Day 37 ~ Brushed Copper & Aluminum ~ 9/11/13

Cosmetology School Journal ~ Day 37 ~ Brushed Copper & Aluminum ~ 9/11/13

Hair Today: I put a small red band on my tail. Then I put a red (over the small one), then blue, then yellow scrunchie on at the nape. Then along the length I staggered a red then blue then yellow small band. I was doing the Primary color theme.

Today is September 11th. For that I posted this to FB in the morning
"Good Morning Family
Hugs and Mugs
I will always remember.
Where was I? I was in bed sleeping my life away because I had left school.
I live my life to make the world a better place. I cherish and remember all those who did the same.
We can all do the same together. Love you all  
Try to smile today"

As I was grabbing my keys and such to leave I could not find my wallet. I looked up and down this area where it could have been but it hadn't fallen down and it wasn't in or under my chair. It wasn't in my car. I didn't buy anything yesterday so I had no reason to take it out while at school. The only thing I could figure is that it may have come out when i grabbed my phone from my pocket. Which was scary because I took that walk yesterday to the corner of the shopping center. No one had turned a wallet in at school when I got there. There was a possibility it could have fallen out of my pocket when I crouched down to wipe some water under the shampoo sink. But it could have been picked up along the shopping strip and dropped off at any of those stores too. So I got to school after dropping my niece off late to her school. I was still on time to mine because there's a slight time cushion. So I found out that no one had found a wallet and just went about the day. What could I do? I found it in my under the desk shelf when I got home. I don't know why it was there. I've never put it there. I must have moved it off my tray up and into there.

The day got started with a few announcements and then we did the Building Your Future segment on communication and diversity. Mrs J was asking if we'd ever been to another state or country. And a few other things were sorta discussed. As this was happening Mrs. Sherri was pulling us about to move on students in to her office to go over our progress reports to see if we had everything finished we needed.

This is 8/26 vs 9/10 progress

99.89% then / 99.92 yesterday
178 hours / 248
I've done 12 out of 12 in my Academics (Quizzes and Rubrics passed) Then
I am 16 of 19 as of yesterday but 3 of those are tomorrow.
89% academic score then / 91 % now, thanks to a couple 100%s
224 of 149 Practical Services then / 278 of 210 now

Of what I should have by this week (first column I've done, second I need)
21 of 11 - Hair Cutting - 75 min for graduation
44 of 30- Hair Styling - 330 min for graduation
4 of 9 - Hair Coloring - (Did 3 today and supposed to do 2 tomorrow)
4 of 3 - Nail Care - 85 min for graduation
5 of 7 - Skin Care - 40 min for graduation (Can do these the next 2 weeks before I reach 350 hours)
189 of 140 - Misc - 595 min for graduation

In other words I have not missed a day and have not been late so I have what I should have. Time has not been wasted. I am not behind. This time I'm not just good at theory. I've been taught. Its just the basics but its a good quality of basics.
I found out that for the next 4 week rotation when I'm in Rehersal class I have Mrs C and Mrs J will be on the floor. I have to say I like that news so far. Plus I'll have Mrs L and Mrs V on the floor as well.

When I got back it was right before break and we started to set up for applying colesterol as color.
After break we did practise timing first on this color retouch of just the new growth area. This is how far I got in 15 minutes.

Then we did a virgin application which is only the middle of the strand and not the roots or ends. I got the back sections done in 15 minutes. No picture of that one though. I did the retouch on Ameri. I did the virgin on Penelope 2 with longer hair.

After lunch we were going to be mixing color somehow. We had the option of working on a manikin or having our own hair colored or coloring someone. I chose to do something with Penelope 1 with her shorter hair. It was between her and Ben. But I was looking at the way her hair was curving around her face and it was just giving me ideas. I was picturing being able to do different colors in different lines of it. I thought of flames. But I also wanted something I could get done in the time given because if it needed a lightening and then a color after that I may not have pulled it off since I have 0 experience doing that much in a small window. It took like an hour the other day to get that little strand to lighten up. I was looking at her darker level 5 hair at the brown color and it kinda hit me that I could try different shades of copper from shiny Penny to dark Penny. So on lunch I posted this "When I get back from this walk Penelope is going to become the Penny she should be. — feeling determined."
Honestly I was scared out of my wits and was still hoping to find my wallet. So I took my walk and played my music.

After lunch I fumbled about and waited my turn to ask questions about how I could accomplish what I wanted. Instead of mixing color Mrs J said to just try what we did the other day with the bleach. Part of me was dissappointed because I wanted to pick out a color to get that experience. But at the same time I was glad to be about to try something I hadn't done. So I sectioned her out into what I would describe as a sunbeam pattern. Like star points but curved like a sun drawing.  I had 7 sections. They were something like this picture and I applied the 20 volume peroxide and bleach to just the very front hairline using foils to keep each section seperate and off the dark hair. I was trying to stagger like this to try to have different shades and processing times to get the random coppers. This picture is the after picture.

So is this one

This is at home after I gave her a shampoo to be sure I had the bleach out. In this picture the hair looks the way I intended it as far as a copper color. I want to get a natural light picture also because it may be more yellow blonde than this. I had the bleach on for about 35 minutes total. I removed it in the same order as application. Each section had about 15-20 minutes.

Pam on FB says that I have skills. Honestly this is not quite what I had intended but it at least has some copper to it which was my goal. This may be better than what I saw in my mind. I basically invented my own procedure. But it scared the wits out of me to get going. I was trying to figure out if I was going to use a different volume of peroxide for different sections. I originally had more hair per section and I then sliced out just the very front of it. I wanted the bleach to be able to get at the hair yet still use the foils.

I responded to Pam with this "I was going to debate you a bit Pam on my skills but I am looking at a picture that I did accomplish on my own. It has a cut I did and the color results are mine. It was a guessing game as to how to accomplish either one but she's in that picture smiling so I must have done something right."

I'm also looking at a blow dry I did. I don't think any magazines would be posting this picture. But I like it. My mind and hands did it. My fear was brushed away and decolorized. It was thrown away in crumpled bits of aluminum foil and replaced with shiny copper. Positively Penny.

Day 36 ~ Foiled Again ~ 9/10/13

Cosmetology School ~ Day 36 ~ Foiled Again ~ 9/10/13

Today's Hair:
I was going to do a higher sock bun but I gave it a few tries and ran out of time. So I put my fuzzy pink scrunchie on my tail. Then I put a clip on pink bow above it. Then I put one of my old terry cloth bands on the end.

We started the day with Mrs J talking about color mixing and showing us the scale and beaker and some of the Wella tubes of color.
After break we went over the state laws some more. Then we re-watched the Linda video on doing a mohawk sectioned foils. We then got set up so we could do practical after lunch. I don't know what it is but watching that video was putting me into a doubt fog. Even though I had done some foils yesterday. I just couldn't shake the old feelings. Something about watching that made me have those feelings of I don't belong again. It almost seems silly but something about it was nagging me. Eh whatever........

During lunch my phone wouldn't load FB so I figured I'd go for one of those walks I'd meant to take before the weather got cold so I walked all the way to the corner of the shopping center and back. I was still able to get Youtube to load so my songs were playing.

So I came back from Lunch all charged up and ready to go. And I just calmly started putting some foils in. Its just a procedure. You section hair. You either take a solid strand or you weave out more individual strands. You fold the top of the foil back over your metal tail and slide it in under the hair at the scalp. You hold the hair with tension and apply your product. It will then make the hair grab on to the foil so you can then put your holding hand under the foil. Then you can brush more on. Then you softly fold it so its still an airy pillow to allow for processing. There's a tiny bit more to it but that's the basics. Nothing I needed to be afraid of. Its just been 13 years of waiting to try it. So I worked my way around carefully and got to try most of the sections / areas. Then it was break time.

After break we watched Linda again to learn the Diagonal version of foils. In this one you use 4 sections. Then you slice out diagonal sections from those and work your way up the head until you have a diamond shape meeting at the top. The mohawk version has the head sectioned more like a perm wrap with a section going down the middle from front to back. And then 2 sections on each side. Then you make a small section in that mohawk at the middle of the top for having some pivoting strands like this / | \

So that got us to the end. We had the option of using actual bleach or lightener for the diagonal but I decided to stick with the colesterol cream. I wanted to focus on learning the foils and not be focusing on what was happening to the hair yet. Plus I don't want to just randomly change bits of hair yet on the manikins. I want to color them with some sort of plan for a change when I do.

Here's the Mohawk and then the Diagonal. Note: In the real process I'm supposed to do all the back first and then move to the sides. I forgot about that because I was trying to just get experience doing each area. Different areas involve holding things at different angles or having to tilt the head certain ways. I need to learn that. I'd rather have it be awkward now and figure out how to hold it better than have to struggle on people.

Mohawk on Ameri from home. Diagonal on Penelope with longer hair than the other Penelope.

Day 35 ~ Fillers & Folded Foil Fun ~ 9/9/13

Cosmetology School Journal ~ Day 35 ~ Fillers & Folded Foil Fun ~ 9/9/13

Today's Hair: I wore my black & white polka dot bow band that I wore back on 7/30. I only had one band on the ends instead of the two from this older picture from then.

We started today by going to the salon floor for some announcements. That took a while.
Then we came back and we played some games to review for the quizzes. We had 1 today and another later this week. We played a Jeopardy game, a Pyramid game, and a few more. During the game the other team had a question that i couldn't guess about evening porosity. Turns out it was Filler.

After break we watched Linda's video on doing a retouch of color on the new growth.
According to my old client log notebook  from Virginia Farrell I did the following:
12/7/00 - Tint Retouch & wet set
2/21/01 - Tint & set (I assume I wrote that as I did her whole strands not just a retouch)
3/2/01 - Tint & set
3/3/01 - Tint & set
3/7/ 01 - Tint & set
3/8/01 - Took over to wash out tint.
3/22/01 - Tint Retouch
3/24/01 - Fanciful Rinse - Just a temporary color rinse that shampoos out.
5/26/01 - Tint & set

I didn't realize I had done that much color wise. Plus I had my friend over back then for a box color.
The procedure for the retouch is basically the same as a relaxer retouch. Only slight differences.
I did my retouch using Naomi. I figured I had enough practise with doing the relaxer that I might as well give her another turn.

After lunch I had a couple bits of the right side left to brush on and then it was time to rinse her out and set up for trying foils. First we watched Linda' video. Then Mrs J demo'd. I was using longer haired Penelope.
I tried one and then I was having trouble figuring out how to hold the hair and the foil at the same time and getting the tint brush with the other hand so I asked Mrs J to tell me what I was doing wrong. She helped out with 2 foils and then i figured out that I wasn't pinning the hair down with my hand the way I was seeing earlier. So I did a few more practise ones. We were doing what's called the Mohawk sections and we were weaving as if doing highlights.

After break we did some last minute review for the quiz, took the quiz. This was the theory portion today. The next is on application. I got.................100% of the 20 questions. Thankfully that Filler question was part of the games earlier in the day or I'd have missed 2. I finished the day by giving Naomi and Penny a quick blow dry so they'd be ready tomorrow in case I needed a dry haired manikin. I brought Ben and the other Penny home and right now they are wet from shampooing out their gel. They had been in my locker for 4 weeks since the pin curls and Ben's hair wrap around the head. I have Reese at home right now too with her spiral curls from taking out her spiral perm / wet set. I'll probably take Ameri with me tomorrow as another dry hair for doing foils on. Kinda insteresting since she has been colored previously by her other stylist.

Over the weekend I went to war with my timer. The rehersal rubric for perms says 45 minute time to beat.
I did 1hr and 13 minutes on thursday.
Friday: 55 minutes, 48 min, 48 min
Saturday: 48, 47, 47, 46, 48
Sunday: 45 minutes (Not beaten yet because its not under 45) This picture is that last wrap.
I restocked my perm papers during Lunch today so I'll be continuing this.

Day 34 ~ Enlightened Developements ~ 9/6/13

Day 34 ~ Enlightened Developements ~ 9/6/13

Today's Hair
Purple Baubles. 2 of them

Today is Friday so we went out to the salon floor for celebrations. I got another pink butterfly for 100% attendance. Should get another something next week too.
And then it was dance time. They played a different song this time and the ladies were doing a different dance that looked easier so I gave it a try. Kinda looked more like a Hokey Pokey dance. Then they played the other song and everyone sat down before it was over and I was like not done yet so I kept going a bit by myself.

The morning was all theory. We did some worksheets and worked on the state laws. Then after break we split into groups and each jotted down the key points about a certain type of haircolor: Temporary, Semi Permanent, Demi Permanent, Permanent. My group had Demi. Then we took our notes up to the flip chart and filled them in. Then one of us read it off.
Then we watched a DVD of a Regency grad who specializes in Makeup.

After Lunch Mrs J brought the big Wella color swatch book in to go over how to look up the color combos in it for finding what to mix.

Then after break we did test strands to see how many color levels from dark to light we could get a strand of hair to lighten using various volumes of peroxide developer.
I did the test strand with 30 Volume and bleach. This is after 60 and 65 minutes. Its a strand of some kids hair so it was virgin.

This is the color wheel I did yesterday. I took this picture with my phone and without the flash.

I timed a perm last night at home and I'm at 1 hour 13 minutes. I need to get down to 45 by the time I have the rubric in Rehersal, whenever that is. So I'm going to practise it some more this weekend. I'm going to keep using white rods and Deborah so I can maintain some consistancy.

Day 33 ~ Red & Blue Make Purple ~ 9/5/13

Cosmetology School Journal ~ Day 33 ~ Red & Blue Make Purple ~ 9/5/13

Today's Hair
My friend Pam sent me this African Butterfly clip. I just put it in as shown. Nothing fancy yet.

Today was the first of 6-7 days of Hair Color. So I'm basically on my last week of Workshop now.
Next Friday is my last day in the beginning class before moving on to Rehersal. Then it'll be about 2 more weeks until I reach the 350 hours minimum for servicing guests.

A short entry today
Today was the start of Hair Coloring Theory. We did that for the first half of the day.
Lots of theory. :)
I need to learn this this time. I can pass the quiz no problem but I need the practical knowledge to flow from my hands too. I get the color wheel and I understand the levels. It just gets confusing when they have a page with 3 different level scales and I need to know how to mix a color that's going to color the first one the color I'm going for yet not change the other one to something unwanted. Its one of those things where I can see myself doing just fine with it if I were doing it. But I need the colors in a bowl to apply to samples of hair to figure out what's going to happen. Until then its going to scare me. It gives me a braincloud. I was feeling it today. But its not the kind of fear I used to have. I know I'll be fine this time. I can apply it just fine. Or at least the ones I did get to do.

In the afternoon we split up to do color wheel poster boards. I had an idea in mind so I decided to just go ahead and do my own. Inspiration got to me LOL. If I remember I'll get a picture of it tomorrow. Its on the wall in the class room.
After that we went over some more client consultation. And that was it for the day.

Last night I finished the spiral wrap I started at school on Tuesday. So here's the rest of the rods put in.
I brought it today and asked Mrs. J if I did it right since I didn't really catch the whole video while I was wrapping the other day. She said I did a good job.

Day 32 ~ Winding Down Perms ~ 9/4/13

Cosmetology Journal ~ Day 32 ~ Winding Down Perms ~ 9/4/13

Today's Hair
The Butterfly

On Break "A" said this looked like a butterfly so that's what it is.
I just threw it together and took a picture.

Unless there is a change in curriculum plans due to the Monday / Labor Day today was supposed to be the last day for Perms and Relaxers for Workshop. The lineup for the day was to be the Quiz, Virgin Relaxer rubric, Relaxer Retouch rubric, and Basic Perm Wrap rubric. I thought we were also doing a Bricklay Perm rubric but that might have changed with the holiday. In any case I went in as prepared as I could. I brought two easier to wrap manikins from home with more even shorter hair. And I brought just about all my perm rods from home just in case I had to do both perms because I didn't want to have to take rods out of one to start the other.

We started the day by doing the last minute studying and then we took the quiz on perms and relaxers.
I got 100% of the 20 questions right this time. So not only am I happy with that but it will also bring my average up now that there's a 100 to top it out and get me at or above 90%.

When i arrived at school I was early enough to start setting up so since I was figuring on using Naomi for at least one of the relaxers I needed to wet down her wet set from the perm wrap I did on her the other day. So I lightly misted her with my spray bottle enough to break down the wet set and then brushed her out while blow drying. I then did the same to the other two manikins I brought from home since they also had wet sets from the perms I did over the weekend.

Turns out we only needed one manikin for both relaxers since we were doing half the head Virgin relaxer and half as a retouch. So I used Naomi for those and I passed the rubrics.

After lunch all we had left to do was the basic perm wrap rubric. I used Deborah since she has hair about 4 inches long and we were using smaller white rods. And while I was trying to time myself, this was a bit more serious so I was being careful with my wrapping. Plus the afternoon break stopped me in the middle anyway.
But I did finish and I passed and I'm satisfied with how I did. I'm more comfortable now with perms. Mrs J had to be out of the room for a little while during the perm wrap so Mrs E and Mrs L came in to watch us a bit and they both liked what I was wrapping so that helped my confidence a bit.

Part of what bothered me last time I was in school was when I would get a perm client there were so many services to go with that. There was a haircut that I usually didn't get to do all of because the instructor would finish it or do a lot of helping with. Then there was the perm wrap itself which took me forever. Its not so much that I'm slow. Its that I am going along steady but the time is flying faster than it seems. And I prefer quality over quantity. So I would take a while to finish the wrapping and then have the processing and rinsing etc which takes another 15-30 minutes. Then most of them wanted a wet set with rollers after that so that was another slow process of rolling for me and the drying time. So I'd be with the same client for most of the day and it would make me feel like I'd never get my speed up. The problem was a lack of motivation because I already felt like I wasn't going to succeed with all the issues I was dealing with. I wanted to practise at home but that didn't work either. For one thing, as I'm really finding out now, the manikins I had were not helping me any with the hair they had. Either the hair is not good or the advice to use fabric softener on them was not good. I have not used it on any of my new manikins nor do I need to. But Sequoia and Veronica both get gummy hair when its wet. I didn't have anything to help with that problem back then. It was a nightmare trying to section it. That's part of why I didn't get many practicals done in school on my free time either.

However, I still have them and I will keep them. I will accept the challenge of caring for them as I would if they were real clients with that same hair. It is because of that, that Veronica is sitting of to the side right now still full of white perm rods from Monday night.

I'm going to keep practising these and the roller sets at home. A few weeks ago it was about getting faster. It still is. But I'm enjoying them now. I'm looking forward to some nice conversations while I do some rolling and wrapping.

So unless there's more perms tomorrow its onward to color................

Thanks for reading
~ No Tangles~

Day 31 ~ Spiraling Upward ~ 9/3/13

Cosmetology Journal ~ Day 31 ~ Spiraling Upward ~ 9/3/13

Today's hair was a tail like this except just the top spiral pom pom was used.

I went with that because today was Spiral perm wrapping day and because I was just about out of time trying other things.

In the morning we started by totaling up our theory and practical hours for last month on our record sheets. Then we partnered up for practising perm consultations. It was basically the same as for relaxers and uses the same card / sheet but this time you mark off which kind of perm wrap, which kind of rods, and then choose the perm strength and type based on the hair type and condition.

We finished that after break and then we watched the Linda video on doing a spiral perm wrap. We watched just enough to get started with the nape area and then we went to work. We worked on them up to and after lunch and almost until second break.

After break we did some workbook theory review since the quiz is tomorrow. And then we were going to partner up and take turns doing parts of a Curl Reforming (Jherri Curl / Jherri Redding) perm on the demo manikin. This is where you straighten tight curls and then perm the hair on larger perm rods to make the hair into larger looser curls or waves. But time ran short and we only got as far as the relaxing to make it straight and rinsing that out. Tomorrow if there's time I might be taking my turn as one of the rod wrappers. But we have the quiz and 3 rubrics tomorrow so I'll be surprised if there's time for anything else. We do virgin relaxer, basic perm wrap, and bricklay perm wrap rubrics tomorrow. The set up alone for those takes all the time. Plus if anyone is going to use the same manikin for the relaxer and the perms they'll need to wash the colesterol conditioner out first which can take time if there aren't enough shampoo bowls available.

I had a bit of nostalgic bliss during the curl demo. One of the product jars had the lid off and the others were not liking the smell of it. I'm just sitting there reminiscing about when I used to not want to go to cosmetology school because that smell would bother me. I was actually happy to smell it again. It doesn't bother me at all anymore. Sure rotten egg smell stinks. But if that's the only thing in my way then it needs a better army. Its just another old friend to catch up with. Bring it on.

If anyone hasn't read my status on FB this past weekend I wrapped 3 basic perms for practise.

Here's today's spiral on Reese. This is as far as I got. I brought her home to finish it.

Thanks for reading
~ No Tangles ~