Pamper Day!

Today was finally Pamper Day!  I had my hair dyed a deep dark violet color.  I will continue to use the term 'dyed' because hair is are fibers.  Fibers are dyed.  'Colored' is for crayons and elderly people who are too young to say the N-word but too old to say black.  It sounds inappropriate and stupid.  Anyway.  My hair.  It's so dark that it looks like black that shines this eggplant color.  The student who did my hair left a bleached spot so I could touch up my rainbow. Yah!

One Sane Person

Finally, I've found her-- the one person in class whose views and behaviors fall well within the realm of normal.  To all of us who have witnessed bizarre behavior, we find even silent acknowledgment to be comforting.  This includes brief eye contact with another human being.  One swift glance can exclaim 'holy shit what the hell is wrong with that person, did you see that?  I totally saw it, too' without hurting said crazy person's feelings or putting yourself in danger by verbally acknowledging the behavior.

Hair Extensions

Lately... I have been mildly entertaining the possibility of getting extensions.  Pamper day is getting closer and I really need to decide.  One the one hand, they look neat.  There are a lot of options when it comes to length and color.  On the other hand, they are kind of gross.  There's something about the thought of weave lumps or (even worse) clumps of glue in my hair that makes me sick.  I can't stand the feeling of hairspray or gel, which can leave the hair crunchy, sticky, and coarse.  I have learned to love both of my cowlicks, which cannot be tamed by blow drying, straightening, or mousse.  Anyway, the foreign and possibly itchy objects in my hair pose more of a concern than the origin of the extensions. 

As far as beauty products go, extensions are not that weird or sad.  The industry is full of chemicals, disgusting animal byproducts, animal testing, and painful procedures.  I won't bother using 'correct' terminology.  I think these words are used in place of more unpleasant terms for marketing purposes.  Perfume may have crap from whale guts in it.  Lipstick may contain fish scales.  I knew a female doctor who was developing an entire line of skincare products containing foreskin.  From dicks.  The whole thing had something to do with stem cells, I believe.  And no, I didn't ask how this stuff was harvested.  Maybe poor Russian men are selling their foreskins to buy groceries.  My point-- we are potentially slathering animal-tested wang lotion all over our faces every day.  That's pretty gross.  Gluing second-hand hair to our own hair is very low on the scale of weird when it comes to beauty products (not even going to get into cosmetic surgery here). 

As far as what women all over the world must do just to survive, selling hair is not that weird or sad.  I can think of many worse things, including selling children or sex.  Both sides are pretty sad-- selling hair to buy food or blowing thousands of dollars on painful fake hair because we are unhappy about the way we look.  I have never understood the intense emotional attachment that some people get to long hair.  When I was 15, I cut my butt-length hair down to chin-length hair.  It was a textured cut with little piece-y bangs and flipped ends.  It never occurred to me that I might be less pretty, less feminine, or that a part of myself was missing.  That is, until several of my friends (including males) insisted that I looked better with my long hair.  That simply wasn't true.  My long hair was flat, dry, and (thanks to my mom cutting my bangs for a decade) was nearly a mullet.  It did not flatter my face shape or body shape.  I realized then that my long hair wasn't actually beautiful, it was just symbolically beautiful.  Childbirth is symbolically beautiful.  If you're actually analyzing what you see-- it's gross as hell.  Some people either can't tell the difference or are unable to omit emotions from their thought process.

Pamper Day is Coming

Our pamper day is coming up in a week and a half.  On this day, senior students treat basics students to free salon services.  We can receive nearly any combination of cut, color, perm, mani/pedi, waxing, styling, makeup, facial, etc. 

My hair is very dark brown/black cut into a vertical forward that hits my hairline in the back and 2 inches below my chin in the front (the photo is not me, just an example of the cut).  There is a hidden chunk of hair near my right ear that has been lightened and colored with Pravana- Violet and Pravana- Green.  I did it myself.  It looks good, but it's about time to change out the colors. 

I've always loved white-blonde, but there is no way I could achieve this on my dark hair without total destruction.  It would be bad enough if I was at my natural dark brown, but I have colored over it with very dark brown.  There is just no way that's a good idea.  There are a couple of senior students who have mid-length white-blonde hair that just makes my heart squirm with envy.  They look like Lady Amalthea from The Last Unicorn (terrible movie, by the way).  Ah well, it probably wouldn't be worth it to play root catch-up all the time to maintain the blonde.  Let it go, let it go.  In any case, I do need to start thinking about what I want to do.

FAFSA Concern

In the back of my mind, there is the worry that my FAFSA won't come through favorably. 

We're several weeks into classes and many of us have still not received our financial aid results.  We've already received our kits and have started cutting and dying the mannequins.  I have no idea what I'm going to do if nothing is offered.  I already know I'm not eligible for the Pell Grant because I have a 4yr degree.  I had $12,000 in loans from university that went into default for a week, but then I was able to pay off the entire amount due to special circumstances that will not happen again.  I don't know if that will be held against me, too.  Probably.  In this way, the other girls are lucky.  They haven't received government aid and have no negative loan history.  Some were upset that they didn't receive the entire amount and that their parents would have to cosign on a parent plus loan to cover everything.  They don't know, that's just how it is.  That's how it works.  Now I can only cross my fingers for myself and pray that I won't have to drop out and owe $2000 for the kit plus whatever hours they're going to charge me for. 

May they have mercy on my soul.

Carpal Tunnel

A couple of weeks ago, a sales rep. for salon shears visited our school.  He had hundreds of shears laying out for us to hold in our hands and free colorful fitting rings for our student shears.  Holding the shears doesn't feel as awkward as I thought it would.  The hardest thing is probably grabbing only the hair I want with the comb.  [[My ring finger has the beginnings of a dent, toward the pinky finger.  From now on, I'll look for this mark as a means of detecting other hair stylists.]] 

 Out of all of the shears, I love the Sensei NXT most.  They're ergonomic with a high offset swivel thumb, which will hopefully make various cutting positions easier on the wrists.  Carpal tunnel is most common in people who work with computers and second most common in people who work in a salon (according to one of the instructors).  After hearing that, I did some research of my own.  It's also three times more common in women than in men.  A few other things that can work against you are text messaging, drawing/writing, and video gaming.  As a female cosmetology student by day/graphic artist by night/nerd and illustrator during free time... my chances are looking pretty good. 

I'll spend the money on the shears now to save my wrists later.


Photo: Sensei NXT from RooSalon

Cutting

We've begun cutting mannequin hair this week and I have to admit, the act shuts my brain off (in a pleasant way).  By the time I'm finished with the cut, I discover that my mouth is full of saliva.  I become so focused that thinking and swallowing spit take a backseat to the task at hand.  We've done 5 cuts so far and each time, I have finished a good 15 minutes or more after everyone else.  At first this bothered the crap out of me, but when I watched the instructor walk around to inspect the mannequins, I realized she spent a lot of time fixing mistakes.  When she comes over to fluff the hair on my mannequin, I hold my breath every time.  So far, she has not made any corrections.  She said I should not work at a low-end corporate salon because of my pace and assured me that wasn't a bad thing.  I'll make precision my goal and pray that speed comes with time.

Introversion

The training is fun and interesting, but I am on the road to alienating myself from my classmates.  A group of people all with a strong sense of self-entitlement, high self-esteem without merit, low economic status, minimal education, history of violence, poor decision making, and access to sharp objects creates an environment not entirely different from a prison yard. 

I am especially looking forward to getting to theory in chemistry and biology because I secretly hope a lot of people will drop out.  The more, the better.  More drop-outs just means less people I have to protect myself from.  I have not developed any opinions about any of the instructors.  They are as reserved and withdrawn as myself.  I can only assume this barrier is a method to protect themselves against their own students.

My normally positive attitude is being tested.  My primary goal to reserve judgment has been abandoned.  The anxiety associated with lack of trust is shifting my quiet and reserved nature into overdrive, making it even harder to make friends.  I need to find that one person that I can make eye contact with when crazy happens.  Not that I hate anyone.  I really like bunnies, but I'm not going to put my fingers anywhere near those teeth.  That would just be stupid. 

I doubt that my introversion will negatively affect relationship-building with clients in the future.  Engaging the client should be as easy as asking questions about and listening to the client the entire time while offering no personal information.  After all, everyone's favorite subject is them self.  I have no negative feelings about this arrangement.  Like a shampoo, this type of interaction is just part of the salon service.  This method has served me well when it comes to creating superficial friendships, but it's not going to be enough.  We spend almost 40 hrs/wk together.  It's only a matter of time before my classmates pick up on this and realize that our individual relationships have been shallow this entire time.

Culture Shock

The culture here is much different from university.  It's about what I had expected.  100% white females age 18-23 who barely scraped through high school and a token gay guy in a different class.  I had hoped that both the gay and black population would be much higher.  At 25, I am the oldest student in Basics and the only person to have attended any college.   Most either have kids or had kids before they were removed by the state.  The rest can't wait to get married and have kids.  About half smoke.  I am used to working entirely with females (all 6 staff members at the screen printing company are women age 21-26 and one who is late 40's), but beauty school attracts a different type of female.

Various forms of theft have proven to be a major issue here.  Students steal from each other on a regular basis.   My purse never leaves my body.  I'd leave it in the car, but there have been vehicle break-ins in the past in which purses were stolen.

Probably the worst part is that domestic abuse is normal to many of these girls, in a way that animal death is normal to most people raised on farms.  There is a level of comfort when it comes to being verbally or physically abused that is alarming to me.  They laugh through stories about being beaten or their husbands taking on other women because they need to lose 60 lbs before their husband will claim them as their wife again even though they live together with their children.  First, that whole situation is just terrible in every way.  Second, I'm not sure a 5'5" tall 160lb girl needs to lose 60 lbs.  She is a beautiful girl.

Hello

My name is Lizzie.  I graduated December 2009 with a BA in Textiles and Apparel (fashion design).  I scored a sweet freelance job straight out of college designing childrenswear.  After completing an entire season for girl/boy/layette, I was sent $1000 in post-dated hot checks as payment over a month after our contracted payment dates.  I refused to continue work until payment was rendered and was promptly threatened with lawsuits.  Things have settled down now (and no, I was never paid for my work), and the thought of taking on another fashion job...is just too much.  My sense of trust just isn't what it used to be.  Luckily, it wasn't my only job at the time.  I am also a graphic designer and embroiderer for a screen printing company.  It pays well for the area, but I don't have enough hours during slow times of the year. 

After doing some research, I began cosmetology school on November 16, 2010.  It's a 2100 hour program that takes 60 weeks to complete.  The total cost, including our kits, is $18,000.  The first 7wk session is called Basics.  There are approximately 20 of us and we are together from 8:30am - 5pm,  Tue - Fri.  Once we are in the clinic, we'll also have to attend on Saturdays.  I work my graphic art job in the evenings and on weekends.  I see cosmetology as a possibly lucrative way to continue my creative relationship with fashion, fibers, and illustration.  I don't expect to get rich, but even $300/wk with no benefits is a respectable living in my area.