Fake it 'til you make it

"Do you know how to...," The answer to that question is always yes, well unless I don't even think I can fake it that I know what I am doing. Or if I just don't like doing whatever it is that you are asking me to do. But don't be scared, after almost seven years of styling the likes of Rockford and the surrounding areas, I know how to do pretty much everything.

How could I not?

In beauty school they always love to throw the phrase "Fake it 'til you make it" around, which I pretty much think is bull honky! If you are paying $13,000 or more and spending at least 1,500 hours in a building of higher education then there should be no faking involved. I should be able to do mico-braids just as well as a girl who has been doing them her ENTIRE life, yet I can't even accomplish a feasible corn roll.




Yet it is true. There is not enough hours in a day for the educators to teach you everything you will ever need to know once you get out on your own in the salon. Its scary, your first day without a teacher over your shoulder, a peer in dispense, or other students in the station next to you to bounce ideas off and figure it all out.

Over the years I have concluded that it takes a special type of person to make it in the salon industry. You must like people, because you deal with them all day every day. You must be able to agree with someone who is clearly wrong, because every Tom, Dick, and Nancy thinks they know exactly how you should do their hair and explain it in professional lingo (or what they think they learned on Shear Genius, What not to Wear, or Tabitha's Salon Takeover). You must be creative, because people love you to use their head as a canvas. You must have patience, because clients and other stylists will get on your every nerve. Lastly you must love, with every ounce of your being, what you do... or it will never work in the long run.

Truthfully though, you must fake it 'til you make it. I didn't have any idea how to fade until my old friend Joey let me cut his hair, I was confident in my skills and knew I would get it right! How hard could it be really? I didn't want him to see me sweat about how I had never cut a guy's hair before in my life... Well, lets just say that Joey's haircut ended up lasting him a few extra weeks than usual, and even 7 years later he has still not let me cut his hair again.

P.s. thanks to my cousin Abby for the inspiration!