Monday, February 18, 2013
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Opportunity doesn't knock on your door
Opportunity doesn't knock on your door, ring the doorbell, and then leave sweet little note saying, "I'll be back tomorrow!" I'm kind of taken back by some people at beauty school who will just wait for our teacher to show us a demonstration, they'll repeat it on their dollheads, read about it in our book... then wait to see if any clients may or may not walk in to the beauty salon (which never happens). These are the same people who will graduate, wait for someone to offer them a job... at Fantastic Sams... which aint so fantastic after what I'm paying for cosmetology school.
I stalk opportunity. Sometimes I force it to be places it wasn't going to be. Yes, it sounds crazy... and far from humble, but it's true. I'll put myself out there 1,000 times if it means I'll get 30 opportunities.
With that said, I've been really fortunate. It's my 3rd month of cosmetology school, and I've already done 2 ombres, 45 makeup with hair styling (updos, curls and such), 6 haircuts, 5 hair color / color corrections, and 2 highlights. I've made a yelp page, started a blog and taken advantage of some excellent opportunities.
The first was with Atelier Sav in Glendale, a beautiful salon saturated with talent. At this salon is the talented Lara C Kay. I was so excited when she said it would be ok for me to go assist her for the day. I watcher her to updo after updo, sharing tips on curling, styling, spraying, and even different approaches for different clients. I also got to watch two amazing makeup artists, Makeup by Anna and Linh Tran. It was an excellent opportunity that I'm really grateful.
The second awesome opportunity I had was an invitation from yelp.com to do hair and makeup for their YELPERS PREFER BLONDES event, where it was my duty to Marilyn-ize yelpers attending the event at the Marilyn Monroe themed event held at the Hollywood Museum. I offered my help to the Yelp Ambassador of Los Angeles, and she accepted! It was great to work on non-Armenians, which is what I was used to. Yeah, so 50% of the work I mentioned earlier was performed on friends and cousins, so? ;)
The third was doing hair and makeup for the models of Kami Shade, at her launch party for W Magazine. I agreed to do it for free in exchange for photographs because... why not? I'm new. Here are some photos.
Before After
The most important thing I've learned in the first 3 months of cosmetology school is that I've got to get out there and find opportunities, build a client base, establish myself... and my goal is to do all that before I even graduate.
What's your goal? And what's the next opportunity you're going to seize?
I stalk opportunity. Sometimes I force it to be places it wasn't going to be. Yes, it sounds crazy... and far from humble, but it's true. I'll put myself out there 1,000 times if it means I'll get 30 opportunities.
With that said, I've been really fortunate. It's my 3rd month of cosmetology school, and I've already done 2 ombres, 45 makeup with hair styling (updos, curls and such), 6 haircuts, 5 hair color / color corrections, and 2 highlights. I've made a yelp page, started a blog and taken advantage of some excellent opportunities.
The first was with Atelier Sav in Glendale, a beautiful salon saturated with talent. At this salon is the talented Lara C Kay. I was so excited when she said it would be ok for me to go assist her for the day. I watcher her to updo after updo, sharing tips on curling, styling, spraying, and even different approaches for different clients. I also got to watch two amazing makeup artists, Makeup by Anna and Linh Tran. It was an excellent opportunity that I'm really grateful.
The second awesome opportunity I had was an invitation from yelp.com to do hair and makeup for their YELPERS PREFER BLONDES event, where it was my duty to Marilyn-ize yelpers attending the event at the Marilyn Monroe themed event held at the Hollywood Museum. I offered my help to the Yelp Ambassador of Los Angeles, and she accepted! It was great to work on non-Armenians, which is what I was used to. Yeah, so 50% of the work I mentioned earlier was performed on friends and cousins, so? ;)
The third was doing hair and makeup for the models of Kami Shade, at her launch party for W Magazine. I agreed to do it for free in exchange for photographs because... why not? I'm new. Here are some photos.
Before After
The most important thing I've learned in the first 3 months of cosmetology school is that I've got to get out there and find opportunities, build a client base, establish myself... and my goal is to do all that before I even graduate.
What's your goal? And what's the next opportunity you're going to seize?
Friday, August 3, 2012
Not your rox, not my rox, Glamourax
I use the immigrant card a lot. If I don't get an allusion, or am introduced to a fairly common word I should know by now... I just say I'm an immigrant. Yes, I was 5 when I came to the United States, and yes... I've been in advanced English since 4th grade.... and yes, I'm a US Citizen. But I remain an immigrant, and with the immigrant card comes the immigrant name. Arax. It's beautiful... but it's been mispronounced more often than it's been pronounced. So... at the age of 14, I developed a riddle for it. Not your rox, not my rox, Arax. This riddle was the solution to my years of agony every time I was asked if my name sounds like uh-racks, or if it's kinda like rax-city trick, rack rack raxity... and my personal favorite does it rhyme with Ajax? I embraced the name, and befriended the riddle.
Long story [not] so short, I chose to pursue a career in hair and makeup instead of law school. I would much prefer to make people prettier than to spend my days lawyering - especially if I have a tendency to makeup words like lawyering because I'm just too lazy to write down the duties of lawyers to really substantiate a fair comparison of why I chose the beauty industry instead of the legal field. Eh, what are you gonna do.
So now I do hair and I do makeup. I'm pretty good, but my skills are nowhere near my taste. I'll get there though. And unlike other pretentious pompous stylists (by pretentious and pompous I mean much more experienced and accomplished than myself) I'll share every step of the way with you.
I'm not an artist, I just want to make everyone look the best they possibly can. I'll work glamour. My name is Arax. Glamourax. You see what I did there? Not your rox, not my rox, not Arax, but Glamourax. Welcome.
- Arax
818-280-9997
glamourax@gmail.com
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