My Chemical Romance: Beauty School Diary

In our 11th week of beauty school at Pivot Point, we're diving head first into chemicals-and loving it!
Watching the texture transform before my eyes is so cool-a chemical service can completely alter the overall look of a client.

We began our chemical venture with perming, covering both ammonia thioglycolic and glycerol monothioglycolate. Man, perms smell gnarly!! But it's really fun to do!


The fabulous Ms. Marie giving a demo of a perm wrap.

The history of perming and chemical services is almost as interesting as actually learning how to do perms. Perms have been around forever-dating back to ancient cultures when Egyptians would wrap their hair around wooden sticks, apply mud from hot springs and then bake it in the sun. The first real breakthrough in the history of perming was in 1905, when Charles Nessler introduced his heat permanent waving machine.

For us, the first perming technique we learned was the Overlap Technique, perfect for short-to-medium lengths, for a curl result with mobility, medium volume at the base and strong end curl.


The overlap technique on a Mohawk mannequin, for practice.

Then we learned how to do the Rectangle Pattern, using the overwrap technique. I really like this one!! It's structured and organized. We used roller pins as stabilizers.


The Rectangle Pattern perm wrap.

Here, we learned how to do a Contour Wrap, using the overlap technique, a very versatile and effective wrap that just switched up the wrapping techniques to create variation. While it's really time efficient-I ended up wrapping my rods toward the face, instead of away, and had Miss Marie laughing so hard she was almost on the ground. It's HARD to remember which way to wrap! Well, at least for a beginner like me.


Yours truly with my SWEET contour wrap : ) She's backward and beautiful.

Then we learned the Spiral Pattern, using the spiral technique, perfect for clients with longer lengths, to create consistent spiral curls along the lengths of the strand, while minimizing visual length reduction.


The Spiral Pattern perm wrap.

Next, we start on relaxers!! Ammonia Thioglycolate and Sodium Hydroxide here I come!

As always, thanks for your continued support!!

Alison
xoxox