Last weekend we were invited to Anthropologie in Town Center of Virginia Beach to host a Braids Bar for their Mother’s Day Celebration, and we had an absolute blast! We love getting out into our community, supporting other businesses in our area, and stretching our creativity with fun events like these! As always, we had fun promotions and giveaways for our guests!
This month, a bill in Texas was filed that aims to get rid of the requirement for stylists to have a Cosmetology license in order to work in a hair salon and offer chemical services. The state of Virginia has considered doing the same.
A Cosmetology license entails much more than just skill and ability to complete a decent haircut. What does this de-regulation mean for you and why is it important that your stylist is licensed?
In Virginia, Cosmetologists are licensed through the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation. After completing an approved training program of at least 1,500 hours, aspiring stylists must pass a written and practical exam to show that they know their stuff.
What’s perhaps even more important to licensing than the techniques of cutting and styling hair are the other aspects included in Cosmetology education. Future stylists are required to understand and habitually practice proper sanitation. They learn to properly mix and use chemicals that protect each of their clients from communicable diseases in a salon environment. They learn how to use different tools and products to keep a client, and their hair, as healthy as possible.
If you’ve ever seen the color storage in a salon, you know it’s a mathematic mix of numbers and letters, a secret code that stylists learn to understand. Coloring hair is pure chemistry and understanding the science behind a color process is absolutely essential to being able to provide results. Through the licensing process, stylists learn how to read and formulate these color codes to customize a color per a client request, with consideration to the previous five years of a client’s hair history.
Other skills practiced and perfected during a stylist’s education are arm-hand steadiness, dexterity, and body position. Did you know that the way your stylist stands behind you has a significant impact on the results of your cut?
Earning and maintaining a licensed status is absolutely essential as a hairstylist, not only to be able to perform the requests of clients but also to protect the health, safety, and well-being of their clients in an environment where lots of chemicals are used. Performing a service without the proper education could result in serious injury to both stylists and their clients. Licensing is more than just a piece of paper, it’s a record of an individual’s understanding of all that goes into ensuring a safe and satisfying salon service.
Next time you’re searching for a new stylist, make sure they have an active cosmetology license and help us protect the importance of Cosmetology license in Virginia!
Social Media is both a blessing and a curse in our lives, especially for all of our clients with Blonde Hair Goals.
This post is to advise you to be cautious when searching social media for inspiration photos. The use of filters and lighting have a significant impact on how a client’s finished look photographs, and sometimes the inspiration photos you find can deceive you and your expectations.
Going blonde, especially platinum or silver, is almost always a multi-step process that requires extensive maintenance to prevent undesirable hues of color. Because we prioritize the health of your hair, it can be impossible to know how many sessions it will take to help you achieve your goals and the in-between services can sometimes include working through shades of color that you aren’t in love with. Remember: when going blonde, we are not CHANGING your color, we are REMOVING all color from your hair. It’s chemistry! Furthermore, you must use the recommended products at home to stay on track with your stylist’s game plan. That’s the part they usually don’t tell you about on social media…
To show you what we mean, this photo shows the exact same client at the exact same time under two different types of lighting…
Color by Deniece
When you book your blonde service, make sure you start with a consultation and bring your patience with you!
We receive calls every day from curly clients who are seeking a stylist who can finally cut their curls to perfection. It seems that every curly girl has a salon story of leaving with awkward triangle shapes, undefined curls, and years of having to blow-dry their hair straight just to get a trim because – what other option is there?
As a salon that specializes in curls, our team has received extensive training and continues their education monthly to make sure we are doing the best possible service for our clients and their curls! But why is it so difficult to find a salon home when you have curly hair? We’re helping solve the mystery!
1. Cosmetology training is based on straight textures. When future stylists learn how to cut hair in their cosmetology programs, which includes everything from sectioning hair to body position and hand directions, unfortunately the curriculum does not address how to adapt cutting methods for curls. To understand the special needs and techniques for working with curls, stylists must invest in additional training, tools, and product knowledge, which can often extend into the thousands of dollars.
2. Adaptation is Key. When working with curly hair, everything that stylists are taught about cutting hair must be adapted to work with curls, and this often means having to unlearn-and-relearn the techniques that stylists have become proficient in when working with straight hair. Even after receiving training and becoming certified as our stylists do, we find that it takes up to a year for stylists to become completely comfortable using adaptations to suit the unique curl pattern and client needs they are faced with. Practice is essential for mastering the art of working with curls.
3. Education Never Ends. When you’re a stylist, continuing education is essential to maintain to become comfortable with the ever-changing industry trends and the consistent flow of new products entering the market. We try new curl products and cocktails of our favorites all the time to determine how we can get the absolute best results each time with consideration to the hair history, hair health, and unique curls of each client. Not only do we have to consider what a product might do for a head of curls in the short-term, but we also must be mindful of the long-term effects of products used. Some of our clients’ favorite curl products work well to curate curls, but they result in severe dryness. Using top-quality products that provide amazing short-term and long-term results is a priority of ours.
4. You must think long-term. Curly hair has additional needs for moisture and product that clients with straight hair don’t have. Lucky them… It must be understood that curl perfection often takes time and a consistent regimen of treatments to restore your hair to its optimum healthy state. Clients who have been straightening their hair, wearing protective styles, or have extensive color damage may require several months of dedication to treatments, using the right products, and refraining from styling that impacts curls in a negative way like blowouts. We must train our curls to behave – they often have minds of their own! For some clients, their curls shine like gold after their very first service with us, but we find that more often than not, a curly client will need to undo some of the years of neglect on their curls before we can promise curated, defined tresses. For this, we ask that you TRUST US!
We bet you didn’t realize it, but coloring curly hair is an entirely different animal from a stylist’s point-of-view!
Coloring or Highlighting your hair is done to accentuate the texture of your cut, add dimension to your style, and cooperate with the natural fall and movement of your hair. Moreso, when we use color chemicals on curly hair, additional stress is put on the hair that can affect your curl pattern – and not in a good way! Curlistas already need to add extra moisture to their routine to address the natural dryness of curly textured hair, and coloring only increases the importance of hydration for your tresses. Our curly hair experts use specific techniques and protective treatments that enhance the finished look while protecting your curls!
What are Pintura Highlights?
This hand-painted technique optimizes your color service by allowing the stylists to color curl-by-curl, highlighting the bounciest curls. By highlighting freehand with the use of foils, your color service becomes completely customized based on what will work best with your unique texture and shape. This helps to create texture and color definition that matches your curl definition instead of “patchy” or “streaky” results.
Because this color service is hand-painted and entirely customized, clients can expect anywhere from 3-6 hours for this service!
BEFORE
DURING
AFTER
Scroll through the gallery below for more Curly Color Inspiration!
