Cutting and Styling

In this weeks hair lesson we learnt how to cut a "one length" hair style. I found this fairly easy however since I am such a perfectionist, I wanted it to turn out perfect yet I struggled most trying to get it the perfect 'same' length all around.

A couple of important things she told us before she started -

• never put your comb down whilst cutting a clients hair (never put anything down)

• hold the comb and scissors in the same hand

• never pass the second line on your fingers when 'measuring' to cut as you may easily cut the inner part of your fingers

• make sure your balance is correct and your client is sitting in the correct position (no crossed legs)

• always cut under your fingers, not above

Below is a picture of how we were shown to hold the scissors.

Kanika started off by giving us the demo. She sectioned the hair into 4 equal parts (two at the front and two at the back). She then 'asked' the client how much they would like chopped off from the bottom which the client replied 2 inches. She showed us on her finger that the first 'line' is one inch and the second line is therefore 2 inches. She then lined her finger correctly 2 inches up from the first part she wanted to cut and cut against the line of her finger. The cutting motion is just by moving your thumb up and down and nothing else. She did this all around taking equal sections and as she got closer to the top and there was not much left to cut since we were aiming for a 'one length' hairstyle, she took slightly larger sections as there was less to cut and therefore it was easier to handle.

We then were able to this on our own dolly in which I followed the exact way kanika showed us and over all I was pretty successful. Here is a picture of the final product. Going from 'stringy' hair towards the ends to a nice healthy one length cut.

After this step she then showed us how to give the front some shape by 'layering' the front (fringe) U section. She brushed out the front section forward and took a smaller section at a time, combing it through and then lining her finger straight and cutting diagonally to create layers. She pointed out that the reason she is not just placing her finger diagonally and then cutting by following that line is because each section might end up different as you won't get the exact diagonal line. Whereas if you are always keeping your finger straight and then cutting diagonally to meet the tip of your finger, for the most part, it will all be nicely equal.

I am pleased with the result. I feel like it really did make a difference to my dolly's hair as before I found it hard to style whereas now it has more shape and looks nicer when styled. So then after all this we were able to practice our straight blow-dries which we did. I used a large brush as I tried a small, medium and large in order to see which works best for me and my dolly's her and I felt like the larger one held the hair tighter and therefore helped me grip it more which meant I got it as straight as I wanted it to be. I managed the straight blow-dry quite well however I now have to practice on my time as I want to learn how to do it quicker. Kanika then advised us that it would be nice to add in some flicks to see the shape of the new front layers we created. I decided that I wanted to flick the bottoms (front and back) slightly outwards. This gave it some more 'life' and made it look more texturised. Here is a photo below -

Finally, to add some volume I decided to add some hot rollers at the front of the hair. 3 red hot rollers on each side of the middle parting. I left them in only for around 3 minutes as it was the end of the lesson however when I removed them, I loved the result. I brushed them through and this gave the over all look the perfect volume at the top and slight wave. Below is a picture of my final result :)

Over all, I loved this lesson and feel like I have already improved and I can't wait to learn new techniques and styles.