It’s been a year since I made the leap to doing what I love on a full-time, freelance basis … and with each day, I’m loving it more and more with its rewards and even with its challenges.
The one thing I love about what I do is that it’s in a constant state of change (new trends, new products) and that there’s always the opportunity to learn and grow more … or to do something better. One thing that I really wanted to work on as I made the jump to doing beauty full-time was my ability to do hair.
A bit of background: Â not going to lie, my first love is make-up – I started off doing it first and learning it always felt like it came naturally. Â On the other hand, styling hair generally felt like it required a little more effort. Â I have memories from years ago of a hair teacher putting his hand to his forehead in a hopeless sort of motion, as I was likely wearing his patience thin, trying to do the different braids he was teaching that day lol. Â Of course since it’s easier to just give up then keep trying, I wrote off doing hair and updos back then … thinking to just focus on make-up in the hope that my basic hair skills would get me by. Â As I worked on more gigs and as more inquiries came in, I realized further the benefits of doing both make-up and hair to be a complete beauty artist. Â Simply put, the more skills you offer to a situation, the more indispensable you are … and the greater your chance of a callback.
Determined to improve myself over this past year, I picked up a part-time gig at a blow dry salon to work on my timing and to build experience (and confidence) with styling different hair types and textures. Â After all, for the sake of sounding like a broken record (which I pretty much do because it’s my blog!), practice makes perfect.
Needless to say, over the past year, I’ve also been spending lots of time with my friend over here:
In the beginning, I was also lucky that a basic knowledge of hair was enough for when I had been hired to do both make-up/hair on commercial/corporate gigs (where usually curling, straightening and taming flyaways for HD cameras are of main concern).  But it’s different when you’re on-set and you can be on-hand to do any tweaks needed, versus when you have to walk away from a hairstyle and know (instead of hope) that it’ll maintain its shape for the rest of the day.  Further, seeing the outstanding work of talented friends like Suzie Kim and Justin Ming Cheung made me realize that it would take a little bit more time and practice before I could fully offer hair and updos at a quality level that I was happy with and proud of :).  [If you’re going to do it, do it right, right?].  Thinking back on those first attempts at trying to do hair, I always hated that feeling of knowing that I could do something better.  I mean, you can only fake it til you make it for so long.  Thankfully with working at the salon, seeing artists like Suzie and Ming in action, with them being gracious to share their tips and tricks and even letting me assist them a couple of times, I’ve learned plenty given the past year of doing hair on a regular basis.  Here are a few samples and more to come on www.artistrhi.com:
Overall, I love that knowing more about hairstyling also gives me more creative control for when I want to execute a certain make-up and hair vision. Â Moral of the story and this dear diary entry – don’t be afraid to learn and grow.
…and yes I can’t forget to mention (likely not for the last time), practice makes (closer to) perfect.
Of course, I have lots to learn … but that’s the beauty of loving what you do that keeps you wanting to do it, but also wanting to always be better. Â The journey continues…
