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".