Balayage & Freehand Colour
Placement, lift and toning for lived-in colour that grows out beautifully — and a consultation that prices it properly.
Filmed with Alison Burns
8 CPD hours · 10 lessons
Coming soonIntermediate
Precision Cutting & Restyling
Elevation, over-direction and graduation explained properly, so you can predict the shape before you cut it.
- 8 CPD hours
- 10 lessons
- Intermediate
- Video, filmed
- Certificate included
- With Alison Burns
What you will be able to do
- Map the seven planes of the head and place weight deliberately
- Use elevation and over-direction independently and predict what each will do
- Choose between travelling and stationary guides for the shape you want
- Adapt a cut for density, texture and growth patterns instead of fighting them
- Cut curly and coily hair dry with a shrinkage allowance you can defend
- Cut a fringe and face-frame that suits the face rather than the reference photo
- Run a restyle consultation that ends with the client and you picturing the same haircut
Before you enrol
NVQ/VTCT Level 2 in Hairdressing or equivalent
About this course
Most cutting problems are not hand problems. They are prediction problems — the shape ended up somewhere other than where you thought it would, and you spent the last twenty minutes of the appointment negotiating with it. Prediction is learnable, and it comes from understanding three variables and one bone.
This course rebuilds cutting from head shape upwards: where the occipital bone puts weight whether you want it there or not, what elevation and over-direction each do independently, and how graduation, layering and disconnection actually behave as the hair dries and grows.
It then applies that to the situations with the least margin for error — curly and textured hair cut dry, fringes, face-framing, and the restyle consultation where a client shows you a photograph of somebody with different hair.
Curriculum
3 sections · 10 lessons
Start here1 lesson
- How this course worksFree to read
The modules8 lessons
- Head shape, the occipital bone and where weight lives
- Elevation and over-direction as separate tools
- Guides, sections and cross-checking
- Cutting to the hair you have: density, texture, growth patterns
- Curly, coily and textured hair
- Layering, disconnection and shapes that grow out well
- Fringes and face-framing
- The restyle consultation
Assessment and certificate1 lesson
- End-of-course assessment
What you need
- No kit required for the course or assessment
- To practise: a mannequin head with a good density of hair
- Your usual shears; a section of the course covers checking and maintaining them, but no purchase is needed
Reviews
Reviews here only ever come from people who actually enrolled and completed the course, so there is nothing to show until somebody has. We would rather leave this empty than fill it.
Questions
- Can I learn to cut hair from this?
- No, and nobody should sell you an online course that claims you can. This is CPD for stylists who already cut hair professionally. Learning to cut from scratch needs supervised practical training, which is what a Level 2 qualification is for.
- Is it barbering or ladies' hairdressing?
- Both are covered where the principles are shared, which is most of modules 1–3. Modules 4–8 lean towards salon work. There is no clipper or fade content — that deserves its own course and we would rather say so than pad this one.
- Do you cover shear and razor work?
- Shear work throughout, razor and texturising techniques in modules 4 and 6, including when a razor is the wrong tool for the hair type in front of you.
- I mostly do blow-dries and colour. Worth it?
- The head-shape and weight content changes how you place colour as well, and stylists who colour into a haircut they did not plan tend to find module 1 immediately useful. But if you rarely cut, one of the colour courses will pay you back faster.
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