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:

Josh XO

This guy, Josh XO, decided to start making an internet show about hairdressing. And not just a video every few months… He does 3 new episodes a week.

I have no idea how long he’ll be able to keep that up (I know I couldn’t!), but damned if I don’t respect the gravitas. Go check out his show: http://joshxo.blip.tv/

You can watch his shows live on Ustream (Josh XO on Ustream), although I don’t because…well… time zones confuse me. But one of these days I’m going to, and I’m going to sign up for an account on Ustream (they’re free! It’s like a youtube type deal, except you can stream live.) so I can join in the chat and ask questions and poke fun during the show.

Josh XO is not at all the kind of hairdresser I want to be, and we’d probably have nothing in common (beyond hair) if we met, and he’s a bit strange looking… But he’s exactly what this  industry needs. In my opinion at least.

There’s a thriving culture in our industry, but it’s all one sided. It’s all contained within one big clique. I am ecstatic to see a show about hair, with a real personality behind it. It’s like when you listen to so much pre-programmed Top-40 radio, when you find a station with an actual DJ who actually picks what music he plays, it doesn’t even matter if it’s your type of music he plays – it all sounds good because there’s a real personality behind it.

Cool Comb Flippy Thing

Here’s a little video (Little because I’m all bleeggghhh) showing you a cool trick.

Ps. I’m going to claim that the sickness is why I called the wrong finger my ring finger, and why I can’t talk. Definitely the sickness.

Hair World Video

Found this on Youtube. I loved seeing Robert Cromeans & Crew behind the scenes (I have a major man crush on Takashi…).

It’s a bit old (early 2000′s), but still has some interesting stuff. You prolly want to click through to Youtube to watch it though, it’s an hour and 21 minutes long.

Celebrity Scissorhands

I’ve never seen this show, but from what I gather it’s a reality show in which some UK celebs were trained how to cut hair in a week or so, then put to work in a real salon. SCARY o.O

Mogi’s Hair-Kata

(Editors note: I don’t think he actually calls it hair kata – but doesn’t it sound cool?!)

There’s this stylist, Mogi, who I have never met but have seen a bunch of videos from on the internet. I think he’s the bees knees. But I’m absolutely sure if I showed any of his stuff to my classmates they would laugh and ridicule him! (Silly teenagers!)

This is the latest video he’s posted, and he shows the movement and body positioning he teaches in his class, which I totally dig. A lot of people would scoff at this much attention to detail, and say that it doesn’t matter how you do things. I’m not one of those people.

This type of training reminds me of a famous story about a Florentine painter from the late middle ages:

“When the Pope sent a messenger to Giotto, asking him to send a drawing to demonstrate his skill, Giotto drew, in red paint, a circle so perfect that it seemed as though it was drawn using a compass”

 

A few more videos from him in an earlier post: Cool Youtube Video: Short Concave Cut

A Look Into the Jaguar Shear Factory

Found this pretty cool lil video while browsing Youtube. I’m not a Jaguar fan, but I like seeing the nuts and bolts come together:

Check out the old school CRT (Cathode Ray Tube for all you young folk) monitors! Haha

Video Review: Sam Villa Shears

Watch in fullscreen to catch the annotations!

Since starting to shear-shop in August, I’ve played with everything I could get my hands on. You know in Wayne’s World, how Wayne asks to play with the guitar at the store and the clerk sighs “…again?”? That’s me at every salon store in this town, and the next one over.

My school has a shear dude and also carries a brand (which shall remain nameless) and I spent time  playing with a variety of those shears as well. I borrowed shears from other stylists whenever I could. I talked to every stylist I could find about what shears they use and why, and asked if I could play with them a bit. (I am a shear junkie now!)

When I started my search I knew nothing about shears or what I really wanted, and now I know what just about every shear feels like (in my hands, at least), and how a number of different brands and price points cut and wear.

I gotta say, out of all of them, these are the most comfortable shears to my hands. Of course, my hands are twice as big as the average hair stylist’s hands… So your mileage may vary.

And of course I’m not saying these are the “most comfortable shears ever”, I’m just saying I like them. You might hate them! And I can’t judge their functionality yet, because I just bought them, so maybe they’ll dull super fast, or something horrible will happen and they’ll disintegrate in my hands, to counteract how awesome the shears seem to be on the surface.

But there’s no reason to think they will, and if they do cut well, and wear well, I will certainly be getting a 5.5″ pair down the road, to go with my 6.25″ pair.

I’ll use them on clients at school for a month or two and report back on how they perform.

Cool Youtube Video: Short Concave Cut

There’s a lot of good (and bad) hair videos on youtube, and I happened across this one and thought it was pretty good. I want to try it out on my mannequin!

Here’s another cool video, this one on technique:

A lot of people think that practicing technique like that is silly, and looking for perfection in everything is a waste of time. I think it’s impressive, and respectable.