Coles Hair Spa

f previous experience

I have been in and around the hair and beauty industry since I was a child having an extremely creative family around me I was able to express my creativity from a young age. With guidance and knowledge given to me from my mother and other family members I learnt about creative art in many different genres, I knew from a toddler that I wanted to do something creative with my life. My first ever hair cut was when I was 5, I decided that my cousin needed a fringe so crocodile scissors at the ready I cut her a fringe in, which apparently was quite good. That was it from that point I decide that I wanted to follow my mother’s footsteps and become a hairdresser. My mother brought me a training head to practice my hair dressing on, not long after that I started doing my friends hair in my mother’s salon with her guidance. From 12 years of age my mother felt confident enough to let me colour and cut her hair. I then got a Saturday job in a salon sweeping floors, washing hair and working on reception the usual Saturday girl duties. As soon as I left school I started working and took an apprenticeship attending college one day a week from the salon I had already been doing my Saturday work at. I went to college for just over a year and felt I couldn’t express myself and had to wait for the other girls in my class, I wanted to push forward I wanted to be working as a stylist on the salon floor. Although I loved college and the salon I was at, I just felt it wasn’t creative enough for me the clientele were generally older and tended to all have pretty much the same style, so at this point decided I wanted to be in a younger salon with a wider clientele base and a in house training rather than college where I felt held back. I found a new well know chain of salons in my area and approached them asking for a job and to finish my training. I went for an interview in 2004 and got it. It was where I wanted to be at that time. I had great fun at the salon and with my fellow employees and was in my element. The training was great we could all go at our own pace, had real clients and not doll heads. I qualified not long after starting and got put on the shop floor, I didn’t feel nervous or worried I felt excited and confident, I worked hard and had an amazing regular client base. I found that sometimes my training from the previous salon helped as most of my fellow employees never learnt how to do a perm or even a set as they didn’t have clients to train on as they were all young at the training academy so a lot of the time these got booked in my column even though at that point I was a junior stylist. I progressed forward and worked my way up until I wanted to be more independent. I left the salon in 2008 and have been self-employed since working from home and mobile, I quickly built up my regular clientele with a lot from the salon finding me through various ways. After a year of setting up my business I took up working on photo shoots and setting up my own photo shoots to get some images of my work and build up a portfolio. Setting up my own photo shoots I would have to find makeup artists I found myself unhappy so many times with the quality of the makeup work and just wanted to jump in and take over. I had great fun doing my own makeup and was always the one doing my friends before we went out. So decide the next shoot I set up I would do the makeup as well as the hair styling. Although stressful time wise I was happy with my images, I done more and more shoots like this and practiced on myself and friends every spare minute I had, I grew knowledge about makeup, experimented and became quicker . I follow so many makeup artists on all the social networking sites and have learnt something new every day. Now although I am not a qualified makeup artist I have been asked to work on lots of photo shoots as a hairstylist and makeup artist, I have worked with a celebrities had my work in Vogue it and worked on many shoots for Fashion Company’s. I have also had my regular clients asking me to do their wedding makeup as well as hair which show they must really trust me. I am currently taking training on makeup so I can become a qualified makeup artist as well as shadowing some very successful makeup artists. This is me expressing my creativity and pushing forward to create the whole look and have more areas I can create art in. Thank you for taking your time to read any inquiry’s please contact me on
[email protected]
also on instagram and twitter
@colestukenbrock

Cole Stukenbrock