The problems with being a salon junior

I’d like to start this week’s post with a question for anyone else starting out in the industry – is it just me or does everyone else find it really hard to find models? The reason I ask is that I seem to be relying heavily on my contacts book to get people in for my training sessions: this week it was my nan and a friend! It got me wondering whether it is a universal problem or just me. I do understand why people would be reluctant to let a trainee loose on their hair – after all it is one of your most important features. But, it’s not like we are going to do anything dramatically wrong because we are briefed before the cut and we have people watching throughout.There are advantages of knowing the person whose hair you are cutting, though. Such as when my friend Jodie came in and said she was fed up with her hair and she just wanted me to ‘take the back off and get rid of it’. I knew that she wasn’t going to be happy if I did that. So I was well prepared when she told me she’d changed her mind – thankfully before I had cut a single hair. I must admit I was quite relieved, because I don’t think I could have handled the inevitable tears if she’d gone for the chop. As it was, I took about an inch of and shaped it up so that it looked like a haircut again. I think she really liked it and my assessor Jodie told me it was good. I’m not up to assessment standard yet, though, because I still need to learn every hair cut. Some people think our job is easy and they often say that we just sweep floors and wash hair; but we have to learn every hair cut possible, give customers what they want and put it all together. That isn’t easy. At the moment, I feel like I am getting better all the time, but from time to time I do still get lost – especially if the client has a lot of hair – and panic or think I’m doing something wrong. I guess there is always going to be a challenge, be it a wonky hairline or a double crown to deal with. It isn’t until you have seen them all and qualified as a stylist that you know how to handle those situations and that’s still some way off for me.