Alain Pichon

Another hairstylist I have chosen to look at is Alain Pichon.

Alain Pichon is a french hairstylist born in 1966. Hairdressing has been in Pichon's family for four generations. He started training at his local salon in France. By age 23 Pichon was working for Toni Guy in London where he went on to become artistic director. Pinchon started his freelance career at age 28 and worked on lots of fashion shows and feature films as well as lots of well know magazines. In 2014 he became a judge on the BBC three TV show hair.

What inspires me about Pichon's work is his versatility. He has created high fashion avant-garde looks as well simple natural looking hair.

Curling techniques

Today’s lesson focused on curling hair. We learned all about the different tools and techniques you can use.
One way is to use a conical wand;
-A big wand will create big Hollywood curls and a small wand will create a tight vintage looking curl.
-You can use straighteners to curl hair by wrapping the hair round the flat iron and twisting it
-To hold your curl better you can use a setting lotion prior to curling
The heat of your appliance is also important.
-You should use a high heat on thick course hair and lower heat on fine baby hair.
-While curling it is important to pull the hair taught so that your hair is consistant and to make sure all the ends are in to create a neat curl
-It is sometimes a good idea to put a comb between the head and the tong so not to burn your client
-To hold the curl in the hair better you can pin curl in place while it is still warm
-You can also put the wand at an angle to create different types of curls.
-Gas hair curlers are an essential when working as you may not always have a power supply
-You should always tong in the direction that you want the hair to go in
-To dress curls you can comb through if you want to break the curl slightly making more of a wave.If you want the curls to stay well defined Brush curls through individually which will soften them but not blend them with the rest of the hair.If you want more lift you can add some back combing
-For added shine you may wish to add some serum but too much as this will weigh the curls down
-If you need to re-define a curl a good way to do this is to roll it round your finger
-Curling works well if you are doing an updo to add texture. This is what we will be doing in a couple of weeks time so I will employ the techniques I practised in this session for that.

Full-Bodied Blow Dry

In today’s lesson we created a full bodied blow-dry
-To create this look I made sure to have the hair damp but soaking else it would have taken too long to dry. To do this I sprayed the hair down with water rather than putting it under the tap
-I then used some moose through the hair to keep the hold
-I then used round brush as opposed to a denman as this bends the hair into a rounded position creating lift.
-The hotter the hair dryer is the more hold the hair will have as I was working on a mannequin I had my hairdryer on full heat. If I was doing this on a model
If you want to roll it up be careful how far you roll it up otherwise the brush will get stuck
-While completing the blow-dry I lifted the hair at the root to further enhance the lift I wanted to achieve
-My teacher told me that if desired you can roll hair sideways to create curl at the ends however the ends of the hair on my mannequin were to frizzy to do this another way to create movement is to a use smaller brush
-To give lift at front of the head our tutor said to over extend the hair. Unfortunately I ran out of time so didn’t get to this point
-We were also told that you can put in some Velcro rollers to maintain lift if your model will be waiting for a while then back comb the hair after the Velcro rollers have been taken out. I did not get to this point

I created a good lift in the hair but I need to work on my timing as I wasn’t able to finish my blow-dry.

Using a brick set to create volume.

In today’s lesson we looked at creating lots of volume using a brick set. To create this we used heated Carmen rollers. This look is often used in TV shows such as ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and ‘The X Factor’. Being able to do a good roller set makes you an asset a team so it’s a really useful thing to learn
-To start I put mouse through the hair and brushed it through with a denman brush to help the hair hold the set. Mouse is good for thick and course hair and spray is better for fine hair as a mouse will weigh fine hair down
 -I then created a brick set using the biggest rollers at the front of the hair and making sure I rolled it so that it was sitting on the base of the head. I also used a tiny bit of setting spray to the hair before putting rollers it so that the set was held better. Something I need to work on is taking smaller sections for my rollers
-Taking bigger rollers and placing theses at the hairline give a more modern look to the hair
-Before dressing the hair out I made sure the rollers were stone cold prior to removing them and reform curls as I took the rollers out.
-Using a wide toothed comb and starting from back  of the haed I gently brush out the hair. Our teacher then lightly back combed to get rid of any partings unfortunately I ran out of time to do this.
I was a bit disappointed with the finished look of my hair. In future what I will have to do is make the sections I put on my rollers smaller so that there are less obvious partings.

Straight Blow-dry

In today’s lesson we looked at completing a wash and blow dry to the hair. This lesson was different to the rest was as we were working on each other rather than our dolls.
-To start we had to tuck a towel into clothing our models clothing so they wouldn’t get water all over them
-It is also very important to get the temperature of the water right when washing someone’s hair as you do not want to burn them or have them catch a cold. When I first started I was using a sink where the water would not heat up and the sink was getting blocked . After changing sinks I got the temperature to a comfortable level for my model
-When washing the hair I used my hand as barrier to stop water spilling down onto the face and shoulders
-I also massaged the head using circular motions but making sure I didn’t put too much pressure either side as the client can pass out if you do this
-Our teacher said to make sure the hair is clean by checking it squeaked. I was working in a three so I did not do the second shampoo and therefore my classmate did this part
-My teacher also demonstrated conditioning and did this by combing the conditioner through the hair with your fingers and give the client a nice head massage. My classmate did this part too
-Once the washing and conditioning is done you need to be sure to wrap the hair in towel while moving your model to a styling chair.
-I then did the styling and a different model who had been my teachers demonstration . I started by combing through hair with wide tooth comb as this will not damage the hair. Our teacher said to check where parting goes and then create it. As my model had been used as a demonstration this and the initial blow-dry to remove excess water and mousing of the hair had already been done
- I then completed the blow-dry. To achieve a straight blow-dry you can either use a denman to or round brush if you want more volume. My model asked me to use a round brush which I struggled with as I it was taking too much hair. My teacher then told me to try using a denman. This was much easier.
-Something I also found tricky to get the hang of was using the nozzel on my drier as it kept falling off and getting the angle right with out the wire getting in my way to pull the hair down straight

I think my blow-dry looked nice and I did achieve a sleek, straight glossy look to the hair. My timing needs work.

Wet Set

In today’s lesson we created a wet set and introduced a brick set pattern and its purpose.
-To start I sprayed the hair with a bit of water not making the hair too wet otherwise it have taken too long to dry or not dried enough and therefore lost its shape. For this look I was using wire rollers which give a much smoother set than Velcro ones. Our teacher also told us to always comb hair through really well before putting a roller in otherwise it will set with tangles in it.
 -I also used some setting lotion to give the hair a better hold
-I pulled the hair out from the head at a 90 degree angle keeping good before putting rollers in and keeping good tension
-Our teacher also said to take into consideration the size of persons head you are working on
-I used my metal ended pintail comb to section everything off as I find this tool gives me the most precise sections
- I used sections of hair that were slightly smaller than the roller I was using
-When I moved onto taking hair from sides of the head I pulled outwards rather than upwards I also put hair flat on roller not twisted and used the pintail to tuck the ends under and keep everything neat
- My hair was slightly loose so some of my rollers didn’t quite sit on the base of my head as they should have
-I decreased the size of the rollers gradually due to lack of equipment meaning there was a curl to the hair at the bottom
-Once you have conpleated the set you can put hair net over the set to prevent anything falling or blowing out
-We then used a hair dryer with an attachment to dry the hair and in the process set the rollers
-To dress out the hair I checked that the hair was dry and then waited for it to cool
- I also pushed the hair to see if it held its shape
- Due to a lack of equiptment my hair did not dry fully so I couldn’t dress it nicely.
- If equiptmnet had been available I would have brushed the hair out and back combed it at the roots of every section for a very full bodied look to add some volume then smoothed the top over the back combing and defined curls at ends

Re-Creating a Catwalk Look

During today's lesson we were all given look 45 minitues to re-create a catwalk look. We were given these looks randomly and had to re-create them from a photograph we had been given.
-My look featured a solid black eye shadow. I worked on this first as if I had perfected my base first all the shadow would have fallen on to it meaning I would have to remove most of it anyway. I started by trying to use my Ben Nye black shadow. This product was not giving me the colour pay off that I required and due to the time constraints I did not want to keep trying to build it up to a solid black so I used the Mac blacktrack gel eyeliner on the lid instead and then just applied the shadow to the edges of the blacktrack and buffed it slightly so the edges were not too harsh.
-I then moved on to my base. The model in the photo looks as if she had a full coverage foundation on with a luminous finish. to achieve this I added some of Mac's vanilla pigment to the Mac studio fix foundation. I then applied this using a buffing brush.I then used the Mac concealer in a peach tone to counteract any blue tones under my models eyes. I then set this with my Mac prep and prime powder.
-I then worked on the bottom lash line I added some blacktrack here using my liner brush blended it downwards using a pencil brush that had a tiny bit of black eye-shadow on it. After this i lined the waterline using my Mac eye pencil in 'Feline' I also used this to tight line with.The last thing I did to the eyes was apply a couple of coats of mascara
-This brows in my photo looked fairly natural and my models brows were naturally dark. I do not have any brow gel in my kit so therefore I put some hairspray onto my brow brush and ran this through the brows to hold the hairs in place.
-My photograph displayed a very prominent contour. To re-create this I used a brown eye-shadow from the Ben Nye pallet and applied this in the hollows of the cheeks. I didn't blend this in much as the contour in the photo looked to be a solid line. Around the base of my contour line I then applied Mac's 'blush-baby' blusher as I think it matched the plum toned blush that was used in the photo.I also applied some additional Vanilla pigment to the cheek bones and down the centre of the nose
-The model in my photo also had a red lip. The lipstick she was wearing was the same colour as Mac's 'Ruby Woo' so this is what I used. I started by perfecting the shape of the lip by using Mac's lip liner in 'Cherry' and then filled the lip in using 'Ruby Woo'

All in all I think the look I created was successful as it did look close to what I was trying to re-create. I think something that could be improved upon is the shape I created with the eye-shadow and the lips may have benefited from some clear lip gloss or Vaseline,

Look I was required to re-create

Before

Final look

Final Look

Final look