fbpx
So you want to be a Hairstylist??

So you want to be a Hairstylist??

I read an article recently filled with great advice for Hairstylists and Salon Owners.  It inspired me to write my own thoughts down on what I feel should be shared with all potential stylists.

It explains the reason why they should want to enter the industry and gives fundamental insight into whether being a Hairstylist is really what they want to pursue.

Very few aspiring Hairstylists understand this essential truth.

Its not about the hair.

Surprised?  ?

I think most people signing up for hair school would disagree with that statement, but most of us who are earning our living as career Hairstylists know this as fact ?

I’m sure any Hairstylist you ask will tell you how much they love doing hair. Coloring, cutting, styling – it’s something we are extremely passionate about. A way for us to express our artistry and create.

As artists, hair is our medium.

The feeling we get from creating something truly beautiful is what drives us to continue, to find the next medium and create ?   It’s this feeling that most young Hairstylists are chasing in their journey to turn their passion for hair into a career.

Now if you are reading this as a paying client I’m sure you are a bit confused, and rightfully so! Sound like I’m forgetting something? ?

You are right – there is something enormous missing and this, for some Hairstylists, is where it all goes horribly wrong.

PEOPLE!!! Our medium is a person! ??‍♀️

Not a piece of canvas, not an inanimate object. A PERSON with feelings, hopes and desires.  One who has their own likes and dislikes when it comes to their hair.  One who actually OWNS, USES and WEARS our art everyday!

You should want to be a Hairstylist because you love ?  making PEOPLE love ?  their hair.

Being a Hairstylist is not about you – it’s about every single person who sits in your chair. Every person who hands you their time, their trust, their hair, and amazingly allows you to touch a tiny piece of their heart. A person who invites you into their life every 6 – 8 weeks.  That’s an amazing privilege and responsibility to carry with you every day.

It is through a Client that you chase your artistic passion, to bring what they are dreaming of to life.

Not a people person? Stick to working with canvas ??‍♀️

Trust me though – you’ll be missing out on an amazingly rewarding profession!

So do you still want to be a Hairstylist? ??‍♀️

Thanks for listening,

Carrie

www.cihairstudio.ca

How to Choose a Stylist Part 6 – Do You Feel Important?

How to Choose a Stylist Part 6 – Do You Feel Important?

Hopefully if you’ve follow along with this blog series so far you are already starting to realize that feeling important is what it’s all about!  You are the priority! How your experiences make you feel play a huge part in your decision to find your perfect Hairstylist.

★When you contacted the Salon to book the consultation what was your experience like?

★When you came in for the consultation did someone greet you right away or did you feel a bit awkward wondering if you should tell them you’d arrived?

★Was your consultation rushed or did the Stylist take time to really listen to your concerns?

★Did your Stylist recommend the products and services you actually needed or did they go straight for the monthly promotions? 

★Did you feel like a person or a number? 

★Did your Stylist take time to create a solution for your concerns or was the importance of those concerns somehow lost in further conversation?

When you feel important you’ll know it!

Choosing a Hairstylist doesn’t have to be any more complicated than this.  Do you feel important? It’s ok to start expecting more out of your hair appointment and truthfully, you should! 

It can be overwhelming to get started trying to find a Hairstylist because of the sheer number of Salons and Stylists you have to choose from.  Instead of becoming overwhelmed just remember what a good thing all that choice really is! Everyone is looking for something different and the more choice you have, the higher the chance of meeting your perfect Hairstylist!

A reminder on the steps you took with me in this series:  

#1.  Know What You Want

#2.  Go Window Shopping

#3.  Look at the Salon

#4.  Have Interviews

#5.  Compare on Value not Price

#6.  Do you Feel Important?

Take these tips, work through the process and create a success story of your very own.  I promise you the time you spend working through this process will reward you in the end! 

A little word in closing………

Yes, we are a hair salon full of Stylists who would be happy to help you but that’s still not the point.

The point of this series is for you to feel confident in choosing who the right Stylist is for YOU.

It’s entirely about YOU!

Thanks for listening,

Carrie

www.cihairstudio.ca

How to Choose a Hairstylist Part 3 – Look at the Salon

How to Choose a Hairstylist Part 3 – Look at the Salon

How was window shopping?

In part 2 of this blog series on How to Choose a Hairstylist, we talked about the wonderful online world that makes it super easy to get a really good look at your potential new Hairstylist’s portfolio. Hopefully you’ve had an opportunity to check out a bunch of different Hairstylists which brings us to part 3 of this series!

It’s time to look at the Salon.

What difference could the Salon possibly make? First, let’s make a list of what you really want from a hair appointment. Sort of like your ‘must haves’!

Let me guess at a few:

  • Makes you feel welcome and comfortable
  • Might be a bit edgy and trendy
  • Gives great customer service
  • Has knowledge and new things to try since they are constantly learning
  • Might be super upbeat and bubbly
  • Makes you feel pampered
  • Stays consistent from visit to visit
  • Knows the latest colour techniques (think back to when balayage first started) and current trends
  • Might be calming and relaxing
  • And most importantly gives you GREAT hair

Have I hit a few? Can you relate to some points?

I’ll be frank.  The points above can be met by any Stylist at any Hair Salon, but as you may well know that isn’t always the case.

A great Salon creates a blueprint for the type and quality of hair services, the customer experience and the level of education required of any Stylist who chooses to work there.  In other words…..

★ If you want a party of a hair appointment with music in a busy, upbeat and fun atmosphere, find the salon like that.  That’s where your perfect Stylist will be.

★ If you want a quick dash in, dash out hair appointment find the Salon like that.  That’s where your perfect Stylist will be.

★ If you want individual one on one services with no other clients in while you enjoy your service, find the Salon like that.  That’s where your perfect Stylist will be.

★ If you want a quiet, calm, relaxing hair appointment to feel a little indulged and pampered, find the salon like that.  That’s where your perfect Stylist will be.

★ If you want a high end, uber professional, chic, knock your socks off experience, find the salon like that.  That’s where your perfect Stylist will be. 

Human nature reveals the following to be true:

‘People like people who are like themselves.’  

Find the type of Salon experience you want to have because your perfect Stylist will also want to be there too. 

I’ll check back in soon with part 4 ?

Thanks for listening,

Carrie

www.cihairstudio.ca

“If You Aren’t Growing, you’re Dying”

“If You Aren’t Growing, you’re Dying”

There’s this saying in business:

“If you aren’t growing, you’re dying.”

It’s something I’ve always been conscious about but have also learned relates to so much more than just business.

It is an essential element of achieving pretty much anything we aspire to.

We are taught to go to school Monday through Friday for our entire childhood and teen years.  Once we’ve chosen our career we’re to go to school some more.  A few more months or years of the learning process. We are essentially, year after year, forced to grow.

We are challenged mentally, emotionally and even physically (late nights studying, early mornings at a part time job to pay off the full time education).

And then it stops. No more school. We are finally ready to adult!

We start working in our career with the illusion that we’ve learned it all.

Depending on your chosen career you may literally have learned it all but for most I’d say there is always something else to learn.

It’s different now though.  You’re adulting. You’re responsible for your committment, for holding yourself accountable.  There is no Teacher, no one to hold your hand and force you to sit for 6 hours a day until you get it. 

Your advancement, or lack there of, is entirely within your control. An idea so exhillirating you can’t wait to make it happen! Adulting for the win!  

You know what you have to learn.  You know how to do it, you’ve seen it done, and lots of others around you have accomplished it so there’s no way you won’t get it!

And yet, no matter how hard you try, you are unable to make progress.  You try and try and still no progress. Frustration is rampant, lack of confidence is finding its way into your mind and what once seemed so easy is now close to impossible.

Remember the saying? “If you aren’t growing, you’re dying.”

I’ve definitely experienced this myself. I’ve also seen it happen to Stylists at countless stages in the learning process and unfortunatley, sometimes the hurdle proves too difficult to overcome.

We all get caught up on the skill itself, not paying attention to what we are thinking or saying to ourselves about our progress.  We fail to recognize things that have become habits, even ones that may be working against our efforts.

Growing is about more than the skills. 

People stop growing, or fail to progress because the pain of not having ‘X’ (insert whatever you really want here) just isn’t great enough.

Relax – its not my intent to offend – its just the honest truth. I’ve personally experienced it many times. When you desperately want something how much are you willing to change to get it?

Enough to get completely out of your comfort zone and change your habits? Enough to grow your mindset by working through some incredibly tough limiting beliefs?  Enough to ask for help? How far out of your comfort zone are you really willing to get?

Just like in business, if you aren’t growing by working on your mindset and beliefs, there is no progression.

In my very small corner of the world I’ve actually never seen someone acheive what they so desperatley wanted, without having to do the inner work first. As soon as the inner work happens, things magically change.

Great leaders and visionairies, the people we look up to that can seem to do no wrong.  Those that come by their skills naturally and climb both professional and social ladders with ease? These people work twice as hard on their mindset and habits as they do on the skills in their career.

They are badasses at personal growth.

They push out of their comfort zones and recognize quickly and easily when they are holding themselves back.

The most interesting thing about this is that people who are stuck, coming up against the same obstacle time and time again, aren’t even aware of needing to invest in their personal growth.  What they do know is that life is hard and no matter how much they try, they just aren’t making the progress they desire.  It is always because an entire list of excuses for why what they did didn’t work.

We don’t know, what we don’t know.

The change of habits and pursuit of personal growth can be modeled.  It can be discussed, suggested, even taught, but until the pain of a situation is too great to bare, nothing will happen.

Sometimes people choose not to grow personally.  The choice is to take the easy route, bypass personal growth and simply pick up the same cycle in a new place, with new people and expect a different end result. It becomes an everlasting pursuit to find where it will get easier.

Stop searching. Start looking inside.

You have the ability to do whatever you dream of.  I know its not easy, but it will be the biggest gift you ever give yourself.

Just look inside.

Thanks for listening,

Carrie

www.cihairstudio.ca

 

The Art of the Blowdry

The Art of the Blowdry

Women used to flock to the hair salon for their weekly shampoo and roller set. All the ladies lined up in a row, hair wound tight on rollers, sitting under the dryer, coffee in hand waiting for their hair to dry. I’m sure there are still some faithful weekly roller setters out there but lets just say the phone is not ringing off the hook with requests.

Now some of you, I’m sure, think this happened eons ago and wouldn’t have affected any of us in our careers, but I can tell you that

Friday’s meant one thing for me early in my career, and that was roller set day.

I loved seeing these clients once a week, catching up with what they did on their weekend, who came over after church last Sunday and who was coming to visit this weekend, all while I shampooed and put their rollers in. All the clients knew each other too and looked forward to catching up between themselves, asking about each others children, new grand (and great grand) babies and of course who was in the hospital and what kind of casserole they took over to the family. They didn’t even own a blow dryer or a curling iron. Seriously!

I know it all sounds cliche. I know it sounds like 1940 but believe me it was NOT!

Those women with their rollers wanted what everyone really wants – their hair exactly how they liked it.

They just happened to like a hard, backcombed set that would last a week. But there were also clients who came in once a week and wanted something different…..

A few clients requested a curling iron set. Like the roller set only softer, yet still quite formal looking.

And then it happened – my foray into ‘The Art of The Blowdry’.

Ethel* was a wonderful lady, bright, happy and beautiful. What Ethel wasn’t was a roller set client. Her chin length grey hair required more muscle then what those rollers could handle and after her shampoo she promptly told me that she would like her hair blown dry with a round brush. Now don’t get me wrong – I’d used round brushes in hair school, punishing my classmates with a blow dry every now and then, but we spent 95% of our time rolling and backcombing. Doing a round brush blow dry was just not a honed skill of mine.

But Ethel was patient, and bless her heart came back again and again, and I learned how to smooth, curl and volumize all with that one little round brush.

All those roller sets that I could do with my eyes closed had already taught me how to section, angle and roll the hair for the best results.  What I needed to do was apply those same pricinples to Ethel’s blowdry to make sure it was the stuff of her dreams. What I didn’t realize at the time was how much Ethel, and her blow dry, was actually teaching me.

Hairstyling is an art, and one that gets passed over far too easily at the end of a service.

That blow dry lasted Ethel for a week. A week where she could feel beautiful with her hair exactly how she wanted it and I was lucky enough to be the person that could do that for her.

Now realistically I’m aware that times have changed and for some the thought of washing your hair only once a week is enough to get you into the fetal position. What hasn’t changed though, is the feeling that each client wants and should always have walking out the door after getting their hair done.  A chance to Experience Beautiful.

Thanks for listening,

Carrie

www.cihairstudio.ca

*name has been changed out of respect for the client

 

hairstylist

Pin It on Pinterest