Hey big Tipper!

Beauty school can be a long and tortures process. Especially at the end of March and early April when a lot of people around town are gone making for long uneventful days of school. One positive aspect of school is that we are able to receive tips from our clients. This provides the downcast student with a little bit of positive reinforcement in what can be an otherwise dreary day. It also provides something more important.... lunch money. The tippers themselves fall into an assortment of classifications that will probably be recognizable to most in the service industry.

Breaking them down


The Dollar General

The Dollar General is exactly that. Everything is a buck. Get your haircut, tip a buck. Cup of joe, tip a buck. Carry their luggage, you get the idea. Dollar Generals always carry around at least one or two ones in their pocket to pop out when necessary. These tippers are consistent in schedule, routine, and usually even in appearance.

The Waitress

The Waitress is a hard working woman who understands the lifeblood of showing appreciation through tips. They are the most kindred in spirit to the stylist or beauty school student and typically go above and beyond to leave a good tip. The Waitress loves to feel pampered and relaxed by services due to how hectic their jobs can be always having to serve others. Every tip from The Waitress says "Hey beauty school student, I've been there, keep your chin up."

The Cheerful Giver

God loves a cheerful giver and so does the beauty school student! The cheerful giver is usually a talker, a relaxed personality that enjoys life to the fullest. It takes a lot to get them depressed and they find the bright side in every situation. The Cheerful Giver isn't too concerned about their hair and generally enjoy giving tips that are close to or over the cost of their cut. So the only question concerning them is, do they give because they're happy? Or are they happy because they give?????

The Reluctant Tipper

I have special insight on this tipper because I think for the better part of my life I was a Reluctant Tipper with a little bit of Dollar General thrown in. The Reluctant Tipper does not like to part with their money, and its not just tips, going to the store and buying clothes or really anything makes them feel angst on a small level. In terms of hair they can be a little uptight and if you look closely as you near the end of their cut, you can see just a hint of sadness start to creep in behind their eyes as they realize this whole tip situation is coming to a head. They pay, they know that they should tip,,,,, but if it wasn't forced on them by societal norms they would absolutely put that two dollars back in their pocket! In the end, they always tip, but if you are sensitive enough you can feel them ever so gently hold on an extra tenth of a second as they hand you their money.. (just kidding...kinda)


The No Tipper

The No Tipper breaks down into two smaller tippers. The first is "The Really Can't afford to Tipper". Being we are a school we do get a fair amount of these. Its just the way it is and I think most of us students are fine with that. Some people have a pretty hard life and they need every dollar they can muster. The second No Tipper is The Cheapskate No Tipper. The Cheapskate is particularly fond of pretending to be a different type of tipper while in your chair. They are notoriously big talkers and loud personalities. They are often Reluctant Tippers with no conscience whatsoever. They pay with big bills and then smugly pocket the change right in front of you. In their free time Cheapskates are known to steal fries out of children's happy meals. The Cheapskate is easily the most reviled of all tippers.

The "I am so desperate for a date I will ginormously overtip you tipper"

I have not experienced this tipper but I have seen him in action. This tipper is overly friendly and is desperate for a date, any date.... "dear Lord please be impressed by the huge tip I am leaving you and have dinner with me!!". This tipper will tip twice the cost of a haircut trying to impress the female stylist" Side note to all you desperate males out there, this approach never ever works. Females can smell your desperation and are not impressed, but don't get me wrong, they still greatly enjoy the ginormously large tip!

Did I forget a type of tipper??? Let me know.

March Madness, The Big Dance

March Madness, The Big Dance.  One might think that I am referring to college basketball but actually I am referring to the most memorable and nerve testing week in every beauty school student's life.  It's like getting the call up to the majors from the minor leagues accept in this case all you have to do is show up and you get promoted eventually...  Still, it's just as exciting.  The moment when you have amassed enough hours of schooling that they will actually allow you to work on the general public!

Wednesday was my first day.  I was in good spirits, anticipation was high.  You know you will get an appointment at some point during the day, you just don't know when or what or who.  So you wait.  Most the time I think the instructors like to drag it out until the afternoon just to make you suffer.  For me it was like playing hide and seek as a kid and my experience might have been different from other kids but it went something like this.  I would hide.  I would wait.  I would then realize that I had to go the bathroom.  I would pray I would get found quickly.  I would then either get found and run to the bathroom or give myself up because I couldn't hold it anymore and then run to the bathroom.  So yes, on Wednesday, I walked around feeling like I had to go the bathroom all day. 

When Mrs. Peacock had her first day on the floor I was able to go in and be her first client, which I greatly enjoyed but I knew the chances of Mrs. Peacock letting me cut her very distinct hairdo at this stage in my new career were nonexistent.  I was very glad this was the case because I like being married and it might have taken years of marital counseling to work through the issues that would have resulted.  As a very pleasant surprise Mrs. Peacock did show up and allow me to wax her eyebrows.  This was a nice compromise that showed that she trusted me not to scar or mame her with hot wax and allowed me to get my first service out of the way.  All while not jeopardizing our marriage.  I rang her up after and she hooked me up with a sweet $20 tip!  (Mrs. Peacock has always been the big tipper in the family)

I went on to do my first haircut later in the day and for a first cut I did a pretty good job.  I didn't cut her or myself.  For my efforts I earned a hearty dollar bill.  This served as a good reminder that it would take 20 regular women to equal 1 Mrs.Peacock...


Blogs coming soon...  Torture Through Chemical Services.... & ..... Tips!

Facials, Makeup, and Waxing, Oh my!

We are in the tail end of our book work at school and this is exciting on a couple different levels.  One is that we get to spend more time doing practical things like working on our mannequins and on each other.  The other is that we won't have to write out such exciting questions as "True or False - It is important to ask your client what they want."  We have now completed our facial, make up, and waxing chapters.  Facials are interesting, I find myself to be fairly comfortable giving them.  I have never had a problem giving massages and my soft hands have been cultivated from years of avoiding physical labor and sitting on my butt and clicking a mouse for the last seven years.  Receiving them is a different story, I am not a huge fan of having my face touched.  I could blame that on being slapped around as a kid to garner some sympathy at this point of the blog but I am happy to say that I was not abused as a child.  "Carol" gave me my facial and didn't do a bad job but she is a little bit more rough around the edges then I am.  She is a farm girl at heart, does farm work, has horses, gets up before the crack of dawn just to intimidate the sun every day...  She got better as she went along but at first it was like she was punching me with her thumbs and I was getting worked over inside the UFC octagon.

Make up was next and I am not ashamed to say that this was the most awkward thing I have encountered at school.  The girls in the room all seemed to be communicating in their own language that I simply didn't understand.  I nodded when I thought I should and tried to fake my way through it, not letting on how lost I was.  A couple of the senior students were kind enough to be our models and I immediately apologized to the one that drew me.  I find its much less awkward to apologize up front rather than after you have made someone look like a clown.  I dabbed, I brushed, I blushed, I lined, I blended, I did it all....  Awkwardly.  My number one goal was to not stab the young lady in the cornea and do serious damage.

luckily I accomplished my goal!  No (permanent) damage was done.

Next up is waxing.  I am not sure who came up with the idea of putting hot wax on your body hair and then ripping it off but I am pretty sure alcohol was involved.  This too is one of those that is better to give then to receive.  I am not ashamed to say that this was my first waxing and I had my eyebrows done.  It hurt!  Probably not as bad as the poor girl who's lip I attempted to wax or as bad as the girl in the video we had to watch who got a bikini wax.

I read a while back about some guys in Ireland who were raising money for charity by waxing each other.  One drunk guy decided he was going to one up his friends and go for a full Brazilian.  Keep in mind there was not a professional in the bunch and that this fundraiser took place in a bar.  Anyway, one of his friends ended up taking off 7 layers of skin off of one his "boys".  That waxing was followed up by a trip to the hospital where doctors were able to laugh at him and barely save his testicle.

(this is where I normally search google and insert picture but in order to keep the blog PG we will skip it this time)

Needless to say, I am glad we don't do that type of waxing at the school.

Adventures in Colorland

"Don't get lost out there in Colorland"

Wise words from head instructor Leon as we began the hair coloring portion of our schooling.  I have always been a fan of color, I am particularly fond of purple, but my understanding of the principals of color is fairly limited, I never advanced pass 8th grade art after a major disagreement with my teacher who gave me a C+ for my oil pastel painting "Hungry Squirrel on Snow".  In my opinion, my "Hungry Squirrel" was A quality work!  Alas, my teacher gave me a big fat C+ and I learned that art was.....objective.  So I put down my paintbrushes and never began my career as a starving artist.  Fast forward 20 years and I am now confronted with color all over again.  Keep in mind that when I was 8 I was diagnosed with being slightly color blind.  This little fact makes Mrs. Peacock worry that I could be a liability but I have assured her that I can 100% tell the difference between the good colors and the bad ones!  And actually, coloring hair is more about understanding color rather than seeing color.  But seriously, I really can see about 99.5% of the color spectrum.

Can you see this number???

Leon says that some students overthink color and end up getting themselves all confused.  I am pretty sure that won't be a problem for me as anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am a habitual "underthinker".  Many a disappointing lunch has been ordered because I force myself to tell the waitress what I want to order even though I have know clue at the moment she says "Are you ready to order?"  I spend the next 5 seconds frantically scanning the menu and looking for a sign from a higher power as to what to order.  I am not much of a gambler but this is kind of like scratch off tickets for me.  Sometimes I get my moneys worth, sometimes its a big winner, sometimes its a loser.

I get color though, it's kind of like an algebraic equation with a few different variables here and there.  It's logical.  "Carol" even let me color her hair and it turned out pretty well I must say.  The one negative was that the gloves I used were too small and being that the tips were stretched real thin, some of the color ended up staining my finger nails.  They looked like I burned them so when I get asked what happened to my fingernails I just tell the truth...  That I am a cosmetology student and on the way to school last week I had to stop and rescue a small child from a burning car, hence the burnt nails...  Oh the life of a beauty school student.....



A quick vent

Cleaning.  Part of being a student in beauty school requires that you clean up after yourself and help to clean the school at the end of the day.  This is evident from day 1.  If one student doesn't do there job it effects other students.  If one student thinks they are too good to clean or are just lazy, it creates double work for another student.  I have no problem if a student doesn't want to clean, nobody likes to clean, but be a grown up about it.  Go into the office and tell the instructor that you aren't going to clean and state your reasons.  Don't hide out in the back, don't pretend that you did it, and don't screw over your fellow classmates.  Some might be ok working in a dirty environment but most of us aren't.   This vent is to help me from exploding at school.... ah there, I feel a little better.

Perm Wars

From what I can gather at beauty school, the cosmetology student's most dreaded enemy is the "perm".  When one is scheduled, which seems to be about 2 a day on average, students duck and cover and pray that they won't be drafted into duty.  Sickness attacks some, others bite their tongue and soldier on, but one thing is for sure, nobody likes to do them.  I will say that the system is unfair.  Those who don't cry and complain about them get stuck doing the majority of them.  Quite literally, perms stink...  My perspective is that I want get as fast as possible at perms so that if we decide to do them at our salon it will no doubt be a profitable endeavor!  Yes I am going to school for the adventure but I am 100% committed to running a highly profitable salon or chain of salons.

I am remembering an episode of 21 jump street where Johnny Depp's character's wife or fiancee gets killed in a party store robbery or something and he spends like 3 weeks locked up in his apt figuring out all the things he can do in 7 seconds (my memory is hazy so some facts could be extremely screwed up), because that's how long he had to stop the robber but he didn't.  Like ie. he could take all the pepperoni off a large pizza.  It was a heart wrenching episode...  Are those out on DVD??  Man that was a good show.

21 Jump........Street! 

I am sure you are wondering why I am making obscure references to early 90's TV and how I could possibly be relating myself to Johnny Depp considering the size of my nose and ears and my unstriking facial features as a whole...  It relates to perms.  20 minutes.  That's the amount of time that is considered an excellent time to roll a whole head of perm rods.  So this week my fellow student "Carol" and I began competing to see who could roll the fastest.  In the beginning, I stunk like a cheap perm!  Carol has been killing me in most practical aspects of cosmetology, not that its a competition.....  But any of you who know me know that even though its not a competition,,,,, I still like to be first!!!  If we were looking at this like a boxing match Carol would be the winner on the tale of the tape.  She has years of experience, she has had long hair her whole life to fool around with, and she is a girl.  Not that being a girl is a big deal, it just means that she has been doing girly stuff her whole life while I am relatively new to it!  So I started my training...  Cue the "Eye of the Tiger" music...  Started working on my rolling skills..doing fingertip push ups...braiding small children's hair while waiting in line at the grocery store..

"YOU GOTTA WANT IT ROCK!!"

Saturday was the big showdown....  A Roll Off.  Mr. Peacock vs "Carol".  2 rounds, winner take all (which included bragging rights and maybe a high five from the loser...  maybe)  Each round is 20 minutes.

Ding goes the bell.  I start fast but Carol is too strong!  She overtakes me and beats me by 8 rollers!  But wait... there is a discrepancy on the score card.  I was using smaller rollers!!  How could I have been so naive!!!!  Just like in sports  I play the "no excuses, I got beat" card but just like in sports deep down I know I have a legitimate excuse!!!

So I adjust my curlers for round two.   Now its a level playing field.

Off we go,  I start slow this time but I quickly make it up.  I get a steady rhythm, I can tell I am ahead of Carol in terms of how quickly I am moving over the mannequin head.  Oh yeah, I am in the perm rolling zone right now!  I was expecting the perm police to pull me over I was going so fast!  I roll up the last of my head as time expires, I look over and Carol finishes behind me.  Surely I've won!!!

We count.......  I have 41 rods!  That's like 13 more than round 1!  

And

Carol has.....

47...

Damn!  I got beat again!  With no excuses this time other than my poor technique...  That's not very consoling....  Its like a wrestler saying "well, I guess I would have won if the other guy wasn't just flat out better than me"

Guess its time to start chasing the chicken around in the backyard...

First Drafts

I have done my first haircut on a live person.  Long layers on my classmate.  We will call her "Carol"...  It all started out fairly routine, Carol was real easy going... at first.  Her tone was like "Hey, it's just hair, it will grow back if you screw it up!"  This worked out well because I thrive when there is no pressure whatsoever and failure is an acceptable outcome...  My shampoo skills are improving as I didn't shoot water down her back or accidently spray any customers walking by.  Settled back into my chair I sectioned the hair out and gushed about how much nicer Carol's hair was to work with compared with the mannequin clients I normally butchered.  I meticulously went to work on the back and began to take a 1/2" off of her head of abundant hair.  Of course, what would take a normal stylist 15 minutes took me about an hour as I got lost over and over again.  Alas the back was done and I moved onto the sides.  As I began to make my move, panic seemed to hover and then settle in right on top of Carol.  "What are you doing?"  Carol asked with a notable amount of fear in her voice.  I am pretty sure she said it the same way as if she caught me trying to kidnap her granddaughter at Blockbuster Video.  "Ahhhh, you know, getting ready to cut your sides".   Little did I know in getting into this that apparently cutting the front and sides of a woman's head is a lot bigger deal than cutting the back.  Carol was scared to death that I would mangle her hair and she would have to look at it every morning in the mirror for the next month and come to school pretending that it wasn't awful.  My mind quickly had me remembering the root canal appt I had forgotten about and how I had to leave immediately...  I begrudgingly talked myself into staying after weighing my fear of doing a bad job vs my fear of all the other students making fun of me for chickening out in the middle of a cut.  After some firm back and forth discussion and third party intervention, I was able to proceed and finish the job without scaring Carol into bolting for her car.  Much to my relief neither her nor I cried when I was finished!

Could have been worse Carol!



Carol said I did a good job but that I would starve if I continued at my current speed.  I will be looking to improve as to avoid having to change the name of our future salons from "The Peacock" to

"Two hour Trims".