Braiding Class.

Well. Let's just admit it. Some people can braid- some can't. I'm one of those people where if I work hard enough on something then, bada bing, I will get it and eventually master it. For braiding, that 'eventually' is a really questionable word.

Cornrows, fishtails, knots, rope braids, basket weaves, underhand, overhand, Frenchbraid.. Plaits, One strand, Two strand, Three strand.. Four?? Five??? Oh yeah. The possibilities are endless with braiding. I can't tell you how big of an impact it has on fashion one way or another. Somewhere on one of those huge wigs you see there is a cornrow where it is fashioned onto the scalp/ head, or there are hairstyles where the braid ITSELF is the hairstyle. Any magazine you look weather it is http://www.runwaybeauty.com/'s Runway Magazine, Modern Salon (http://modernsalon.com/), or more publicly known Elle (http://www.elle.com/), there are plaits and locks of some sort. The fashion industry, unlike quite a few times before is swarming with braids.. And I love it.

Like I said before, I am NO natural braider. My instructor Lisa noticed today that I work with all of my fingers, which can be good and bad. Good because that means I have some dexterity, bad because learning new ways of braiding can be difficult. It's funny she noticed this as well for me, personally, because I often have trouble learning new patterns to fingerpick with on my guitar. Same issue.

I found that the Overhand method of braiding a single plait wasn't too bad. After a few times practicing a French Braid I sure got it pretty solid and consistent, but then bam- time to try the Underhand single plait which I had to watch and then Cornrowing.

Frustration. Anxiety. Annoyed. All over what? A single braid. A single braid.

I had to let go and just breathe. So, I watched what I was really doing, really, really watched.. and then.. I got it. I did it. And after I did it one time, I did it another.. and another.. and another. And surprisingly, everything came out nice and consistent. Now I just have to work on perfecting that consistency and then perhaps my speed. Haste makes waste though, according to Horst Rechelbacher, so perhaps I should just wait.

Anyhow, a plus of everything today was that also, I discovered how to make those HUGE overly exaggerated editorial fashion photos we have all seen. Those are the kind of things I would like to do in my future, and guess what? A lot of the hair.. Is synthetic. Most of those ridiculous hairstyles you see, the big updos for fashion shows? Synthetic.

Luckily for me, this stuff isn't expensive and I took a classmate with me to a store recommended by a few other classmates called the "Infinity 99 cent store." I got lost in there with no problem, seeing as the WHOLE BACK WALL was HAIR. It was beautiful. I could have stayed there all day and night for all I care. Either way, I left with quite a few different textures and types of hair to help me out on any of my quests with competitions and other hair related escapades.

I guess thats what my future holds. Perhaps I'll post some work in progress shots of all of this at some point, maybe when I get a little better! :)

Anyhow, don't ever get discouraged about learning how to braid because theres always something you can do to help it- youtube is a great source for example, or I'm sure there are online drawings somewhere. Just google it! Don't be scared or intimidated because braids can bring a whole new look to you.

Thanks for reading!

About Me.

So I've had some people ask if I could write a blog about myself and what inspired/ inspires me to do hair.

Well, I never really knew I had a knack for it honestly, until the day I came to school.

First off, I hail from the great Logan, Ohio, in the southeastern portion of the state. Also known as "The Hocking Hills" to a lot of people from around the state/ country. My family used to also have a home in Saint Augustine, Florida, and this is the place I consider my true home. I think the culture and able to truly indulge in that sort of lifestyle stole my soul away and I've never quite gotten it back- I plan to go back and live there one day. But thats another story.

I attended the Logan High school and I participated in various activities throughout my years there. I was in two choirs, the Hilltop Singers (the school show choir), and the LHS Chamber choir. I ran track and participated on the relay races multiple times, where I had strong bonds with the underclassmen (who by the way have huge potential to be great sprinters), was in Key Club (basically the high school branch of the Kiwanis), I was on Student Council two of four years, in the Thespian Troupe, in National Art Honors Society, helped out with musicals and plays as both a member of the cast and also a member of the crew, and had a few extra curriculars of my own. My sophomore year I participated in the ACDA National Honor Choir where I reunited with some fellow musicians I had met a couple years previous in Chicago, and then my junior year I was in the Ohio University Honor Choir with a lot of other talented kids. My life was busy, and I was stressed.

I love music and art. I always had thought that art was seconded to music, music which was singing and composing some here and there for me. A hobby became an obsession and soon enough I wanted to be a music major (specifically musical theater or opera) and wouldn't stop pursuing that dream. I guess perseverance is great, but man. Looking back I'm glad I didn't go the way I had chose at that point in time.

I auditioned for Bowling Green State University's conservatory in February 2010. Nervous enough, I began to get a cold. I auditioned and great comments were sent my way during the audition but being the nervous person I can be, it wasn't enough to ease my tension.

I got the call at a track meet about a month later I got into the conservatory and they had a spot saved for me in their choirs. I got my FAFSA about a month after, and I wasn't comforted. At all.

9,000 dollars a year?

I thought.. To me, this was like a death sentence. My family barely made enough to get by, let alone pay back a loan of 9,000 dollars. I love music, don't get me wrong, but I don't love it enough to put my family under my pressure. I needed something where I wouldn't have to get my family involved with that pressure, something where I could pay off my debts by myself, while still being creative and transferring my passion into something else.

A new art medium..? But WHAT? I had seen it ALL....

It was time to kind of 'let go' of that dream. Kind of.

One day I was driving on high street (my long lost love) with my grandmother in Columbus looking for a place I read about online to cut my hair. She asked me if I was ready to go to college and start my great music career and I shook my head and reluctantly said "...no..". She looked over at me and said "Whats wrong?", and an onslaught of tears followed with a panicked voice from me saying I didn't want to leave Columbus, I wanted to go to school there, and that I couldn't go back to living basically in the boonies and paying 9,000 dollars a year for a career that was not guaranteed to me.

She asked me what I wanted to do and I thought back to my younger years of roaming around campus during the summer and looking in at all of the students at the Aveda Institute... They seemed like they loved it there. How great would it be to use HAIR as a medium..? I mean, my god, its like a performance, and its something that can make someone FEEL good.. It was another type of art, that I felt would be even more rewarding than all the other skills I had developed before.

About three days later I was taking a day off school and walking into the Institute for the first time, and I was in love. I saw instructors faces who I felt like I had known forever, and there were quirky people like me here and there and people who I could feel could all relate to each other one way or another.

And the hair. It was perfect.

I graduated high school about a week later, and a few days after that I parted with my family. I keep telling myself that it will all be worth it eventually when I can give them and myself whatever we want, whenever we want. Don't get me wrong, this is a hard profession but I have fallen so deeply in love with it, my guests, the way you can advertise, the education.. Its much more rewarding for me than any amount of money could pay.

I found a way to channel all of my art and music into a new medium. It was very scary the first couple months because I was the happiest I had ever been despite the fact I hadn't seen anyone from my hometown for the longest time. I was pretty much alone, but everyday I drove my car to school and walked those few blocks to neil with a positive attitude that I would learn something new, and I did. It is a constantly changing art form, where avant garde and different, can be good. All my hard work in school with music and art it seemed was just training for the things I would be putting my passion and hard work into at Aveda.

SO. I guess thats me in a nutshell, or some kind of explanation about how I basically stumbled upon being at Aveda, pretty much my home now. We have a great relationship and I wouldn't trade the people I meet everyday and the things I learn from them for the world.

Khlea with color!!

So, my girl Khlea came back this Saturday morning for her color and usual cut.Finally, we get the chance to put on some color!

First off, we tried using the Aveda color line Deep, made for the darker levels of hair. Khlea is naturally around a 2, and we wanted her to at least be at a 3 or 4 for the Red color she chose.

Well, we did a partial and it didn't quite work out, the shades weren't bold enough and honestly? They didn't quite show up. Her hair had a dark red offset but it wasn't far from her natural level of a 2, so of course they didn't show up.

Her friend brought her lunch and we decided to go for something we knew would be bold, an all o

ver color with a lighter (for her) shade of red. I was excited for this because we had been talking about it since we did her relaxer. I learned a couple things while coloring her hair- relaxed hair

is a little more resistant to color, and highly textured hair can be quite resistant as well, even at the newgrowth. We used 20 volume on the newgrowth where with fine or regular hair we would probably use 10, and we used 30 on the midstrand and ends where the relaxer was.

I was ecstatic that she loved the color. I had to hand her over to a trusted friend to finish styling her for me because of a time discrepancy but she was a great sport and rescheduled her haircut with me for next weekend, Saturday, early AM, haha.

Vanessa

Meet Vanessa.

Vanessa had a lot of color in her hair. A lot.

Vanessa had been on my books for a couple weeks before I actually met her. I was

over joyed to see that I had a "Color Cleanse" on my schedule because I had never done one before, and also because its a high end skill that not many people know how to do properly. The day before Vanessa came in, I decided to do a test run of the process to see what I would be dealing with... For those of you who don't know what this could result in, here is a good side by side comparison.

Woah!

So this is generally what a Color Cleanse does. It takes the color.. out of the hair. Hence the "cleanse" portion of the title. Doing this is a real ordeal considering it is "Corrective Color" basically and means you have to also end up usually matching the tone you end up with with another color and the roots of the hair may/ may not lift so its basically a matching game. Then the color you may apply may take too light or it may be too dark, sometimes, its a guessing game.

Vanessa, bless her heart had picked a 6/7 Red Orange color that she

felt comfortable with. Since we were starting with a dark brown/ black color the chances of this lifting to the appropriate NRP necess

ary for this color to actually work were pretty good. I was really happy with her choice too as she can pull off red like no other. My instructor Shae was teaching me as we went and I was pretty grateful for that, because if she wouldn't have been there I would have been a little overwhelmed. Not gonna lie. She and Miss Parisia made the formulas for the final color we applied, but thats about ten steps away from where we are now.

We went through and did the color cleanse, then went back through and applied 10 volume and enlightener to her scalp basically to get her roots to lift, and after THAT we applied a toner at the shampoo bed (yes, thats right, my school has shampoo beds!), brought her back to the station and finished by applying two different red formulas, one

dark one for her newgrowth and one light one for her ends so we could even everything out. It was a long battle but she was a GREAT guest, often going along with my (and Shae's..) corny jokes and appreciating the fact I bought magazines earlier that day for her to read through the whole 5 hour ish process. I never knew how fast I could really do a color retouch until today, since we had to do color melting for the two last formulas. "You don't want the one color to expire as you are touching up the newgrowth, so you have to hurry!! Just slap it on.. Accurately!" -Shae, haha. Thankfully I hadn't mixed up the lighter color, yet so we weren't in too bad of shape anyhow.

The final product was GORGEOUS. I was SO happy about a few things.

1. First and foremost the color was beautiful. No evil halo lurking about here, no color discrepancy, nothing.
2. My guest was elated. Vanessa was so happy to have a color other than her long time favorite of box black on her head, and she was glad she could pull off red! (She has beautiful green eyes..)
3. The color looked NATURAL. Who would have known? Aveda reds ARE great.
4. Her curls still curled up into their natural spirals, which we both were very, very happy to see. After that much processing we weren't sure if her hair would be so soft or if her hair would even have a wave to it.

We fixed her up with a bit of deep conditioning Damage Remedy conditioning treatments as well as a bit of Beautifying Oil to help replenish and re-moisturize her hair. I suggested that she use Madder Root Shampoo and Conditioner to keep her red very vibrant and alive, and also suggested she come back for a little bit of a trim once shes back from visiting her daughter in the Caribbean in a couple weeks.

Overall, a wonderful service. Yes, we were both tired, we both ha

d been anxious and I had a couple moments, but it was overall a very rewarding experience meeting such a lovely lady and providing her with some hair she can actually play with now it isn't coated with black anymore. I am excited to see her again for the hair 'trim' as we have decided to call it, since she doesn't want to lose much length until the summer. Such a good day.

P.S. Shae, this one's for you.. ha!