Final Assessment, Evaluation

Assessment day.

[not a disclaimer]Without using it as any kind of excuse at all for the assessment on the day I was not in the right frame of mind at all. Unfortunately not something I could control, I was simply having a down day due to medical reasons, this aside I should still have been able to perform better than I did.

I was organised for the assessment, I had all the tools I needed to complete the look I was creating except the rats. I had previously used the rats supplied by the uni which were stuffed with tissue and  I think due to miscommunication, neither of us had prepared any rats to use for the assessment. So before it was time, we both went out and bought a pair of tights and cotton wool.
Unfortunately because we didn't do a test run with the new rats we had made we didn't realise that cotton wool was a bad choice to stuff them with, it made them too firm inside and when it came to it the pins didn't go through. This was what ultimately nearly destroyed the entire finished product.
I can honestly only blame myself for now being totally prepared and I can hold my hands up.

Beginning the assessment I followed the instructions to a T even though we had practiced it numerous times, so I started with constructing the halo plait around the perimeter and that was all fine and neatly sectioned and I was happy with that so moving on to step two, I sectioned off the top and removed the piece I was curling for later, backcombed as usual and then the rat disaster struck.

The struggle I had was rolling the hair around the rats we had made, I don’t know whether these were bigger than the ones we had used before but I didn’t seem to be able to wrap the hair around them as I did in the practice sessions, and the rat was visible at either end.
I then got frustrated and tried this again and again which wasn’t a good idea because the more I did it the worse it got,
Even after following the instructions, which I didn’t need anyway after having practiced it enough already, I couldn’t get the shape right and it was uneven and just not working for me as it had done previously, then when it came to pinning the hair on the top the small pins wouldn’t go through and into the rat and this just caused chaos for me, the more I tried to force the pins in the more I was pulling out the shape I created.
I did manage to grip it into place but I wasn't happy with the shape after struggling with the pins. After three tries it would have to do, time was running out.
So I curled my left out section, tried to use that to disguise the parts of the rat that were on display and it sort of managed to look alright, then again when it came to pinning the curls round the top more struggle with the pins, so they have to go in a bit looser and more horizontally compromising the strength of the overall outcome.

All in all this was an utter shambles and I was not happy with myself at all. I went in after G'ing myself up with a good frame of mind and half way through I felt utterly defeated.
I knew that I knew what I was doing, I knew every step of the design to a T and It just didn’t happen for me on the day,
I definitely didn’t need more practice for the look, But I should have prepared and tested the rats before the assessment. I do simply think it was the rats we used because they didn’t work with the pins and I couldn’t get a firm shape in the hair which mean't, and being a perfectionist, I was not happy.
I know I can work under pressure and this is something I was used to but when the rats weren’t co-operating I totally lost focus and didn’t know how to overcome the problem instead I got more and more angry at myself even though I had Lauren supporting me and telling me it was okay and to relax.
So as well as all that I felt bad because I shouldn’t have put this stress onto my client when they are in the chair, I could tell she was feeling my stress and this isn’t something I do to a client. I can usually stay very calm, collected and professional and on this occasion I just did not manage to compose myself and in the professional world I don't think it's acceptable.

I have really angered myself because I know this is something I can do, I can accept that some things simply don’t work or sometimes they just don’t go the way that they are planned but in this instance because I am a hairdresser, its my background and I do have a lot of skill in the area I was more annoyed that I didn’t get the outcome I wanted. I don't know if it was down to self- confidence as well because that's also something that can push me back a lot of the time.

All in all, the finished result did resemble what I had done before but I felt that I did it better in the practice sessions but it all turned out okay in the end, and the final photos I'm happy with, looking back on the session now, although I feel I could have performed better, I can still say I'm proud of my work and the skills I've used.

Blame it on the rat.