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?
