“How long have you been in the industry?”
I’ve been in the industry for about 5 1/2 years now. I graduated from MC College here in Kelowna. I actually grew up in the industry, my mom is a stylist. Funny thing is when I was younger I swore I would never become a hairdresser!
“Why did you choose to become a stylist?”
I actually made a pretty big career shift when I went into hair. I used to work on the oil rigs in Alberta, when I was living in Red Deer I somehow seemed to be meeting a lot of hair dressers. I dated a few girls who were stylists and actually ended up with a roommate who was a stylist as well. Funny story, I was a little short on rent one month so to make up for it I ended up being a hair model for that roommate. Then something shifted, I realized I was miserable doing what I was doing and all these people who I had met who were stylists seemed to be really happy in their careers… Something just shifted and I made the transition. I quit the rigs, moved to Kelowna and enrolled in hair school. Best decision I’ve made, I’m really happy with the change.
“What techniques do you specialize in?”
I have a very wide spectrum, I do both men’s cuts, fades, and straight razor services as well as women’s cuts and colours. For awhile I took a break from doing women’s colours and used that time to further my skills by taking classes from Joico and Redken. I’ve been back in the saddle doing women’s colours for a while now and I really enjoy it. In that time I really built up my male clientele so I do a lot of men’s cuts, I love creating nice clean fades and specialize in working with ethnic hair types, which can be a little more challenging to work with given the thick/course texture. I also love doing cuts on my female clients who have long mermaid hair, they’re usually quite attached to it so I like being able to educate them on how they can keep their locks healthy so we don’t have to cut much off – I love opportunities to build trust with my clients because it’s so important in what we do.
“Describe your personal style.”
Tattooed and bearded (*laughs). Honestly I’m really just a regular ol’ Chuck Taylor/Jean wearing male hairstylist.
“Tell us about your worst personal haircut/hair day.”
Ok… when I was working the rigs I barely ever got hair cuts and most of the time I looked like a 12 year old skid. One day I went in and got this great cut from from this one girl, so I decided to make it a regular thing. Well, I went out this one night and ran into this girl. It was a bit of a crazy night, but anyway I went in the next day for a cut with her and I don’t know if she was just hungover or nervous or what happened but she gave me the worst cut ever… I had holes, literally holes, all over the back of my head. I tipped her $20 and never went back, I had to wear a hat until it grew out.
“If you could be any Hollywood movie character, who would it be and why?”
For sure I’d be almost any of Matthew Mcconaughey’s characters, because he’s just a sly motherf%&*er. Specifically, Dirk Pitt in Sahara is one of my favourites.
“If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and could only take 3 albums with you, what would they be?”
That’s tough, who even has albums anymore? I guess it would be “The Carter III” – L’il Wayne, then Van Halen – “Greatest Hits Vol.1” (Vol. 2 was $h!t), that was actually the first CD I ever owned. Finally, I suppose you’d get kind of depressed being deserted on an island so I’d want some Tool or NIN to remind me that the world out there is pretty shitty so I wouldn’t feel so bad about being stranded on an island.
“If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and could only take 3 movies with you, what would they be?”
Castaway, for the irony obviously. I’d probably need some humor so maybe an Adam Sandler movie like Billy Madison or something. Honestly I don’t watch a lot of movies, if I could bring books I’d definitely have Sahara by Clive Cussler (which is also a movie, everyone thinks it’s $h!tty but I love it), also I’d probably bring The Zombie Handbook (just in case, you could run drills or something to fight off boredom) and finally to round it out The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli.
“What’s your most embarrassing moment?”
That’s tough… I don’t really have a lot of shame. Well, once when I was 10 years old we went camping with family and friends of family and there was this girl there that I had a crush on. I was embarrassed because I had this dirty Sanchez mustache and my sister was teasing me about it, so I took my dads super crappy 2-blade razor and shaved it off. I was a little too enthusiastic and ended up with horrible razor burn, my top lip was bright red and rashy the entire trip. Needless to say I did not get the girl.
“We’re not trying to pick you up… but what’s your astrology sign?”
I’m an Aquarius, I’m not super into that stuff but I do have a little horoscope app on my phone. My girlfriend and I send each other horoscopes when we find them in newspapers etc. to compare what they say. I don’t put a lot of stock into that stuff, we live in the real world, but I am a spiritual person you could say.
“Do you have any nicknames?”
No, mostly everyone at the shop just calls me Harder to differentiate me from Casey Donovan. Two Caseys don’t make a right (*laughs).
“What’s one product you cannot live without?”
We just got Layrite pomades at the shop and I love the original pomade, it’s awesome. It has great direction, great hold and is water soluble so it doesn’t clog up your scalp and washes out easily.