Hairdressing Courses

While styling hair, there are some important factors that you need to remember. First, you need to understand that different hairstyles suit different face cuts. Measure you client’s face, and decide if it is oval, sqaure, round or heart shaped. Then consider the hair type. Determine whether its straight, curly,wavy or kinky. Next is the hair texture. This can be fine,medium or thick. Once you have all these prerequisites sorted, you can begin to style.

Here are a few do’s and donts in hairstyling of some common face shapes:

· Oval Face:  Styles that suit this shape  are short, full bobs with a fringe, angular bobs, long waves, blunt bangs etc. Avoid adding short layers on top of the head. Avoid blunt cuts for curly or thick hair. Weigh down curly hair by keeping them till the shoulder.

· Square Face: Your  concern with a sqaure face will be to play down the strong jaw. Choppy ends, curls do the work. Give long hair layers beginning at the chin. Use bangs for a softer look. Opt for slight slanted layers at the front. Dont create bobs that end at the jaw, and blunt clipped bangs are unsuitable.

· Round Face: With round faces, focus on reducing the volume. For this, you need to add length and height to the hair. Gradual, soft layers and styles ending just under the chin are good options. Tapered ends reduce the roundness. Dont create chin length styles, blunt cuts, as these add to the volume.

· Heart Face: Draw attention towards the cheekbones and eyes with brow grazing fringes and sideswept bangs. Chin length bobs work well. Keep volume at the back nape. With short hair, use soft top layers. Avoid creating styles that are very short and have choppy layers. Also,lot of height at the crown makes the chin appear narrower.

Damaged hair can be identified from its brittleness, dullness, and frizz content. The hair may also be hard to control. There are a number of reasons for hair damage. Some of them are frequent hair coloring, hairstyling with irons, hair dryers, insufficient diet, prolonged exposure to the sun, etc. Even brittle combs or brushes can do a lot of damage to hair. Over conditioning or excessive shampooing can be also disastrous.

To identify damaged hair, look for these signs:

· Extremely porous scalp.

· Rough texture of hair.

· When put into water,the hair sinks to the bottom.

· Feels dry,coarse and brittle on touching.

· Breaks easily, has no elasticity.

Few most visible signs, like rough texture, dryness  can help you identify and gauge the amount of damage the hair has borne. These are usually caused by damage to the cuticle of the hair shaft. You can smoothen the cuticle by using ph-balanced conditioners, which are also protein enhanced and restore moisture back into the hair. This way, the hair shaft is also protected from any more damage. When dealing with damaged hair, it is critical to treat the hair with a moisture laden conditioning treatment every week. Also, when styling damaged hair, use a light leave in conditioner.
When you are dealing with damaged hair, you also need to check the elasticity of the hair. If your client’s hair has broken ends and shorter hair strands, chances are that the hair have lost their elasticity. This kind of damaged hair is even susceptible to breakage. They can be treated by using a protein rich conditioner and also a protein treatment every week. This strengthens the cuticle and the hair shaft.

If you are joining a hairdresser’s course, make sure that it teaches you how to deal with damaged hair of all types as this is a very common problem in both, men and women.

Hair coloring is one of the most commonly used hair treatments. The color of our hair is the result of a pigment called melanin.You can color hair in only three ways-make it darker, lighter, or change to a different color. Hair coloring agents are of four types, temporary, permanent, semi permanent dyes and permanent dyes.

There are three methods of hair coloring

· All over:This method is done when you want to entirely change your hair color. Unlike highlights, coloring the hair all over will give the hair an even look. Hair such colored require a touch up every four to eight weeks. For straight hair, use translucent colors. With wavy hair, use  color toners with a clear gloss treatment.This helps in adding shine and depth. For curly hair all over, avoid using opaque colors.

· Highlighting using Foils:This method involves adding strands of color to the hair. You need to separate strands that are to be colored from the rest of the hair. For straight hair, avoid using too many highlights, this will only end up creating a crowded effect. Same is the technique with wavy hair, but carefully gauge the thickness of weaves you chose for coloring. With curly hair too, make sure the separated strands are in proportion to the others.

· Highlighting using Baliage: This is basically a hair painting method. The stylist sweeps the color onto a few strands or chunks of hair with a lot of control and precision. For coloring straight hair, use a thin brush to paint the hair on the surface layers. Wavy hair should be handled carefully, as you need to decide the thickness of the painted hair to be balanced. Curly hair are well suited to baliage, since it helps the colorist in apllying the color where reflection is maximum and improve the hair’s natural appearance.

The first lesson you will learn at any hairdressing school is that everybody has hair of different textures, types and feels. You, therefore cannot handle the hair of any two individuals in the same manner.  Between curly and straight hair, curly hair is more diverse and varied. It appears in  different forms. While some people can have hair that is wavy, others can have loose to tight coils. Texture of hair can be determined by the shape and size of the hair follicle, which is genetic. The deciding factors of whether the hair is curly, straight, or wavy, is how the hair’s shape as it grows, and the distribution of keratin cells at the roots. The colour of the hair also decides what texture the hair is. As a rule, people with blond hair have finer hair, and those with red hair have the thickest.

Professionally, hair texture has been classified into three types-’fine’, ‘coarse’ and ‘medium’. Fine hair can be both, strong or weak. But every kind of fine hair has one common characteristic, it has little volume. Having the smallest circumference, fine hair can be processed and over processed quite easily. One disadvantage of fine hair is that it is very sensitive to chemical treatments, and may also suffer damages due to them. True to its name, ‘medium’ hair is neither very thick, nor very thin. It is strong, elastic, and has a medium sized circumference.  Medium hair can be easily managed, and are not easily harmed by chemical or thermal procedures. Easy to process, this texture is also the most commonly found. Coarse hair is characterized by thick circumference of the follicle, abundant, and feels rough to the touch. It also lacks elasticity in itself. Though it is the strongest, coarse hair is frizzy and difficult to process using perms and relaxers.