Beyond the Textbook & In the Chair with Crystal

• The Monday recap cut: 45 graduated in the back and 90 through the crown. You explain how 90 out from the head gives round layers and 90 from the floor gives square ones, and how she got lost connecting the side. Your rule there is to stop cutting, step back, and find your guide.
• Conversion point and power drying: coarser hair gets the brush around 50%, naturally straight hair closer to 75%.
• The 180 cut: what look it gives (long layers that keep the perimeter) and the two ways to pick your guide, the lowest back corner versus a chosen point near the crown.
• Hair show prep: the Great British Bake Off theme on November 7th, and why school assigns creative work. Your caution about extensions and wigs is to test first, because they might style like hair, melt, or do nothing.
• Gianna’s blowout lowlight: you trace her loose curls to a brush that’s too big, hair that was already straight before the curl went in, and no product for hold. The “hair doesn’t have a brain” and “toddler learning to stand” analogies are great, very you.

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1. Gianna's struggle. She knows where her guide is, but her angle and finger position drift, and she's cutting her mom's hair that night.
2. Your fixes. Seeing that you're off is step one. The first guide is the most important. Take smaller sections if you can't see the guide. Your elbow is the direction you cut. Stand at the section you're cutting. Palm to palm, and don't cut past the second knuckle.
3. Graduation vs layers. Shorter pushes longer. Graduation builds volume; layers remove weight. The client who asks for layers to get volume.
4. Finding 45. Your hand trick, 45 is half of 90 — pull to 90, drop to 45. 43 or 47 is fine; it's an art.
5. Tension and moisture. Consistent tension matters more than maximum tension. Keep the hair evenly wet — a dried-up guide won't match a wet section.
6. 0 degree - finger or comb. It makes a difference in shape as well as in checking the line.
7. Look at the BIG picture. Micro Macro, take a step back.

1. Gianna's recap. Mixing Barbicide, porous vs nonporous, washing with soap and water first, the 10-minute soak, prepping the station.
2. Why it matters. Dirty brushes breed bacteria, and old dry hair in a brush pulls oil out of clean hair. Contact dermatitis and allergies can pass client to client. Bloodborne pathogens matter because we use shears, razors and clippers.
3. The three levels, simply. Most of your day is the middle level (Barbicide, Clippercide); the autoclave is for metal implements; single-use items go in the trash. Your memory trick: sterile like a hospital, where you pull the bag apart.
4. The test reality. You're tested on this at every license renewal, so the order matters for boards.

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Follow along while we meet and chat weekly about what's learned in cosmetology school. I want you to succeed both in school and to pass your boards, and more so in the real world salo life behind the chair. This is real talk, unfiltered, fun stories, and all the helpful analogies to keep in the back of your head.

This episode is just the beginning....

What a week in cosmetology school looks like.

The history, the tools, and some basics.

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