Student salon a chance to get hands-on

HAIRCUTS and beauty appointments are the kind of often expensive services that people could be pushing further down the priority list as the cost of living continues to rise.

Yet, there’s a place in town that offers salon-quality cuts for a fraction of the standard prices – Bendigo TAFE.

Chloe Graham has been a hairdresser for almost three years and said she enrolled as a student and, along with her job at a local salon, works at TAFE once a week to improve her skills.

“We are struggling to get people with the full qualification to actually come into the salon,” said Ms Graham.

“It’s good to see there’s a lot of people learning to become a hairdresser and really wanting to come into this career.

“I’ve found there hasn’t been too many differences between the services we do in here as to what we do in the salon, but the price is very different.

“We’re all in here trying to learn and better build our skills, so I think by also having the reduced rates, it means clients are more comfortable to come in, and not everyone can afford the full salon services either.”

Josie Thomas, manager of the skills and jobs team at Bendigo TAFE, was at the salon recently having her roots touched up and said she has appointment about every six weeks.

“I do have a salon that I visit outside of TAFE, but my background of being a hairdresser for many years before having my career change, I’m actually really passionate about helping these young people get the opportunity to be exposed to all sorts of hair, all sorts of clients,” she said.

Bendigo TAFE education manager of creative industries Julie Curnow said the salon sees about 200 appointments each week across hair, beauty, and barbering.

“The appointments are a really important way for us to make our students the best possible industry-trained and accredited hairdressers, barbers, and beauty therapists,” said Ms Curnow.

“It’s competency-based training, so once the educator deems them ready to do practical, they would start on clients and then move to assessment.

“There’s currently a huge demand for staff in hairdressing, barbering, and beauty salons right across the state.

“Probably I get calls every fortnight from people in the region asking, do we have anyone that could come and work at their business?”