Students showcase historic hair

UCOL Certificate in Hairdressing Level 4 student Stacey Randles and Level 3 student Veronica Joseph proudly hold their winning hair styles. PHOTO: KARLA KARAITIANA

Students from UCOL's Certificate in Hairdressing showed off their skills last Wednesday as they competed against each other in the annual History of Hair competition.

As part of their programme, the Salon Support Level 3 students were required to research a culture or era of their choice, produce a portfolio and depict it in a hair style.

Second-year students studying for Emerging Stylist Level 4 also take part, producing a creative Hair-Up of their choice.

UCOL Hairdressing lecturer Gillian Gosper says the History of Hair competition always delivers a diverse range of styles and eras through the decades and from across the world.

"The process of having to research styles from earlier eras and practice the techniques really sets these first-year students up for the years to come. You can really see the influence of those first year competition styles coming through the work of the second year students which just shows how valuable this competition is."

This year's Salon Support winner Veronica Joseph chose an 18th Century style that required an extensive amount of technique and was shocked to learn she had won.

Ms Joseph enjoys the creative aspect of the competition and says winning has grown her confidence.

"The 18th century era features lots of amazing big hair ups which are very challenging so I was nervous and never thought I could win."

Winner of the Year two Emerging Stylist Stacey Randles says the biggest difference between the year one and year two competition is students have an open brief.

"We had free reign this year which in a lot of ways is much harder. I went through so many styles but in the end it all came together at the last minute.

"Even today I was still doing the final touches."

Ms Randles masquerade-look involved both strong colour and technique which allowed her to push her skills to another level.

"Everyone in the class is just amazing, the work they put out was awesome so just to be a part of that was great. I am so happy with what I put out there.

"All that hard work paid off."

Ms Randles took the opportunity to speak with one of the judges after the competition to get an idea of what she could have improved on.

"In the end it came down to really small tweaks so, I feel like if that's all I need to change, then I am on the right track."