Award Winning hair has been our focus for the past few months. For the past two years as a team we have entered the prestigious L’Oreal Colour Trophy. The competition is entering its 62nd year and is the world’s longest running hairdressing competition. I remember the first time we went to watch the regional finals in Leeds with our team hoping that it would inspire them and it did not disappoint. The finals are such a amazing electric evening with a buzz that is hard to describe. It’s a rare opportunity for salons across the region to showcase what they can do but to also network and sometimes have a good drink together.
I for one came away daydreaming of one day having our salon up on stage winning awards and putting our name in lights. It was time to start planning our dream and it wasn’t long before we pulled together as a team and won the Leeds regional finals in 2016 and went on to London to the Grand final. A amazing, emotional moment for us all. We didn’t win the big prize this time but we will one day. We were incredibly proud of our achievement to be up on stage amongst some of THE biggest names in hairdressing and that was good enough for us. We are determined to get there one day!! For now we are very proud to be the only Salon in Rotherham to EVER get that far.
https://www.lorealcolourtrophy.com/about
With that in mind we knew that this year we needed to step it up a gear with stronger models, more planning and a bucket load of creativity chucked in.
We always start preparing for Colour Trophy by doing a model search. This is the most important part for us and probably the hardest. The model has to be right for our final looks but also they have to be confident and we need to be able to showcase the hair to a very high standard so the pressure is always on to get the right faces. We have been very lucky this year to gather together a very high standard of models and a great team. We then start to research all the upcoming fashion and hair trends in order to produce high quality images. This year was also a game changer for us as we are undergoing a huge rebrand of our salon and the images needed to sit well within this brand. We feel that the two should always compliment each other and we like the images created to look and feel like we have our own personal ‘House’ stamp on them.
The competition criteria states that we should produce “a well-executed, inspirational, modern colour on a female model. This must be complimented by a beautiful style, finish and total look taking inspiration from upcoming trends”. With this in mind we knew that we needed to also source an amazing team of professionals to do the work including stylists, make up artists and a photographer. Luckily we had to hand Natalie Reynolds for Make up and Craig Fleming for the photography http://www.craigfleming.net . With an award winning team ready we were all set to go!
Shoot day is always a bit crazy but with plenty of coffee and pizza it always ends up being a pretty ace day for us all. The buzz in the salon is great and we love putting our creative heads on to create some amazing hair. Being a hairdresser is always about clients and creating the best styles but on this day all our staff really get to be inspirational and showcase the creative side of their skills.
The mens final image was styled and created by our House Stylist Aimee Carter. We love this modern take on a classical strong mens style. The hair has a sleek and healthy look which we loved. Aimee worked with colour blocking around the edges of his hair to create this masculine look.
For the women entry we used a model called Devon. We just love this model and her gorgeous face. She has the perfect mix of grunge vs glamour which was exactly what we was looking for. We all had major hair envy when we saw the finished colour and style created by our team. We worked her colour using a lot of colour blocking to create tones in particular areas of the hair. Look how much the hair shines and flows down her back so gracefully. We also loved styling her in black and lace, a trend we feel never gets old.
The star award was the final category we entered and I have to say we have found that the stakes are always so so high for this category. It’s a really tough one to enter but our stylist Ashley did an amazing job and we are really very proud of what she produced as a final look and image. Ashley wanted to create a fashion forward colour and street style and we think this has really been showcased in her final image. She used a blue undertone and shine line to create this amazing colour and finish.
So the photos were sent and all that was left was to wait nervously for the results to be announced.
We are over the moon to announce that we are once again through to the LIVE backstage finals in leeds on the 11th April (whoop)!
Massive well done and thank you to all that were involved in the production of our photoshoot. We are always striving to better ourselves and keep moving forward in the hairdressing world one step at a time. Below is a selection of our final images. I hope you like them and any feedback is appreciated.
We will keep you updated as the competition moves along 🙂
Kind Regards,
Jessica xx
