long layers. We're even both growing out side bangs, so we get mixed up a lot in class. Our hair was even in very similar condition after our hair analysis, although thanks to some extensive coloring at the salon I used to work at, mine could use a tad more TLC than hers. :)

Tomorrow is our big exam on hair and scalp, and our workbooks are also due. This chapter has been pretty challenging, so wish me luck!

Roller Sets and Ridge Curls

My second Saturday was today and it was just as exhausting as the last one! But, we learned lots of fun new stuff today including ridge curls, roller sets, and face shapes.

I was half-right about ridge curls being similar to skip waves - they look almost identical, just rotated slightly (skip waves are vertical, ridge curls are diagonal at 45 degree angles), but they are made totally differently. Ridge curls, just like about 75% of what we've learned in class, start with C-shapings. Three weeks in, and I'm still totally struggling with them! One of my instructors say I'm focusing too much on the little details and skipping over the basic concepts, so that's a mental block I'm going to have to work on.

This ridge curl (just one!) took me about 1 1/2 hours to perfect. I was so proud when I finally finished!

We continued practicing ridge curls and C-shapings with pincurls until lunchtime, where I had delicious, homemade chicken noodle soup that I made last night! :) 

After lunch, we all gathered around the front of the classroom and talked about face shapes. A good knowledge of face shapes is SO important in cosmetology because it totally dictates cut, style, color placement, everything! It's also helpful when a client comes in and doesn't know what they want - analyzing their face shape enables you to give them good suggestions!

Then, one by one, all the girls in class had to pull their hair back, put a towel along their hairline, and have the rest of the class determine their face shape. We learned the ideal face shape is oval, with the length of the face 1.5x the width. Most of the girls in my class had an oval shape, although we had two diamonds, a square, a heart, and a pear (me!). 

After face shapes, we learned another new technique (two in one day - yikes!). I've been waiting to learn roller sets for days now. Although fingerwaves, pincurls, and skip waves have been fun, we will hardly ever use these skills once we're working in the field. They're important to learn first because they teach you the basics and help you develop dexterity and familiarity with hair styling, but they aren't techniques that most of us will ever use on a regular basis. Roller sets, however, are a skill we ARE going to use once we graduate! It's so nice to learn something that I can actually see myself doing one day, even if it is mostly old ladies that get them :) 

The roller sets were pretty easy, although our instructor made us set them in a way that I think makes no sense. I think it would make the most sense to do one whole row from the middle-top all the way to the nape, then set the side. Instead, we just set 3 rollers in the top then work horizontal row by horizontal row across the rest of the head. I don't like this at all, and most of the girls in class felt the same way! The  final product is pretty uneven and not uniform, but apparently this is just the way we have to learn it, but once we move onto the floor we can do it however we want. (This makes so sense at all! If I have to learn it this way, fine, but someone explain the benefit of it please!)

This is the roller set I finished today. We only had about 45 minutes to do it, and it was our first one ever,  so I definitely rushed the lower I got on the head. The first couple rows look so much neater and precise than the lower ones! They're all sitting in the dryer and I can't wait to see the results!

I also got a brand new hair toy this week - a clipless curling iron with interchangeable barrels! I

Isn't is beyootiful! I'm totally in love with it and the curls it gives. I already used my other curling irons as though there wasn't a clip just by wrapping the hair around the barrel, but using one made that way gives such smooth and amazing curls! I just love the versatility of the different barrels and I keep finding new things to do with it! So far my favorite barrel is the conical 1"-1/2" barrel - it creates this bouncy, curly look that my mom would probably call "beach hair." 

My mom should be here to visit her favorite daughter in about 16 hours, so maybe I can try out the curling iron and some of the other things I've learned on her gorgeous hair :) 

Busy as a Bee

Hump Day :) I'm so glad this week is already half over! 

School has been fairly lowkey this week - we've mostly practiced skip waves and more pincurls the past two days, but tomorrow I think we will learn ridge curls. From the description our instructor gave us, they sound a lot like skip waves, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Although, if they are very similar, they should be pretty easy to pick up, so that's good.

We also had our second theory exam tonight and I cannot believe how fast we are flying through material. This chapter was on nail structure and growth and was also pretty short, just like the skin chapter. We literally started the chapter yesterday and our exam was today! I think that worked in my favor though, because the material was fresh in my memory and I got a 100% on it. After our exam, we started out workbook assignment for our next chapter, which is about the scalp and the hair. I can already tell that this is going to be the first chapter that will be more challenging. It's easily 10x longer than the other two chapters and has a ton more detail to it. I worked furiously in class to finish my assignment so I wouldn't have to do it outside of class because I'm crazy busy this week.

Hopefully tomorrow I will do some picture worthy styles so that I can post them! :)

Exams, Pop Quizzes, and Skip Waves

I've been so crazy busy this week and haven't had a second of free time to do laundry, eat healthy food, go to the gym, or shave my legs. But, thank goodness, I've gotten caught up on some of that and now I can write this post before I forget everything I've done the past couple of days.

On Wednesday I got to brush out my first full style from start to finish, the pincurl set I worked on Tuesday night.

I have to admit, this was a terrible look for Wanda. Luckily, once everyone had brushed out their styles (and they all looked terrible!), our instructor told us that we were just doing these styles to learn what kind of look each different pincurl produces! Thank goodness - I hope I never have to see Wanda looking like this ever again.

The square base no stem pincurls produced such tight curls on top that it almost looked like an afro at first. I was also really unhappy with the half stem curls I carved out of c-shapings in the back. I made the bases too long and only got two rows in, which basically turned into  really flat arcs with one measly curl at the bottom. It took some serious brushing to get to the look in the picture, which is better (but not much better) than when I first brushed it out.

After brushing out our styles, we worked on half stem curls again, but this time we did an entire head of them. In these kind of pincurls, the stem sits off the base, but you can see the base through the curl once it's pinned.

Aretha's hair is a very different experience from pincurling Wanda's hair. Her hair is thicker, which is easier for curls carved out of shapings because the shaping holds better. It's also easier to roll the curls with thicker hair in my opinion, but it's much harder to keep everything neat with her naturally curly hair. 

I finished a little early on Wednesday night, so I had time to practice another fingerwave. I worked with a mannequin I named Wendy with straight hair that was shorter and thicker than Wanda's hair. Up until Wednesday, Wanda was the only mannequin I had done a fingerwave on.  

Thursday was a fun day because it was the first time I finished a style from start to finish that I was actually pleased with. Aretha's pincurl set turned out pretty well!

It took some manipulating to get the hair to sit nicely in the front and a lot of brushing to keep the back from being a poofball, but I managed to find a style that I liked! It was also nice to see that I was right about the adjustments I wanted to make from my first experience with half stem curls. By making shorter bases, I actually had enough length to work with to make decent curls and the outcome was much better. I also got to brush out my fingerwaves and see the finished look for the first time.

This one I'm not so happy with. I need to work on rolling my fingers when I'm creating my ridges so they look more defined. I also want to work on my spacing so the style looks more uniform. But, I am really pleased that you can see the start of the S-shapes in the hair and that the two pincurls I set in the front blended nicely with the waves.

After a short break, we set a head of full stem curls. These curls are pinned completely off the base and create loose curls with lots of volume. I used a new mannequin for this style because I absolutely loved her hair. It was actually a child mannequin, so I named her Emma Lou.

Her head was very small and her hair was on the thin side at the ends due to her layered cut, so it was a challenging set to do. I had to think ahead, especially on the sides, to make sure I had enough hair to be able to pin the curls. I also worked very hard on doing a clean, neat set on this mannequin and I was very proud (with cramping fingers!) when I finally finished.

Thursday night was also my first exam in theory class (one of the reasons I was so busy this week)! It was on skin, which we've been studying all week. I had a good feeling about the exam going in and I was right - I got a 95! This was an easier and shorter chapter than some of the other ones we will do so I'm not getting too excited about it, but it is nice to have the first exam under my belt so next time I will know how our theory instructor makes her tests. 

Today was my first Saturday class, and I definitely underestimated what a physically taxing day it would be. By 5:00, my lower back, feet, and hands were all ready for a break. Our instructor had a surprise for us today - a pop quiz/test on some cosmetology terms we learned last week. It was mostly fill in the blank with a few true/false questions, and I aced it. A lot of the terms were similar to geometry, which I took in high school, so it was about as easy as I think a test will be while I'm in school here :)

After our quiz, we once again started class by brushing out our sets from last class. On Thursday I was frustrated with the front section of Aretha's hair because I set it with a middle part and it wouldn't lay nicely when I brushed it out. I tried a side part when I was pinning Emma Lou's curls and I'm glad I did - it was much easier to get the look I wanted when I brushed it out.

It still amazes me how putting such an ungodly amount of gel in wet hair can produce such a soft and bouncy look when you brush it out. I'm pretty happy with how this set turned out, but I think it may have looked better on a bigger head. I don't know if I'll use Emma Lou again for anything like pin curls or fingerwaves, but I love her hair so I'm sure I'll find other things to do with her.

We learned a new technique today called skip waves. A skip wave is a vertical or diagonal fingerwave where one ridge is created, then pincurls are carved out behind that ridge. I'm just now realizing that I forgot to take a picture of the skip wave set that I did, which is very disappointing because they were SO difficult and I was so proud when I finished. The hardest part about skip waves is that it is very easy to mess up the shaping or the ridge while you're trying to makes your curls. You do get the hang of it after a little while, but like everything I've learned in cosmetology school so far, it takes a couple tries to figure out how to position and hold your hands, the hair, and your tools. 

After drying and brushing out that style, our instructor let us have free time for several hours. In case you were wondering, free time in cosmetology school is a blast! You can do whatever kind of hairstyle you want! 

I went straight to Emma Lou and did a blowout. Blowouts are one of my favorite things to do, because even though they are simple in theory, there is definitely an art to giving a blowout. A great blowout makes such a polished statement and is a great way to show off someone's haircut. Once I was finished with Emma Lou, I grabbed another mannequin that reminded me of Diana Sawyer (you'll never guess what I named her!) and gave her a blowout too! I wasn't happy with the way the front of her hair was falling so I sneakily cut her a cute side bang while my instructor wasn't paying attention :)

See what awesome hair Emma Lou has? You can't tell in this picture, but she actually has an awesome panel of blonde in the back that peeks through her shorter layers. When our instructor saw how much fun we were having with our free time, she suggested we work on each other. 

I shampooed and conditioned one of my classmates, Sheila. I've done this before at the salons I've worked at, but its been about 6 months since the last time I did it and I forgot how much it strains your lower back to lean over the shampoo bowl for that long. I hope she enjoyed her scalp massage, because it totally was killing me!

Sheila has the most amazing jet black hair with incredibly, perfect S-shaped curls. The whole class oohed and ahhed over her hair for almost ten minutes! I gave her a blowout and we both loved the look. I made sure to set each section while I was blow drying by rolling the hair in the round brush and holding it near the base and blasting it with heat. I let the section cool while I still hold it in the brush, and when you pull the brush out, that section has amazing body and volume. This looked especially great on Sheila's hair because her curl is so good. 

I finished with about thirty minutes left of our free time, so even though Sheila and I loved her blowout, she let me flat iron her hair. Her hair is so incredibly thick that it took me almost 15 minutes to do her whole head! Sheila is Muslim and normally wears a hijab, or head covering to class. Sheila explained to us on the first day of class that to her, the hijab represents modesty and how women should not dress or behave in a way that attracts attention from men. Because of this, since it is just us girls in the classroom, Sheila decided that she will take her hijab off occasionally. However, out of respect for her culture and her religion, I'm not going to post pictures of her style.

This was an insanely long week and I'm so looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. I can't wait to see what we will learn next week!

Pincurls and Eating the Layers of the Skin

Hurray for the second week of school! I'm back in town and caught up on sleep, so I can't wait to tackle the next five days of class and work.

I also had some down time on Sunday afternoon and got a lot of work done for next couple chapters we will be doing in theory. I even had time to complete my workbook pages for c-shaping, fingerwaves, and pincurls. I also learned from my readings a fun fact that I had never heard of before! It's said that you should drink 8 glasses of water a day, but it is actually a different number for each person. Take your weight and divide it by 16 - that's how many 8 ounce glasses of water you should be drinking each day!

I absolutely loved my weekend vacation and had a fabulous time - BUT - I will never, EVER miss a class ever again. I feel like I'm weeks behind everyone else, even though the class barely started working on pincurls. I was in overdrive today trying to get ahead of our current material so I could take a couple breaks and go back over Saturday's material.

After reuniting with Wanda, we watched a short video on pincurls and got right to work. On Saturday, my class learned how to carve pincurls out of a c-shaping. Today, we moved on to square-base, no-stem curls. We did a full front section of those, then we carved out some half-stem curls out of c-shapings in the back of the head, all the way to the nape. These styles are going to be the first full styles we will finish - we put our mannequins in the dryer and tomorrow we will learn how to comb/brush out the curls and how to set the hair.

This is Wanda, a little over halfway done. I'm really happy with how her square-base curls turned out, but I need a lot more practice carving curls out of a shaping to catch up with the other girls.

I also did the unspeakable today - I worked with a mannequin other than Wanda while she was in the dryer. This mannequin had thick, super curly hair, which was quite a departure from Wanda's fine, thin, and limp hair. I had a lot of fun backcombing and teasing the new mannequin's natural curl before I got down to business. It turned into a huge afro at one point, and with her makeup done up and her afro of dark curls, she reminded me of a diva. I've decided to name her Aretha and I think I'll starting splitting my time between Wanda and Aretha to get experience with different hair types and textures.

We're still learning all about skin in theory. We had homework due today, the first homework of any kind that I've done in over a year! It was kind of fun and nostalgic in a weird way to get out my books and work for a little while on something. Something tells me that'll pass in about another week and I'll be back to hating homework.

Today we focused on the layers of the skin and took notes for most of the class. We did have a delicious surprise though, as Ms. Fitz brought in a dessert than demonstrated the layers of the epidermis. There was sponge cake and vanilla pudding for the stratum germinativum, strawberries for the stratum spinosum, blueberries for the stratum granulosum, lemon jello for the stratum lucidum, and cool whip covered in shaved coconut for the stratum corneum. I love things like that because they make the material really easy to remember when it comes time to take an exam.

I'm going to try and be good and go to bed in the next hour so I can keep up my energy! I let myself get too exhausted and tried to get by on way too few hours of sleep last week. I can't wait to see how Wanda's curls look tomorrow night!

Finger waves, finger waves, finger waves!

Wanda and I had another night of C shaping and finger waves and I'm really getting the hang of it! Today was the first time we did an entire head of waves, instead of working in individual sections. This definitely added some difficultly, because we had to connect the waves around the entire head and style the hair all the way to the nape of the neck.

I figured out how to finish off my front sections with a pin curl at the bottom and I love how retro these styles are turning out! My instructor asked me today if I had been to cosmetology school before - what a huge compliment! I'm so ecstatic that I'm picking things up quickly, especially since I was worried about having the right skills to do well in school. It's one thing to have passion, but it's an entirely different thing to be good, so I'm glad I have a little bit of both right now :)

Today was our first day in theory class, although we didn't do much learning. We are joining the class in Chapter 7 and will work our way through the entire book then start at the beginning again until we hit Chapter 7 again. The class we are joining has about 15 people in it and they are all night students too. We spent almost the entire class time (about one hour) doing introductions and talking about how the class will work and what our assignments will be most weeks. Chapter 7 is all about the layers of the skin and it's a short chapter so we should be done by next Thursday. Time is really gonna fly at this pace!

Right now I'm trying to finish my workbook pages for Chapter 7 before I go to bed. Jason Aldean is keeping me company with some country jams from his latest album :)

I'm unfortunately missing my first Saturday class for a weekend trip I've had planned for a little while. We don't go to theory on Saturdays, but I asked my practical instructor and it looks like I'll be missing a day of pin curls, C shapings, and finger waves :( I hope Wanda doesn't miss me too much...

C-Shapes and Finger Waves

Another long day and I'm glad to be snuggling up in bed!

Today was another no-theory day, so we spent the entire four hours in practical class. At the beginning of class, we each set up our stations with a mannequin and get ready to observe a demonstration. As much as I dislike the mannequins in general, I've already grown attached to the head I used last class. She's got olive skin and a beauty mark above her lip and I've named her Wanda. Wanda has pretty good hair for a mannequin and she isn't too creepy looking!

The first technique we learned today was C-shaping. It is exactly what it sounds like, combing and manipulating the hair into a C-shape. The hair has to be wet and slathered with an ungodly amount of gel to do this . As much I would like to be an instant expert on everything, C-shaping does not come easily to me. Since I'm left handed, I'm having a hard time flipping some of the demonstrations in my head so that I can visualize how I need to do it.

My first couple tries were total failures and I couldn't find a way to work section by section without messing up what I had already done. I kept getting "betters," but I desperately wanted a "good," which I did end up getting about thirty minutes later!

C-shapes are the base for finger waves, which we worked on again today. We mostly watched video and live-demonstration of finger waves yesterday, and some of us got to try out the technique on our instructor's mannequin. Once we started working on them again today, I really got into what I was doing and finished my whole head in about fifteen minutes! I don't quite understand why I'm terrible at C-shaping, yet good at finger waves, but I'm not complaining!

This is one of the fingerwaving sections I did today on Wanda. I think it's a good look for her :)

Exhausted and Excited!

I'm finally and officially a cosmetology student!

Today was my first day of classes and after just a few more papers to sign and packets to read over, we jumped right in. We picked out our kits that we will borrow from the school until we hit 300 hours (15 weeks from now), when we will get out own beautiful kit with our own shears, irons, razors, brushes, and combs! :)  We also received our textbooks, there's FIVE of them and I'm already dying to learn some of the styling techniques I saw when I was flipping through.

Until I hit 300 hours and move out onto the floor, I'll be spending my time in two classrooms: theory and practical. Theory is in the middle of a chapter right now, so I won't attend a theory session until Thursday. We did start practical today, though, and I can really tell that we are going to fly through material over the next 15 weeks.

In just a couple hours today, we learned several different sectioning techniques plus a finger wave and after quick demonstrations, we had to do it on our own on mannequin heads. I quickly learned two things:
1. When you wet the hair on the mannequin, it smells like wet dog. It also makes your hands smell like wet dog. Bleechhh!
2. Mannequin head hair is insanely difficult to work with and never, ever looks as good as you want it to. It's hard to tell if you're doing something correctly when it looks so crappy on the mannequin. The hair has also been pushed to it's limit with styling and product, so the hair tangles really easily and feels like straw, even though it's human hair.
So needless to say, I'm not loving the mannequins. (Did I mention they look creepy and alien-like?) But, I will say that it is nice to learn on a mannequin because you can push and pull the head in any direction and you don't have to worry about hurting the "client"!

I got a pretty good hang of the finger wave tonight, but I can't wait to go practice more tomorrow. Now for some Zzzzz's :)

Getting Started!

I can't believe this is all happening so quickly, but I went to orientation last night and I will officially be a cosmetology student starting next Tuesday.

Last night we filled out lots of paper work - plenty of initaling and signing - and finalized our enrollment. We went over the rules and regulations for the school, and we even have a test on them on our first day of class! And, the most exciting part, we got our schedule! In complete detail, it's the order of everything we're going to learn, from hygiene to cutting to styling to chemical processes.

I'm washing my scrubs today to make them a little softer, when we got them last night they were stiff and starchy! I'm looking forward to wearing them, it's definitely easier than picking out a cute outfit every morning before work.

All in all, it will take me 18 months to finish the program. I haven't been this excited about something in a long time and I can't wait to get started :)