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Beauty lessons

Spring Hill Beauty Academy students learn the science behind the art of looking good.

By BETH N. GRAY
Published January 21, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Keri Wiginton] Above, Mayelin Dominguez, 25, center, and Shannon Kazakowitz, 24, right, give Marcia Wilson, 65, left, and her husband, Robert Wilson, 69, pedicures at Spring Hill Beauty Academy.

SPRING HILL

Beauty school is a healthy mix of art and science - that's the big lesson for the first class members at the new Spring Hill Beauty Academy.

Art and science. Honestly.

Angela Weedo, 18, and Mariah Dionne, 19, perched on high stools, pored over their textbooks, 26 chapters, nearly three inches thick. The chapter on short and long hair design culminated with 351 questions demanding answers. The students from Spring Hill murmured.

"It's a lot of bookwork," acknowledged cosmetology manager Tiffany Kimble, 34, a hair stylist for 10 years, now an instructor.

"They learn anatomy and physiology," she said.

Indeed. All the bones of the foot and hand, dermis, epidermis. Muscles and pressure points from toe tips to the knee, from fingertips to the shoulder, so they can massage those areas as they perform pedicures and manicures.

They study disorders of the skin and scalp, plus the chemistry of beauty products.

"A couple of chapters, it feels like nursing," said Laura Balatsos, 44, instructor for the nail specialty program whose textbook runs to 20 chapters.

The cosmetology course consumes 1,200 hours, six hours a day, over 11 months. The nail specialty commands 240 hours of study and hands-on work over 12 weeks.

"It's not long enough," said student Michele Diaz, 28, who itches to get beyond the book. "I like creating."

Added Weedo, "I like to make people feel pretty."

Said Dionne, "You grow up and you have an interest. It's something I love."

For years she clipped the hair of her two younger brothers, her dad and guy friends at home.

"I did a lot of proms, up things." She colored hair for friends. "You can do it without a license if you don't charge," Dionne explained.

Interjected Diaz, "We all come in with some type of experience. That's what excites us."

At the academy, hair students view a photograph, then are instructed to mimic it on a mannequin.

"The end result is the best," said Diaz on a recent morning devoted to specialty styles.

"I like them to teach themselves," said instructor Kimble, "get to look at it and do it."

Kimble, a long-haired blonde with a fetching smile, downplays her role. But her teaching shines through as she talks about straightening curls with products and blow drying; making finger waves or hand-manipulated barrel hair, in case the curling iron breaks or the stylist runs out of rollers; lacquering a long-haired updo so it will last three days, "if they don't sleep on it," she quips.

Of course, cutting comes first, and Kimble describes layering, frizzing, etching, five ways to do fringey bangs, and more. Much success is in a trick of the hand, the angle of the comb and scissors, she says.

While Kimble restricts students in early stages to the mannequins, they work on each other. "It's way easier on a real head," said Shadalia Mercado, an 18-year-old from Spring Hill, who was braiding and finishing an updo for nail tech student Shannon Booth, 24.

The Hernando Beach woman wanted something special for a gig she was playing with a band that evening.

In the nail workroom, instructor and 10-year nail tech Balatsos said, "I love everything about it. I like the art of it."

The art includes shaping and forming new nails, painting, and applying decals.

"Nail designs and nail art is the fun stuff," she says.

But don't forget the chemistry. "It's all in the liquid and powder, getting the right consistency," she said of applying acrylic nails, fabric and paper wraps. She added, "Cleanliness is a big thing."

Georgina Sosa-Fong, the academy director and a resident of Spring Hill, has eight years' experience in vocational school administration in Tampa and New Port Richey.

"We needed a cosmetology school up here," she said. The academy is the only program of its kind in Hernando after Pasco-Hernando Community College discontinued its cosmetology program.

The academy, where classes were launched in November, has five students in daytime cosmetology classes, two in a night course and three enrollees in the nail program, as well as three instructors. Classes in Spanish are expected to be offered beginning in February.

Fast Facts:

Want to enroll?

Beauty school isn't cheap. The cosmetology program is pegged at $9,945, including tuition, text, kits and uniform. The nail program costs $2,720. Payment plans are available. Students need a high school diploma or GED.

For more information, call the academy at (352) 683-6969. It is located at 1486 Pinehurst Drive in the Hernando West Plaza just off U.S. 19 and Spring Hill Drive.

[Last modified January 20, 2007, 21:32:19]