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 :)