New Business Adventure

New Year... New Look...

www.melissa-salons.com

My beautiful client in my new Salon

People promise to make a change for the new year,  well 2017 is a year of new adventures for me! I have taken a massive leap of faith and started my own business in Manchester's thriving Northern Quarter. 

There are already lots of stories to share which I will cover in my future blogs, but for now take a sneak peak at my new website made by my fab friend Jeanette from Ascensor.

We've had fun creating it together and I really hope you can see how much work has gone into the website. 

Any comments from my friends and family are most welcome, I really appreciate any feedback.

My new blogs will now be about the highs and lows of running a business and how to get through it alive!

www.melissa-salons.com

Instagram: @melissasalons

Facebook: @melissaTsalons

Twitter: @melissasalons

The End and New Beginnings

Our year as F.A.M.E. Team 16 has come to an end and I am now starting an exciting new adventure - find out more below...

We ended our year with a beautiful dinner at the Dorchester Hotel and of course an after party!

The F.A.M.E. Team has been the best year of my life.  A year of opportunities and inspiration by our industry greats.  It has been a once in a life time opportunity to gain experience and knowledge which I know will help my future career. 

I feel so lucky and privileged to have become such good friends with Rosie, Jamie, Zoe and Antony, we've supported each other throughout the year and I know we will carry on supporting each other in our next adventures. 

Speaking of next adventures, I have some exciting news... I have resigned from Sassoon and will be taking on a new challenge of running my own salon in Manchester's Northern Quarter.  I am so excited to see where this can take me and I can't wait to share it with all of my friends and family.

F.A.M.E. Team June Update

F.A.M.E. Team Journey for June. 

It's our half way point of our FAME Team year already!! We've had an absolutely mind blowing time with mentor days, workshops, shows and shoots and still more to come! I couldn't wish for a better team to be spending my time with. It's a good job we all get on well as we are spending so much time together :)

F.A.M.E. Team day in Cardiff with Paul Dennison 

We jumped straight into June with a mentor day with Bruce Masefield from Sassoon.  This day was interesting for me to see how everyone took on-board the Sassoon techniques and for the tables to be turned and me to be a student.  Bruce gave us an overview of his incredible career and went on to provide an insight into the basic principles of Sassoon ABC classic techniques.  It was really great to be able to watch Bruce demo up close as when I'm backstage I usually never get the chance.

My beautiful model Sydney from our Sassoon Workshop

Our F.A.M.E. Team day with Ken Picton and Paul Dennison in Cardiff was so much fun! Ken and Paul began the day by showing us some genius techniques to get our creative brains thinking outside of the box. They set us various tasks including one to create a hair collection based on an everyday object. Ken really taught us how to look at things with a different eye and how to become inspired by ordinary things such as a fridge! Later we were taken for a surprise at City Maze in the centre of Cardiff. As a team we were set the task of cracking the code to get out of the Maze room – of course we succeeded with great team work all round.

My final BIG news for June is... I am a Finalist for an internationally recognised hair competition called IT GIRL and so is my F.A.M.E. Team girl Rosie Binns.  For the competition I had to submit my entry as a portfolio/scrap book of everything I have done in my career so far. I can safely say, blood, sweat and tears went in to that scrap book and I couldn't have finished it without my support network - my mum, dad and James. Massive thanks goes to these guys who helped me carry on. I find out the final results in September at a fancy dinner in London.

I am really looking forward to July. Keep updated for what's coming in our journey,..

F.A.M.E. Team May Update

MAY HIGHLIGHTS

We've had a magical May on our F.A.M.E. Team journey so far.  It still feels like a dream that I am getting these opportunities to work with Industry Greats.

To start the month off we had a creative day with Adam Bryant and Sharon Peak from Ethos Hairdressing. This session was actually in Manchester so no travelling to London AND it was sunny! Adam and Sharon gave us an insight into their different hairdressing backgrounds, careers, salon life and how they keep their working partnership strong.  The day was all about creative colouring techniques - something they are both very passionate about. One of my favourite techniques that they showed us was braiding the hair and blending the colour over and around the braid to create a beautiful root glow.

Our next F.A.M.E. Team day was with Adam Reed, owner of Percy and Reed.  I found him incredibly inspiring and he talked to us about every single aspect of hairdressing he does from TV work, to catwalk shows, editorial hair and owning his own salons. Adam showed us the fundamentals of prepping hair and classic 'old school' hairdressing techniques such as a chignon. He even let us go through his endless kit bag and experiment with all of his equipment.  We've gone away with some classic techniques to practice and a huge shopping list of kit!

Something that I am very proud of this month is I have graduated from my Wella Master Colour Programme. This is something totally separate from the F.A.M.E. Team but has been a massive achievement for me.  I studied for a year taking up all of my spare time (and money) learning everything from colour foundations, product knowledge, science of how we see colour and extreme colour correction.  I went from being bottom of the class to gaining 96% (the best marks)! Even though I'm a Creative Stylist at Sassoon I wanted to learn how to colour for my own knowledge and interest.

Thank you for taking the time to read my journey - Look out for next month's update.

F.A.M.E. Team April Update

It's been an amazing and active April with the F.A.M.E. Team. 

The highlight of the month for me were the endlessly fascinating Cos Sakkas and Indira Schauweuer from Toni and Guy. They demonstrated incredible techniques; from a twist on a short graduated haircut to an intricate headhugging five strand braid.  I didn't know a lot about Avant Garde hair so I was really intrigued by the techniques. We were lucky enough to be taught their secret braiding technique called the F8.  It's so good I'm going to practice this to get it perfect! Cos and Indira gave us some fabulous and insightful advice on preparing for a shoot and shared what it's like working backstage and liaising with the designers at London Fashion Week.  We all came away buzzing with new ideas of working with hair - not only as hair but as a fabric.

Then we had a celebration event at a gorgeous hotel in London, it was to celebrate 70 years of the Fellowship with our President Bruno Marc. It was such a wonderful evening, I don't think I stopped laughing all night and it was nice to be able to let our hair down.  Some serious dance moves were rocked!

The following day I took advantage of our exclusive invite to the GHD briefing with Adam Reed and Zoe Irwin.  It was great to see upcoming runway trends and how to create the look. My favourite look was 'Curly Sue' where imperfection was perfection and I loved that the individuality of each model is being embraced.

Our next F.A.M.E. Team day was with Skyler McDonald, the creative genius behind the Seanhanna brand. The session was extremely eclectic, covering many different aspects of the business, from the technical skills of avant garde hair to the practicalities of running a salon. Then she demonstrated a really cool concept - something none of us had experienced before - the hair changed colour when it was heated up and changed again when it cooled down. Wow! It was a day packed full of information and it was great to see how different techniques can spark an idea which then develops into an image! Skyler’s creative energy has rubbed off on all of us and we feel inspired to try out the new skills in our future work.

Keep updated with my blog for our next F.A.M.E. Team news. 

F.A.M.E Team March Update

F.A.M.E. TEAM 16

It’s been a marvellous and mega-busy March with the F.A.M.E. team! Here’s our highlights…

The month started with the fascinating Zoe Irwin. Zoe is a Trend Forecaster and she showed us how her forecasts develop into styles we see a couple of years later. 

Zoe gave us an honest insight into her incredible career journey as well as a lot of practical tips on the importance of posture and body position so as to avoid strain when drying or styling hair. She even showed us the secret of securing a hair dressing with only 3 French pins!! It was very interesting to listen to a successful women's point of view from the hairdressing industry.

Then we visited the fabulous Vogue 100 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery – a stunning array of influential fashion images right from when it started in 1916 through to Vogue as we know it today. We all came away with ideas for future shows and ready to shoot some editorial hair!

Next was a planning session to prepare us for our big show in South Africa – all very exciting! (I will reveal more later on). Then we went to the very inspirational Fellowship Masterclass where we got the chance to take in some incredible demos of the latest cutting edge hairdressing techniques from some of the industry’s hottest names.  Big shout out to Jamie Benny who was on stage - he did the F.A.M.E Team proud! 

Latest F.A.M.E Team News

F.A.M.E. Team Update

Wow, what a whirlwind month for the F.A.M.E. team! It’s been one of the busiest yet...  

We have had our first shoot together and our first show as F.A.M.E. Team 16, as well as fitting in workshops with industry icons.  It has been a month for coming closer as a team - learning masses from the best of the best, culminating in presenting our first show together and shooting our first collection 'Curvette'

First there was the shoot preparation day with the fabulous Tina Farey and Andy Heasman of Rush, who gave us enormously practical tips and tricks for ultra-professional prep.

Next up was a fascinating hair additions day with the Balmain team, featuring a demonstration by the famous Errol Douglas MBE, former President, with 'effortless' skills on show.

Now to the shoot itself, with top industry photographer Jack Eames. With the creative direction of Tina, Jack captured fabulous images of the team’s work which will be published in Hairdressers Journal in April so keep a look out! Massive thanks to Jess Gagen, from Boss Model Agency in Manchester for being part of the team.

February still had more in store; as Billy Currie, ex-Sassoon wonder-stylist, shared his career highlights with us – a hugely enjoyable, enlightening and inspiring tale of professional courage, imagination and passion. He even took us to Chiltern coffee house while continuing to tell us fascinating industry stories.

And now to the big finale of the month; Salon London at the famous Excel Centre. Two days of show presentation, six incredible models and our first chance to show what we can do as a team.

Its been such a wonderful experience with really talented, fun and creative teammates. Thank you to Lara McGrath and Isabel Hibbert for being my incredible models. I’m delighted to say there’s much more to come so look out for my next post…