Real people, high-end hair

Everyone has seen them. Buzz cuts performed with all the finesse of a weed whacker. Highlights so chunky and unartful they could have been applied by a house painter. Bad hair is alarmingly easy to identify, which is why stylists who get it right inspire a sort of Lama-esque devotion, even if their clients are hundreds of dollars poorer for the experience.

When it comes to getting a cut and color, it seems there are only two options: Pay a small fortune and come out looking like a million bucks, or drop a couple of $20s and look it. A ‘do that is both cheap and excellent seems impossible.

But it does exist, and in more places than you think, during cut and color training sessions at marquee salons. Minimally publicized, if at all, Vidal Sassoon, Louis Licari, Frederic Fekkai and other exclusive salons all run apprentice programs for fledgling talent, letting their students do reduced-rate practice runs on the public before allowing them access to the premium locks of their regular clientele.

So you won’t get the cappuccinos, cucumber water and general bend-over-backward treatment showered on the rich during regular appointments. You have to spend more time and come to the salon when they tell you, not the other way around. What you get instead is access to first-rate services for a fraction of the price; premium salon services that ordinarily cost $100 to $300 average about $35.

The levels of skill and training vary by salon and student, but there is a safety net -- after all, reputations and careers are on the line. Training sessions are taught by the salon’s best stylists and, on occasion, even the owners themselves, the benefit being that the instructor checks in with the students often and can step in to correct mistakes before an irreversible snip or color-induced fry sets in.

“When people first come, they tend to be a bit nervous because their idea of what we do might be slightly different from what we do,” said Julian Perlingiero, creative director of the Vidal Sassoon Academy in Santa Monica.

“Think about school. Would you want to go to a medical school and have an operation? Hair is important to people. It’s how they look, how they feel.”

Top talent at bargain basement prices. I was more than willing to throw my head into the ring and test them out.

Vidal Sassoon Academy

If you look good, you feel good, but I can’t say I was either when I decided to test out L.A.’s cream-of-the-crop, cut-and-color training sessions. A new mom, I’d inadvertently become a play-it-safe bun lady, nothing like the chameleon I’d once been, trying on hairstyles like fashionistas try on shoes. At various points in the previous 10 years, my hair had been black, pink, red and blond -- long, short, braided and dreaded. Each change seemed to bring out a new aspect of my personality.

Hoping to reignite that spirit, I began with Vidal Sassoon. Hailed as “the founder of modern hairdressing,” Sassoon has been in business more than 40 years. Building his reputation on precision cuts and low-maintenance styles, he operates 25 salons and 12 schools worldwide. With visions of a breezy, Sassooning blond in mind, I headed to his academy.

Just a few steps off the Santa Monica Promenade, upstairs from the “delightfully tacky yet unrefined” babes-and-burgers joint Hooters, the school is bustling with perfectly coiffed students and their lesser-groomed guinea pigs six days a week.

I arrived on a Tuesday at 10:30 a.m., paid $20 and, after signing a waiver acknowledging I was receiving services from a student instead of a trained professional and had therefore assumed the risk of dissatisfaction, walked past ammonia-filled classes of colors in progress to the room where I’d be getting my cut.

Outfitted with mirrors, hydraulic chairs, black robes and a retro ‘80s soundtrack, the room had the look and feel of a regular salon, except it was a bit more cramped. About a dozen twentysomething students were consulting with clients of all ages and hairstyles. I was seated next to a long-haired brunet in her 20s, who was next to a graying woman of about 65, who was behind a man of about 30.

My stylist was Amy Sukiennik, a 20-year-old who had transferred to Vidal Sassoon last summer after a year with the Bucks County School of Beauty Culture in Feasterville, Pa., outside of Philadelphia. There, she mostly did perms. At Sassoon, she’s been cutting real hair on real heads for about three months.

Sukiennik’s own hair was short, asymmetrical and a shade of red that would be difficult to find in nature. Her cut and color were the result of a “creative” class by more advanced stylists in training upstairs. A perk to being a student at Vidal Sassoon: free (and frequent) cuts and colors.

Sukiennik ran her fingers through my ultra-fine, bleach-damaged hair and suggested trimming 3 inches and adding a few layers to create the illusion of thickness. It was only a marginal change, but that was all I was up for at the moment.

Like a regular salon appointment, the client decides on the cut and the stylist’s job is to do it. But during a training session, there’s another step. Before the cut begins and at various stages throughout, the teacher weighs in and offers advice on how to do it, extending the duration of the haircut from 45 minutes to about two hours.

Sukiennik’s instructor was Debbie Dixon, who’s been with the academy five years. Dixon listened to Sukiennik’s plan, then asked what 3 inches looks like. When Sukiennik showed her 4, Dixon corrected her. After picking through my hair like a mother monkey, Dixon also suggested bangs.

Sukiennik washed my hair. Her touch was more tentative than I was used to, but it was understandable; she hasn’t had that much experience. Back in the chair, my limp locks were pinned into a configuration that gave Sukiennik access to the under layers.

Like the shampoo, her cutting prowess was very much a work in progress. It took about 15 minutes for the first stage, followed by another 10 or 15 minutes of waiting for Dixon to inspect. Good thing I liked my stylist, because there was a lot of downtime to chat.

“All the haircuts end up looking really good either because we did it right or we screwed up and they fixed it,” Sukiennik told me.

When I asked if she’d ever given a perfect haircut, she smiled. She hasn’t. But, she said, all the teacher’s corrections have been minor. Mine was no exception. Dixon’s inspection resulted in only a slight finessing of my bangs.

I liked what I saw in the mirror. It wasn’t anything too radical -- more like an updated model of last year’s car -- but it was an improvement.

Louis Licari

The next step was color. Louis Licari, in Beverly Hills, is a full-service salon, but color is the house specialty -- specifically, “believable” colors that factor in the customer’s base hair color and skin tone for a more natural look. Here, an average of five colorists in training alternate between highlight and single-process color every week.

Unlike the Vidal Sassoon Academy, Louis Licari stylist training takes place in the same salon where regular business is done, but the two don’t overlap. The salon closes early Mondays -- at 3:30 p.m., half an hour before the week’s training session.

I arrived shortly before 4 p.m., signed a waiver, paid $35 and met my colorist, Su Yi, who works at the salon during the day shampooing clients, mixing colors and holding highlighting foils. Yi, 28, received her cosmetology license last spring and has been with Licari since June. She’ll be in training a minimum of two years, and possibly three, before being given the chance to work with regular clients.

Yi did the obligatory paw through. Pulling out strands randomly, she guessed it had been three months since my last highlight. Ah, motherhood. She was correct.

Yi also told me my hair, very blond at the ends, had been over-highlighted. She suggested a natural golden-blond touchup and overall tone down, but she needed to run that by her instructor.

Michael Petrelli, who taught the night’s class, is the salon’s head colorist. He called over the other stylists in training to observe Yi’s interaction with me. On cue, Yi introduced herself and asked what I wanted done, as if she hadn’t just been running her fingers through my hair and chatting with me for the last 10 minutes. If Yi is to make it on the floor as a stylist, perfect coloring skills aren’t enough; she must also perfect the art of conversing with clients.

I explained that I was getting a little old to be a straight-up blond. I wanted to look my age. Petrelli said, “We call that believable.”

He looked through my hair and asked Yi to identify my natural hair color. Yi said it was dark blond. Petrelli asked her to try again. Ashy golden blond, Yi said after looking a bit harder.

Petrelli asked a few more pointed questions of Yi, demanding correct answers before repeating the drill with the other stylists in training and their clients for the night. All of the stylists seemed quite nervous. There was no escaping Petrelli’s questions, nor should there have been. Getting it wrong risks Licari’s reputation.

Petrelli & Co. disappeared to the back of the salon to mix our highlights, leaving us to thumb through a stack of fashion mags. Yi returned a few minutes later with a little dish of goo and a stack of tinfoil to begin the time-intensive task of partitioning and touching up my hair. Yi was not as deft with the foil and color as my regular colorist, nor was she as fast, but she was meticulous.

We filled the time talking about the cat she recently rescued and her boyfriend’s seven snakes. As she got more comfortable with me, I noticed she handled the comb, foil and my hair more confidently.

Yi readily admitted she was nervous. She said Monday night training was the most difficult day of her week, even if it was the most fun. The first time she did color on a real person, she said, “My hands were shaking and my heart beat really fast. Color is so hard.”

Petrelli stopped by every few minutes to observe Yi’s technique and to unwrap a foil or two and see how the color was progressing. Any sort of color is nerve-racking enough with a professional stylist; it takes a lot of attention to time to make sure the color in one section of the head doesn’t outpace the rest. Three times during the highlight, Yi shampooed out the sections of my hair that had reached the right shade of blond.

It was about two hours before she did a final wash of my hair and another 15 minutes for it to be blow-dried. Then came the moment of truth. To my eye, the highlight was, as Licari says, very believable.

As the client, ordinarily I’m the only one who needs to be pleased. Here, however, there was an audience. As Petrelli combed through my hair to check Yi’s work, the rest of the stylists in training were standing close by to check it out.

Frederic Fekkai

If I had been to the salon during regular business hours, I could have had my car parked by a valet, but I lucked out with free curbside parking. Meters on Rodeo Drive run only till 6 p.m. -- exactly the time that training cuts begin at this Frenchified salon.

Country chic, with yellow sponge-painted walls, a fountain and wood floors, the Fekkai spa and salon is separated into two rooms. To the left are his beauty products. To the right is a roomy hair salon where half a dozen stylists in training are getting their clients situated for the night’s cuts and colors.

Checking in, I saw exactly how much everything would have cost if I were here during regular hours. Cuts run from $95 to $290; color starts at $75. Each is just $30 on training night. I was there for a cut. My Vidal Sassoon trim of a month earlier had grown out.

Lito was my stylist. He’s been working at the salon five years -- first as an assistant shampooing hair, and for the last three years doing dry hair treatments and blow-drys. He’s been cutting hair at Fekkai training nights all five years and hopes that this summer he may finally be approved to cut hair on full-paying clients.

The beginning of my appointment was the usual MO. I changed into a gown and had a seat in a chair to face myself in the mirror. Lito combed through the wreckage. It wasn’t difficult for him to identify the breakage from perpetual use of a hair clip. When he asked what I had in mind, I told him “something radical.”

In the month since I’d visited Sassoon, the new year had come and gone. I was ready. If I hadn’t already tested a few training sessions, I may not have chosen to change my hair dramatically with an amateur, but the teacher to student ratio at Fekkai is 2 to 1. I felt I was in good hands.

Lito suggested shearing off about 6 or 7 inches and giving me a bob, cutting my hair at the breakage point in back. Instructor Vanessa Swartmans agreed, but she suggested a graduated bob that lengthened toward the front. She asked me to stand up and turn my head to the left, then the right, to assess my profile. She and Lito agreed: It was decent enough for a bob.

The salon’s top designer, Maurice Dadoun, stopped by next. He and Frederic Fekkai himself both worked at the Jacques Dessange salon in Paris. Dadoun has been at Fekkai’s Beverly Hills salon since it opened in 1998.

Because my hair is fine and light-colored, Dadoun said the cut would be tricky. “It’s beautiful when properly done and if not, it looks terrible.”

Lito was trying not to show it, but I could sense he was feeling pressure.

“Clients come to you not for something safe but for something special,” Dadoun continued. “Something that makes them feel unique.”

At Fekkai, the philosophy is “total beauty.” A haircut and color are just a piece of the puzzle. If I were a regular client, my stylist would also have weighed in with makeup and clothing tips.

Lito washed my hair, letting me know which Fekkai products he was using, even though the register in the other room was already closed and I wouldn’t have been able to buy them. Back at the chair, Dadoun swung by to explain exactly what Lito needed to do. He demonstrated by cutting a portion of the first layer. He left Lito to begin his work, but Dadoun was never out of the picture more than five minutes during the cut.

Neither Lito nor Dadoun were letting on, but I got the impression Lito had never done this cut. To them, that’s a good thing. It’s a learning experience. To me it was nerve-racking.

Coming into the final, trickiest stretch, connecting the back with the front, I overheard Dadoun and Swartmans chatting in their native French. My high school French couldn’t keep up with everything they were saying, but I could swear I heard Dadoun use the word “peur,” or scared. I wasn’t sure who they were referring to: me, Lito or themselves. It was probably everyone.

Swartmans instructed Lito on how to properly angle the scissors, and he finished up. After a blow-dry, Dadoun swooped in with his scissors for a little cleanup. And voila: A complete transformation in an hour and a half.

I was very pleased. So were Dadoun, Swartmans, Lito and the rest of the stylists in training, all of whom gathered around my chair to marvel at the caterpillar-to-butterfly transformation. It truly was impressive, but true to the Fekkai philosophy, Swartmans thought there was more work to be done.

I could practically feel her making me over with her eyes, replacing my schlumpy gray sweatshirt and jeans with a jersey dress from nearby Calvin Klein and sling backs from Jimmy Choo. Had the makeup counter been open, she might have even directed me toward the lipstick and concealer. Oddly, I didn’t mind a bit.

I’d come in for a haircut but I left with a new attitude. Anything seemed possible.

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Training in style

You want a great haircut, but you don’t want to bust the bank. Many salons run training programs for up-and-coming stylists, letting their students do reduced-rate practice runs on the public before unleashing them on the regulars. A sampling of marquee salons’ training sessions:

ChopChop Salon Gallery, 830 N. LaBrea Ave., L.A. (323) 464-8100

When: Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 10:15 a.m., 1:15 p.m., 4:15 p.m.

Services: Haircut, color

Regular salon cost: Haircut $75-$85; Color $70-$190

Training session cost: Haircut free; color $15

Openings per session: One per appointment time

Lead time: One week

Client input: Haircuts and colors are decided by the client; the client must meet criteria for the session.

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Frederic Fekkai, 440 N. Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills (310) 777-8700

When: Tuesdays, 6 p.m.

Services: Haircut, color

Regular salon cost: Haircut $110-$600; Color $100-$300

Training session cost: Haircut $30; Color $30

Openings per session: Five for cuts, five for colors

Lead time: One or two months

Client input: Some sessions are themed with specific haircuts and colors; others are open classes in which the client has a say.

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Louis Licari, 343 N. Camden Drive, Beverly Hills (310) 247-0855

When: Mondays, 4 p.m.

Services: Haircut, Single-process color, highlights, single-color plus highlights

Regular salon cost: Haircut $130-$145; Single-color process $65-$140; Highlights $150-$375; Single-color plus highlights $215-$515

Training session cost: Haircut $25; Single-color process $25; Highlights $35; Single-color plus highlights $60

Openings per session: Six

Lead time: One to two weeks

Client input: Color is determined through a consultation between client and colorist; the salon philosophy is natural-looking hair -- no outrageous or chunky colors.

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Planet Salon, 323 S. Robertson Blvd., Beverly Hills (310) 659-8789

When: One Monday each month. Upcoming sessions are March 28, April 11, May 16 and June 13; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Services: Haircut only

Regular salon cost: $50-$100

Training session cost: $20

Openings per session: 10

Lead time: Up to the last minute, depending on availability.

Client input: Clients must agree to the cuts being taught during the session.

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Sally Hershberger at John Frieda, 8440 Melrose Place, L.A. (323) 951-9536

When: Wednesdays, 6 p.m.

Services: Haircut, color

Regular salon cost: Haircut $125; single-process color $90; Highlights $175 plus

Training session cost: Haircut $30; single-process color $35; Highlights $35

Openings per session: Six for haircuts, seven for color

Lead time: One month

Client input: Haircuts and colors are decided by the client, who must meet criteria for the session.

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Vidal Sassoon Academy, 321 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica (310) 255-0011

When: Haircuts, Mon.-Fri. 10:30 a.m., 2 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.; Sat. 9, 11, 11:30 a.m. and 1, 1:30 and 3 p.m.; Color, Tues-Fri 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.; Sat. 8:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Services: Haircut, color

Regular salon cost: Haircut $74-100; Color $69-81; Highlights $134-$180

Training session cost: Haircut $20, Mon.-Fri., $24 Sat.; One-color process $23; Highlights $48

Openings per appointment time: Fifteen to 60

Lead time: One to two days; walk-ins when available

Client input: Haircuts and colors are decided by the client in consultation with the instructor and student.