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Unpopular opinion: the $60 hood dryer at a trade show in Dallas taught me more than any class I paid for | Cosmetologists - Free To Speak

felix414•28d ago

Unpopular opinion: the $60 hood dryer at a trade show in Dallas taught me more than any class I paid for

I used to think you had to drop big money on education to get better, and I'd sign up for every $300 workshop that came through town. Two years ago at a trade show in Dallas I wandered past a booth with a beat up hood dryer they were basically giving away, and the woman running it showed me a tension trick for wrapping that I had never seen in any class. She said, and I'm quoting her here, "the dryer doesn't set the curl, your hands do." I sat there for 20 minutes watching her work on a mannequin and it hit me that I'd been relying on product and heat to cover up sloppy sectioning. I bought the dryer for $60, took it back to my chair, and my sets started holding two days longer within a month. Now I tell every new stylist I meet to skip the fancy seminars and just watch a seasoned pro's hands up close instead. Has anyone else learned more from a random booth or a coworker than from a paid course?

2 comments

2 Comments

drewr1525d ago

Free info that sticks beats paid info you forget. I watched a woman at a booth in Houston do a blowout with nothing but a brush and tension, no fancy nozzle tricks. She broke down how the angle of your wrist changes the root lift and I never saw that in a class. That one tip fixed my volume problems for good. The workshops teach you the what, but standing next to somebody's hands teaches you the how.

ben_lewis25d ago

Twenty minutes with a mannequin and a beat up hood dryer at a Dallas booth, and that woman handed you more than a $300 workshop. That part blows my mind, because the info was free and the only thing you paid for was the dryer itself. The hands-on stuff always sticks better than sitting in a chair taking notes.