salon chains..are they any better

[bandit]

My friend dropped in last night from london. She had been last week and had her hair cut in a large salon chain. She had her consultation and stated numerous times 'i don't want a bob, can you texturise it with a razor'
'i havent been trained with a razor':irked: but ill put some layers in and a nice sweeping fringe'
Immediately on looking at my friends hair you know that there is no way she can have a sweeping fringe. She has a major widows peak .

Anyway the stylist did her thing and my friend left with a layered bob and quiff....her son burst out laughing at her and her daughter said she looked like an old woman. Which reminded me of going to another large franchise salon on completion of my college training....whilst talking to my stylist i found out he had only been doing hair 5months, was only trained in cutting, hadnt done colouring or finishing. I had one trainee wash my hair, moved to another part of the salon..one cut it...move to another part of the salon...someone colour it...move again....someone else finish it.

god i know this is long winded but its been bugging me for a while...now the vast majority say training is best with large companies...in salon training etc. Well i think what a load of c--p. Just wandered what other peoples thoughts were on this.

sorry to rant on..

 

[persianista]

Any salon is only as good as the stylists in it. Franchises are individually owned salons that all pay to trade using a name, they are not owned by one person so standards are very variable. There are very few genuine salon chains.

 

[-sophisticutz-]

I worked for a large salon chain for quite a few years. The training was excellent and so was the quality. I think in any big chain you are bound to find a few bad hairdressers. I have worked in salons than have had around 15 stylists, so it can be easy for a slack one to be hidden. Persianista is right in saying very few chains are run by one individual. The division I was in was owned and run by 'the company', so it was pretty consistent.

 

[bandit]

I know everywhere is different..it just gripes me a bit when people say the best training is given at these places and call college trained stylists and wont entertain them because they say they arent up to standard.

 

[persianista]

In general the training you get from a salon chain is highly commercial and geared towards what the salon wants. Local colleges don't always do the same. It is a generalisation as there are good and bad colleges, but in general local colleges don't train in a commercially focussed way.

 

[-sophisticutz-]

The company I worked for took on college trained stylists all the time. So I don't think it is a hard and fast rule that chains will only have stylists that have trained in house.

It's a shame you have had such a bad experience as it does cloud your view of these places.

Unfortunately, across the board training is not as good as it could be in colleges as well. So much time now has to be given to fulfilling the government criteria regarding key skills that it is time taken away from the practical side.

Now with NVQ 2, once a student has been marked, just once, on a cut, they are told they can do it. No, gents styling is taught and perming in now optional. This is now why now salons are reluctant to take on newly qualified students. Twice now I have had to take almost 6 months out to re-train staff.

I personally feel that if these 'boxes' now have to be ticked in NVQ hairdressing, then a year should be added to the training time.

 

[persianista]

I completely agree. Most hairdressing training at college is not currently "fit for purpose" which is a terrible shame for the people who train with them

 

[bandit]

surely its down to the individual and i wud of thought you would take a stylist on for their ability Not for where they have been trained. To me hairdressing is an art that you naturally have and it is just brought out through learning. I feel it is a shame that students would leave college and maybe the best stylist going and a salon wouldnt look twice at them because they had been to college.

 

[persianista]

Salons usually trade test people before rejecting them.
Nobody is born knowing how to cut hair, a person can have flair and creativity, but that is not enough in itself. Great cutting is attention to detail and exactitude. To retrain somebody to the standard a salon expects is expensive and time consuming. If you are paying stylist level money, you should expect a stylist.
Most people fail trade tests through poor cutting than anything else.

 

[skankinchar]

I trained at my local college and still feel that I have so much to learn... Learning how to cut mens hair as part of my Level 2 would have been fantastic, but we only briefly touched on it in a half day session at the very end of the course