Our second day of education at the Sassoon Academy in London was even better than the first! Again, we had the fabulous Yolly ten Koppel to coach us through the Pivot Point Design Forum hair sculptures. Although the steps seemed impossible to achieve, Yolly explains everything so clearly that, even with a class of 45, there are no questions at the end of her demo! She really is fantastic--it's no surprise she's won so many educator awards. With her again were Karen, Elina and Ronald. What a great group of people.

We began our day with a discussion on retailing in the salon. Yolly gave some interesting insight into initiating the retail conversation with clients--and asked all of us for our input based on our own experiences. Turns out, client retention is almost directly related to retailing--the service just isn't complete without the offer of a product at the end. Yolly encouraged all of us to always recommend, as the professional, appropriate products for our clients and offered up some good tips.

The first hair sculpture we executed looked incredibly intimidating when we first began our education. Our structure graphic illustrating the hair design was intense! The nape consists of subtle increase-layered lengths. Low graduation is sculpted in the lower back and fringe areas. The upper back and top are increase layered. Graduation is sculpted along curved lines at the sides. Once we got going on the demo, all the pieces started coming together and my excitement to begin was soaring.



When I'm back in school at my campus, I don't feel I have that natural, raw talent that a few of the people in each class have. I have to work hard to get good at the trade--it's work I REALLY enjoy, but it's definitely hard. There's something about learning here in London that deeply inspires me. I was to cut off all my hair--color it a deep, rich color. I want to learn to speak French and go buy a new wardrobe. This city is so full of life. I love learning here.

Once we head back to the classroom to begin our own cuts, it's an entirely different experience than it is back at my home campus. I feel so much more creative here. I feel so much more confident and less afraid of making a mistake--or as Yolly calls it, a learning experience.

Then, Elina taught us how to use just a blow dryer and a vent brush to create finger wave-esque styling techniques on our newly-sculpted head. It was so cool! This is definitely a technique I plan to use on updos. I once had a conversation with Ted Gibson at America's Beauty Show and asked his advice for students--he said "Learn your fingerwaves! They're a pain in the butt, but that style is on it's way back!" He was right! So happy to learn a new technique for them!



Then, Yolly walked us through the next cut--which was extremely edgy and very cool. It was a short, modern look with longer graduated lengths and increased layers in the interior overlap with short, graduated and uniform lengths in the exterior. Every where I look in London and in edgier cities, there are long tails left in the hair--along with overlapping strands on top of shorter lengths. I love it. Sassoon Academy has framed photos of this style of hair on its walls. It's SO inspiring. I didn't have much time to style my last 'do, as I spent a lot of time razoring my tails and overlaps, but here's a finished shot. I really love the look!

It was such a great day and I feel so happy here. There's a trip to Tokyo in November--I would just bend over backward to go on it. Can you even imagine how inspirational Tokyo would be?! I feel so fortunate to have this opportunity and am so happy I can share my experience with you! Thanks for reading!!