Every now and then, someone prominent says something that couldn’t be better for the salon industry if I’d scripted it myself. This happened recently during a CNN interview with fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, who made his name in haute couture before designing a line of clothing for Target and, more recently, for Liz Claiborne.

The CNN reporter asked Mizrahi what he observed as the most common style error when he was just walking down the street. “I see a lot, a lot, a lot of bad hair,” Mizrahi replied. “You know people have excuses for bad shoes—because you know some people have back problems...and they're walking and walking and walking. But I do think that people have no excuse for bad hair. Because you know what? There’s a hat, if your hair is really that bad that day. But I always think that women should be encouraged to spend a lot of money on their hair. It’s like you should spend your most money...on your hair. You’d think I had a chain of hair salons, but I don’t.”

Maybe you should print up part of the quote, frame it and hang it at your station! It’s so true that no matter how expensive or trendy her outfit, an unflattering or even just uninteresting hair style, and especially bad hair color, can undermine a woman’s whole image. But if you post the quote, take some hair classes to make sure you can live up to new expectations!

I have some great news for you from my friend, Kathy Jager, a dedicated hair professional who serves on the board of Cosmetologists Chicago, is the author of As the Chair Turns...Tips & Snips of Advice for Your Journey Behind the Chair and promotes education in all forms whenever she can. As part of her “Education Rocks” campaign, Kathy is now offering a scholarship of $250 toward cosmetology school or continuing hair education. You’re already eligible, and on modernsalonlearning $250 goes very far!

To participate, go to www.kathyjager.com, register, click on “message boards” and post your entry that explains why you want to take more education and how you might use the scholarship money. One set of message boards is for students, and the other is for licensed professionals. While the students have been posting their scholarship wishes, on the professionals’ side you may have to start it as a new topic because so far no one has asked for the scholarship.

Kathy will announce the winner on June 1. I asked her how she will choose among what I expect to be many worthy applicants. “I want to offer some help for passionate individuals interested in advancing their career,” Kathy told me. “This is about a dream they have for themselves. I will personally decide on the recipient. This is my contribution to my profession, and I believe from reading their entries I will know who is deserving of the scholarship.” Good luck to all applicants from modernsalonlearning.com!

Did you celebrate Earth Day yesterday? I like the annual reminder to take care of our planet. So it makes me feel good that this blog is dedicated not only to the worthy topic of continuing hair education, but to paperless hair education. Sure, you can print out the diagrams from our site, but you also can avoid using any paper at all by just following along on the video. Practice the cut, color or style enough times, and you’ll own it without leaving a paper trail.

At the salon, you have lots of ways to go green. After a blogging hairdresser at shineforth.wordpress.com convinced her manager to place separate bins in the break room for trash, plastic/glass and paper, everyone started using them. “The hair color boxes are being recycled instead of ending up in the trash,” she writes. Staffers bring in their own coffee cups and lunch bowls, and the manager asked product lines to please limit the amount of paper they use in shipping product.

“There are still issues to work out, like light bulbs [and] toxic cleaning sprays,” the blogger continues. “As I highlight clients’ hair, I am more sensitive to the waste produced by all the foils. Could I offer less toxic means of coloring the hair? Can one person’s actions change all that much? Probably not, but what else do we have but living our own truth? I‘ve got to be able to live with myself and my choices.”

I was having a lovely chat with Diego Raviglione when he made a statement that, I admit, shook me up a little. An artistic presence for years with Redken, Joico and Graham Webb, Diego is now thoroughly enjoying his post as creative director of three California beauty schools, including the often praised Bellus Academy of Hair Design in Poway. Committed to hair education as I am, I was hanging on Diego’s every word when he announced: “Trend is completely irrelevant.”

This was hard for me to hear, because I love trend. When Jennifer Aniston showed up on TV with her Rachel pouf, when Gwyneth Paltrow launched a run on flat, extra-long extensions, when Victoria Beckham got bobbed—that signaled to me that salons were in for a healthy dose of women piling in to own the white-hot look. But Diego feels that instead of jumping on a bandwagon, each woman should rely on her hairdresser’s artistry customized just for her.

“We have become a society obsessed with media, looking outwardly for what we should be doing,” Diego told me. “And yet if you ask 50 hairdressers what’s going on, you’ll get 50 different answers. We have to arm ourselves with strong technical ability and then look within ourselves. Chasing something that has no substance to it—Paris Hilton cut her hair so everyone should—is so creatively damaging to what we do. Hair design is a true artform, and what’s been missing is the individualization of the artist.” Do you agree?

The word “cute” has always been on my radar. For one thing, I consider it a uniquely female term. I can’t picture a man exclaiming, “That outfit is so cute!” And I’ve long marveled at the way it follows women throughout adulthood. A middle-aged available woman finds her 60-year-old coworker just as “kinda cute” as her high school boyfriend was 40 years earlier. But what does this have to do with hair education?

MSN.com recently ran a story on the popularity of “cute” as a search engine word. Apparently people go online in droves to search for cute baby and animal pics, cute quotes, cute jewelry—cute kitchen appliances? Yes. And men do use the word liberally when they’re searching for cute girls. So search for “cute hairstyles” and, as you can imagine, you get dozens of pages of links.

You know who your cute-obsessed clients are. They were the first to collect beanie babies, they wear lots of theme sweatshirts and they keep tear sheets of photo spreads featuring kittens. You can use this to your advantage and, if you personally relate to cuteness, all the better. First, use the word appropriately but often in describing the look you want to give them—cute bangs, cute springy waves, a cute way to tie their hair back. “Highlights just around your face can make you look really cute!” Then follow up with ideas that may fall short of sophistication or high-fashion but are the cat’s meow when it comes to “cute.”

Here at the Learning By Heart blog I talk a lot about the value of online hair education and continuing training in general. But there’s another piece that goes hand-in-hand with education, and that’s inspiration. Cosmetologists who are passionate about their work and motivated to get behind the chair every day tend not only to participate in tangible activities like attending classes and following technical instruction, but also to mine intangible sources for golden benefits. Walking through a colorful flower garden, viewing a geometric art exhibit or leafing through a vintage fashion magazine can fuel the creative engine and reignite the fire you felt when you first became a professional.

Every now and then something lands in my email box that I want to share with you. Not long ago educator, salon owner and product manufacturer Philip Pelusi sent me a youtube link to his video, “Philip Pelusi—When Art Collides” (click on the title to watch it).  The seven-minute video follows Pelusi’s team as they do hair and makeup for a fashion event. But what I really like are the quotes that accompany the images. These are words from people outside the beauty industry that address the general topic of art. I believe it will inspire you to remember that, as a hairdresser, you are an artist. Nothing less.

So check it out and let me know what you think. If you come across effective videos that offer inspiration or hair education, let me know that, too!

Excuse the title; playing with words and alliteration is as fun for me as playing with hair is for you! I would imagine that one of your favorite playgrounds is your guest’s forehead. Fringe was everywhere at the trade show I attended, and whether the hair courses you’re taking are in cutting or in coloring, fringe factors into the equation. Plus it’s an always-reliable quick fix for clients who want something new but are not ready to commit to a major change.

You may be finding that clients are getting braver about showing flashes of bright colors like blue, fuschia and orange, and the fringe area is an obvious place for them to display a band of boldness. Or, some clients who can’t decide whether to be red, blonde or brunette can choose one of those for their fringe and another for the rest of their hair. If the bangs are swept to the side, finer highlights can look really beautiful.

The cutting options are endless. Straight across, asymmetrical, heavy, wispy, choppy, textured—nothing is off-limits for clients looking for fresh (h)air in springtime. Check out the InStyle website for celebrities showing a lot of great options for different face shapes. In fact, this selection of shots is worthy of printing out to show your guests or, if you have a laptop handy, just play the slide show for them. An offer to trim fringe between appointments at no charge is a nice gesture to your clients in this economy.

Not to get all philosophical on you, but as I walked around America’s Beauty Show (ABS), I was struck by the obvious: the entire salon industry—the services, the product and equipment sales, the hair education—is generated by people’s, mostly women’s, simple desire to look as good as they can. Alone, proper grooming and flattering hair do not make us happy. But when we pursue the things that do bring happiness—romance, employment, even friendship—an attractive appearance puts us at an advantage, partly just because it gives us confidence. We all like feeling great about ourselves. And to respond to anyone who complains about the shallowness of society today, I believe that looking good has been important to people throughout history in every corner of the earth.

So there you hair stylists stand as the guards at the Look Damn Good gate. You let in absolutely everyone, and you send them out smiling, ready to tackle their challenges, triumphs and adventures. You help the world go ’round.

I guess I did end up getting all philosophical on you. Like you, I’m passionate about the industry. I don’t mind sounding like a groupie when I express my admiration for the people in this profession. To me, it is not an overstatement to say: Hairdressing is a unique career, because those of you who choose to do hair have the opportunity to express your individual creativity every day while directly, immediately and powerfully inspiring and impacting the lives of the people you touch.

From the creative end, this is a really exciting time to be a hairstylist because, as I was reminded by observing the hair education taking place at America’s Beauty Show (ABS), the story of today’s hair revolves around texture. No matter what the topic of the hair class you’re taking, texture is the ultimate focus.

• Cutting. Today there’s not a hair length that’s out of style. From pixie to waist-long, hair can end wherever the client chooses and still be trendy. Besides cropping length, of course, cutting removes weight in selected places. And what is that really? That’s creating texture. Learn how to expertly uses shears and razors to change texture, and you’ll retain your clientele.
• Coloring. Color adds weight, which eliminates the powderiness of aging hair, and even women who embrace their gray want shine and sleekness. That’s always been one side of the color/texture connection. But today, the focus is on color placement. By customizing the foiling and baliage design to each cut, colorists alone can make hair appear thicker, denser, wispier, straighter or curlier. If you have the skills to make this happen, even your consultation becomes exciting.
• Finishing. The newest tools are amazing, and you can use them with the precisely right product in multiple, innovative ways that crease, uncrease, slim down and bulk up hair to offer clients many style options from one cut. And don’t forget hair extensions; they’re a godsend for the right client. Learn it all, because clients want it all!