A Good, Trustworthy Place to Order Hair Shears

Hey, internet savvy hairdresser types. Sorry it’s been so quite lately… Life, you know how it is. I’m moving, most of my energy goes into work, had a number of side projects eating up my free time – Been recording the audiobook version of a friend and salon owner’s ebook, I tried making my own scissor pouch (Out of leather I cut out of an old trashed leather sofa I saw in a junkyard!), bought a ukulele… all sorts of distractions.

But I wanted to give my official bump to an online shear/accessory store I’ve dealt with a few times now. Precision Shears. Check it out if you’re in the market for shears. I really don’t know what to write about the store, I tried thinking of stuff but it sounded like the stupid customer testimonials you see on other websites. Plain and simple, every time I’ve dealt with Guy at Precision Shears I’ve been impressed, he really stands behind his store and the service he provides. And they always have the best prices on the things I want, which helps too.

And for the record, I’m definitely not being paid or bribed to promote them, I’m giving them my seal of approval because they really did impress me, and whenever anyone asks me where they should order shears from, I always recommend Precision Shears.

How good are they? Well, I ordered my Kasho shears from them, in the  States… When I live in the same city as the official Kasho importer for North America, because they have a better deal than I can get locally.

Anyways, there’s the second of my only two business endorsements. (The other being Hair Maven’s instructional DVD’s)

DJ Muldoon & Friends

Last night I witnessed a bona-fied event in the new world of hairdressing – DJ Muldoon, with two other stylists, doing a live class/demo/presentation and streaming it over the internet, Josh XO style!

I found it from a link a friend posted on Facebook, they found it from a link their friend posted on Facebook, and so on. I started watching immediately, told all my friends, and within 30 minutes everyone was watching – and 30 minutes after that Hairbrained.me had found out about it and put it on their front page.

Now that is some real social networking at play. It was very cool, and really made me feel like I’ve come to this industry at the perfect time. It’s all shifting, adjusting, and redefining – and it’s fun to be involved while it’s reconfiguring itself to what the industry will be in the future!

But all my blabbing aside, go here and click on archived videos to watch what they were broadcasting live last night.

DJ said at the end that they’re doing another class on the 27′th – hopefully it will be broadcast too!

Edmonton ABA

Hey folks! Went to the ABA in Edmonton (ABA is the largest hair show in Canada, for those who live in warmer places). Wandered around, forced myself not to spend too much, avoided the pushy salesmen selling crappy no-name bejeweled and colorful shears.

I didn’t bother taking too many pictures or videos, but I I liked a bit of what I saw at Tony Ricci’s stage and the Sebastian stage:

Moar Photoshooty Goodness

Click me to see full size!

I did another photoshoot with a friend when she came down from the “big city” last weekend. I’m not happy with how the photos turned out – tell me what you think?

I couldn’t cut her hair, only style it. If I could have cut her hair I would have fixed the symmetry and weight of her fringe.

Click me to view full size!

Also, that big split between her fringe and the rest of her hair in the second photo bothers me! And the whole thing imho lacks a concept. I was like:

“Ok, I don’t know what to do. I’ll just curl hair until I figure out what I’m doing”

15 minutes later:

“I still don’t know what to do, so I’ll just fluff up the curls while I figure out what to do.”

15 minutes later:

“I still don’t know what to do. I’ll just start taking pictures and something will come to me.”

/sigh

The lack of direction is obvious in both the hair and the photography. It’s bland and soulless, and I know I can do better! I just need to get better at expressing myself through air. If hair is a language, I can passably carry on a conversation with someone now, even if I have to run back to the dictionary every now and then. But I need to become fluent, and lyrical.

Actually being artistic is hard.

Photoshoot Numero Uno – and Website Update

Finished my first photoshoot for my website last night. I’m a bit hung over today, although I learned a lot of valuable things from the shoot last night:

#1. Don’t cut short hair in the kitchen wearing socks.

#2. Don’t invite friends that are silly.

My first model was a friend of mine, and I figured I’d invite another friend of mine over and we could all hang out while I cut his hair and do the shoot – WRONG!

My other friend (the one not modeling) spent the entire time trying to make my model move his head while I was cutting his hair. He would start conversations on things that my friend modeling was very opinionated on, and then argue with him so his head would move more while he talked! And then I told him to shut up or get out (things you can’t say when you’re working with people you don’t know), and he stopped talking as much but started tossing things at my model. It was crazy!

The haircut took twice as long because of it. haha

And then the photoshoot was insanely rushed and hard because of my friends goofing off. UGH. No more!

I ended up only having about 30 mins for the shoot  – that time includes setting up!

I didn’t get exactly the photos I wanted, due to my hyperactive friends goofing off, but I got a couple that look alright. Even if they look like they’re from a Sears catalogue. lol

Click to see full size!

Click for full size!

Also, I’m getting closer to having my site ready for launch. Give it a look if you like, and give me some feedback! Antimullet.com

It’s still pretty skeletal, and the photos on the site need to be replaced (hence the photoshoots I’m planning.) because those photos are from before I did hair, and I need something fresh and sexy-like to entice people with.

I’m still planning out what I should put on my site  – obviously the “about me” stuff, and the contact info, and a gallery of work… But I feel like it needs more. Maybe a blog? I don’t think I can bring this blog over to that site, because this is kind of backroom chat… not entirely kosher for the clients to hear. Not that there’s anything bad on this blog of course, but… you know. You don’t want your clients reading about how nervous you were when you tried _____, or how aweful the ________ turned out that you did last week!

*crickets*

Hey err’body!

I’m back!

Had a nice two weeks off, and started my new job apprenticing at Crop Hair Boutique, a Bumble & Bumble salon. It’s good, occasionally straining, and occasionally frustrating to not be able to do hair (mandatory 1-3 month assisting period).

So I’m trying to plan my ascension to awesome-ness while I’m mandatorily de-sheared. And I’ve come back to the idea of a website for myself.

Obviously I’ll have to learn to hit the mean streets and chat people up, and do all the legwork and networking… but in the mean time, a website would be a good thing to have. And I think I want a Joomla based website.

Joomla is a free CMS (content management system). And my reasoning for picking it over WordPress (undoubtedly the most popular free CMS) is just to make my site feel different – no matter what extravagant theme a site uses, I can always tell when the site uses WordPress. I can smell it. (Smells like bacon, incidentally)

And WordPress is slow. Sure there are pretty themes out there to transform it from a blog into this or that, but they all seem to load slowly, the javascript addons are laggy, and it just doesn’t feel…professional.

Joomla on the other hand has some very fast loading, pretty templates. (Joomla themes are called templates. Because they’re special.)

I figure the site will cost me something like $70-$100 to set up, then a monthly fee for hosting (probably around $7 a month).

But that’s just for the website, the framework – I’ll need content. That means…

Photoshoots!

I’m gonna need to do some sexified hair, and take some sweet pictures of it for my website. But this will be doubly hard, because instead of just experimenting and snapping pictures until I find something that works, I’m going to have to have a game plan before I start, so all the pictures have a matching theme – they’ll have to be a collection.

And to make it doubly, doubly hard (quadruply hard?), I’ll have to find good models, not just the first people I can get… and that might require some dough…

Oh well, nothing worth doing is easy or free. Can’t wait to get started! And I hope to find someone to get some behind the scenes footage too, so I can share some photoshoot tips & tricks.

With Apologies

Sorry for the lack of… well, anything. I’ve been enjoying my off time between the end of school and the start of my new job (1 week to go!) and have decided that damn it, I’m just going to relax during these two weeks. (Which is the first time I’ve ever attempted to actually take time off of doing stuff, ever)

So every day since I finished school, I’ve done about an hour of intense cardio, followed by some yoga. The first week kicked my ass – but I can already feel the difference, especially in my lower back. It feels much tighter and less like I’m going to hurt myself just leaning over a sink!

And I’m also using this time to learn to beatbox.

Yes, you read that right. I’ma be the funky fresh beatboxin hair stylist!

Anyway, I won’t turn this into a “Today I made myself an egg sandwhich, and I played with my dog, and I watched Dr. Phil” type blog, so I should stop now.

In other potentially big news, I’ve started a new website. Local to the city I’m in, with the hopes of getting some people here to figure out what this whole “internet” thing is – and getting the scattered few that have an internet presence gathered together in one place. I’m cautiously pondering the possibility of moving this blog over to that website, but… I’m also a little nervous. Because there’s a lot of…  what Robert Cromeans probably never meant when he said “Dangerous Dialogue”. Picture in your minds the letters to the editor section of a newspaper, and you’ll have a good idea. Many authors, one site, heavy opinions.

And I think I would rather keep this blog separate from all of that to maintain my professional image. Especially considering if they’re associated, there’s a chance my clients could find the site (since it’s named after the city I live in) and read an opinion they find horribly disagreeable (written by me or someone else, it probably wouldn’t matter), and BAM – there goes a client.

It’s not 2001 anymore, and the need to maintain a professional online presence is important.

 

Comb & Brush Porn

I could so easily drop a grand on YS Park gear, it’s not even funny. Check out this clip from that show in Long Beach to see all the nifty YS Park stuff:

I Took Apart My Rusk CTC 7500 Dryer

 

Rusk CTC 7500 Taken Apart - Click for Full Size!

Rusk CTC 7500 Taken Apart - Click for Full Size!

 

Video of my DIY repair job to come soon! And of course:

ATTENTION FUTURE DARWIN AWARD WINNERS! DO NOT TAKE APPLIANCES APART, BECAUSE YOU WILL BE ELECTROCUTED, AND DIE. Trust me. It’s like Aids – everyone thinks they’re too smart and careful to get it, and then WHAM!

Ted: A New Way To Think About Creativity

I think most of us who are artists can relate deeply to this: