Perms are back – filling a skills gap

WHAT'S OUT THERE

I for one have always believed in never letting any skills slip, regardless of what may or may not be in fashion this week.
As a result, all of our salon apprentices at Moody Hair in South Yorkshire complete full perm training, as well as other less in-vogue skills such as finger waving, pin curling and roller setting.

It's these foundation skills that are making such a massive impact on catwalks all over Fashion Week as we see more and more examples of texture, movement and volume, both classical and contemporary.

L'Oréal run a one-day training course as part of their five-day “junior degree” programme. This consists of learning basic perm wind technique on training heads with no processing. The programme costs from £75 for the single day and is aimed purely at foundation skills.

Wella offer two options in the form of a Foundation Perming Skills day and Advanced Perming Skills day. These consist of a morning demo using live models., followed by hands on experience winding on training heads. The cost is £58.75 for the demo only or £152.75 for the full day.

All of these will cover the necessary requirements to get an apprentice through their NVQ requirements, which consist of completing a nine-section, directional and brick-work perm winding, processing and neutralising.

BACK TO BASICS

I've recently written two training programmes for an education company that develop foundation skills. The first one is designed to take someone through their very first experience of haircutting; from how and why we hold the scissors the way we do, through to sectioning and handling hair and onto classic bobs and foundation layering.

The second concentrates entirely on foundation blow-drying skills, how and why heat drying works, the use of different sizes of “Denman” type brushes, vents brushes, paddle brushes and round brushes, as well as applying volume, shine and wave movements with our blow drying technique. The response for these programmes has been overwhelming and hugely successful.

We're now starting to develop further programmes along the same vein.

Many of the students on the blow drying programme were experienced stylists who just wanted a chance to “go back to basics”. This shows there is a huge demand for solid, straightforward foundation skills, the type of skills that our industry was built on and the skills that made the UK the greatest hairdressing nation on earth.

Lots of salons out there have these skills already, even though they may be a little dusty due to lack of demand, but some manageable investments in time, energy and equipment can start to bring these skills back to life and excite a whole new generation of world beating stylists.