Leanne Clarke- What i have been doing in the salon

Hi there Leanne here again, i have been quite busy in the salon hence the long period since my last blog!!

I have been up to lots which i will explain in this blog, first off i went on a course where i worked with two members of Charles Worthington's team. They firstly showed us what they thought was coming into fashion and the trends then they showed us their collection for spring and summer which included new colouring and cutting techniques. Afterwards we had live models where we got to experiment with the colour patterns and then did one of the cuts, the cuts included disconnection with short layers around the front but keeping the lenght at the back to open up the face.

I then planned what i was going to do for the BL photographic competiton, i was lucky and got to use the girl that won our Face of Hair Haus competiton and i got some lovely pictures of her. My look was very avant guarde where the hair had been set in folded foil then backcombed to create volume but kept the top very smooth and sleek. I really enjoyed doing this as you get to let your imagination run wild.

After the photo competition it was our shop's 8th birthday so we decided to have a funday which included raffles, quess the bear's name and colouring competitons for kids. All the money raised went to the British Heart Foundation who were very happy with what we had made! Us workers got to celebrate the birthday by having a meal together then a few drinks afterwards.

I really enjoy doing photo work and taking part in photo shoots so i was really excited when i got the chance to help out at a photo shoot where the photos were going to be used for the British Hairdresser Awards. We had 5 girls to photo, 4 were the finalists for our Face of Hair Haus competition 2009 and the judges would decide who won by how they looked and played into the camera. Ireally enjoyed that day as i got a massive buzz from the pressure of getting the girls ready for the photographer, i would do this sort of thing everyday if i could!!

In July most of the girls from the salon took part in the Race for Life at Durham including me, it was a very emotional day as we all know someone that has been touched by cancer but it was very nice to do it together as we felt we were helping in our own way.

Getting back to my everday life in the salon i have been dead busy for the past two months with girls coming in for their hair's done for the proms. Alot of money goes into them things now-a-days including dresses, limo's etc so every girl needs to look their best for their big night. I did alot of curling and pinning tiara's into large bouffant hair but tried to do every girl a little different so they didn't have the worry of having the same hair as another girl.

These past two months have been filled with weddings too so that means lots of bridal hair, including curls, french rolls and the use of hair pieces.

With the way the weather is in sunny England, people are jetting off on their holidays so its my job to help maintain the condition of ladies' hair's by informing them about the effect of uv rays on the hair and how is best to protect it from these i.e using sun products that have uv filters in and also getting the hair trimmed prior to the holiday.

Back at college i have been getting all of my colouring units marked off so thats me nearly finished woo hoo!!!! If i had the chance to do the graduate stylist course where you do level 2 and 3 together then i would have but it wasn't brought out until after i had started.

I would just like to say a massive thank you to Ginette and Racheal at the Durham BL for helping me get my course almost finished and thanks to Leslie for my new posh hairdyer ha ha!!!!!!!!

Talk soon

Leanne x x x x x