Our contributor, Steve Kim, was invited to take the 6 week course at Sassoon Academy. Lucky for us, he documented the experience. Here’s a recap of his time there.

I got the ok to come to the Sassoon may 9, 6 weeks comps course from Wayne Woodruff who was also cool enough to let me film it and write a weekly blog on my experience at the academy. I am totally like a giddy little school girl when it comes to going to the academy to get education and train! For me there is no other education like it. I love being in long classes as sometimes for myself a weeks class, or a three day class doesn’t really resonate with me. For some, they really can get a lot out of short term classes however I’ve always been the individual who’s really had to work at things and kind of chip away. When you really have to work at things and chip away, in my opinion what works best for me is consistency, and nothing more consistent than being somewhere for 6 weeks just to focus on learning.

Budget is always also a huge issue for most, in the grand scheme of things you see this big number and it definitely can scare you off, I want you as an individual to consider this.

Currently the class is $5,710 for 6 weeks, now you’ll be attending 5 days a week, 5 days X 6 weeks comes out to 30 days of education, if you divide $5,710 / 30 days = $190.30 roughly.

So you’re paying $190.30 a day for 30 days of education? considering the average rate of education currently is around $250? I would say you’re getting a steal. Now that’s not to say you can’t wheel and deal with Sassoon, Everything that has a monetary value is negotiable. Ill leave that up to you to decipher. I do know Hairbrained (our friends in the hair community) have a coupon code that will offer some sort of discount for attending. I’m also positive mentioning you saw this blog at the hair nerds will help you in terms of getting a fair deal!

More importantly what you get for education is instructors who went to arguably some of the most brutal training around. Lets just say a lot of these instructors or anyone who works as a stylist for Sassoon had gone through a rigorous apprenticeship which at the end involves generally a 9 model presentation as a final. I remember myself being bummed I had to find 2 models a week as an apprentice LOL. While I don’t know what kind of money these instructors make, an old mentor of mine who was a Sassoon instructor quite some time ago had told me the pay isn’t much, but you forgo that for the life experience. Which brings me to another thing, It ISNT about the money for them. Its about the CRAFT. Now everyone has to make a good living and certain quality of life. So I’m not knocking anyone who does there Craft for the money.

However there is a certain level of admiration if you ask me for individuals who go through this journey, and do it because they genuinely love it, money aside.

Education will never be a waste of money if you ask me, It is a FIRST priority above all things for me. Last 6 weeks comps course, I had to dodge the repo man because I spent the last of my dollars to go to Sassoon (Wasn’t that hard avoiding them) All in all I wound up catching up, and in the end things worked out just fine =).

This time around I have the pleasure of having Matthew Kazarian as my instructor. I’ve pretty much worked with a good amount of instructors at the academy from the last comps course I took. This is my first time ever getting to work with Matthew. What I particularly like about Matthew’s method of approach is that he is VERY fickle, methodical, and thorough!

He really takes his time to make sure things are as perfect as can be. He himself claims he’s a bit OCD, But it isn’t always a bad thing!

Week 1 is generally always formal introductions of ourselves, our backgrounds, why we are at the academy, as well as an introduction to Sassoon’s cutting system, History, and the How, What, and Why. At the end of the week you do tend to jump into working on clients. Last comps course and this comps course wasn’t much different in terms of how the lesson planning went. For me there were a lot of gaps I didn’t quite understand from my first class that really resonated with me this time however. Especially a lot of it was finishing work gaps. Somewhere last class I was VERY weak at. It was interesting to get a little more into detail about that, as well as other portions of emphasis! I find it very interesting as every instructor has a different take on how they’re gonna approach haircutting, as well as the reasoning behind it. With that its still all the same cutting system! so its always awesome to see how there mentors really rubbed off on them!

During the week I was also invited to come watch Gina Mc’Cormicks Creative Presentation. Gina is a recent addition to the Sassoon Tribe of color instructors. Every instructor a year after passing and becoming an instructor must go through a right of passage and do there own creative presentation. It was interesting as everyone of the haircutters had helped Gina prep her models in terms of haircuts, while Gina did the color.

I also ran into Randy Taylor from hairbrained.

Another highlight of my week was when Traci Sakosits came into my comps class to come say hi! Traci if you don’t know is the North American Director for Sassoon and I assume

Oversees daily operations around the American Sassoons, as well as daily things at the academy (not quite sure of the details ;p) It was also awesome watching her mentor Errol who is an apprentice at NYC in the final phase of his training, who is spending time at the academy doing models and heading back for the final portion of his training.

Well this concludes my first week at Sassoon. Sorry it was rather short I’m sure with more work sessions this week it’ll be a little more detail filled! Stevienaysayer over and out!

Hair Nerd X Sassoon Week 1