 Hi, beautiful. You look stunning today. And always. Thank you for being here. Hold on, sorry. Let's get this animation away for a second. Today's video is going to be animated if you can't already tell. I'll be telling you guys about three different situations that happened within my hairstyling career that definitely stuck with me. I wanted to share these stories with you guys, not to make fun of myself, but slightly. Also, I wanted to help some of you guys out there who are aspiring hairstylists or are currently assistants at a salon. I've made so many mistakes in my career. I'm not afraid to admit it. We're dealing with chemicals every day. We're cutting off hair. It's a lot to deal with. So I wanted to make it known today that I am not perfect and I want to share those mistakes with you so that maybe you can learn from them and not repeat the same thing that I did. Also, it's just going to be really entertaining for you guys to hear these stories even if you're not a hairstylist or have no interest in being a hairstylist. I hope you guys can have a laugh with me or at me. Let's dive into my three horror stories from being a hairstylist. Is that what I call them? Three just things that I wish didn't happen in my career. Let's do it. We are going to dive into story number one. To be a hairstylist at any large salon or any very reputable salon, you must be an apprentice first. And a lot of the times that is a couple years of being an apprentice or more. All a hairstylist really does is apply the color. Other than that, you are doing every little detail. You're getting their coffee. You're getting their robe to put on, the hairstylist equipment set up. You're mixing their color, washing your heads, blow drying their hair. You just have your stylist back no matter what. It can be a very stressful environment to be in, especially when your hairstylist has a very insane work day and you are their backbone. You have to keep them together. And this day, I was chosen to be an assistant for a girl who will go under the name of Liz today. And Liz was always one of the top stylists and had the most full books. She had about 13 clients that day. That's a lot of people to deal with. So I go through my day, everything's normal. I'm doing an amazing job. I'm like, yes, rad, I get it. So now it's about four o'clock. The day is starting to wind down a little bit. I am a little stressed out and by a little, I mean a ton. I have a client, Jennifer and a client, Megan. I'm looking after right now. I'm waiting for both of their colors to process. They're both processing at the same time because Liz did it that way. And these clients were gonna be ready at the same exact time. Sometimes when this happens, you have to find other people to help you out. But I was like, I can do this myself. I can just go from one to the other. There was nobody else to help at this time and I just made it work. Megan's timer went off. I then took her back to the sink, started shampooing her. Now Megan, you're gonna wait here until I mix up your toner. And behind Megan's back, I grabbed Liz's other client, Jennifer and brought her back to the shampoo bowl also and washed her hair. I then told Jennifer that I was going to mix up her toner also. So here I am in the back room mixing up Jennifer and Megan's toners. Both of these girls had very different hair colors because one of them, Megan, had highlighted blonde hair. The other girl had bright red hair. Boom, we're ready. I'm on schedule. I'm just gonna put this one on real quick on Megan and then put this one real quick on Jennifer. And they're both gonna process at the same time and we're gonna do this amazingly. We're gonna finish the day off perfectly. Oh my God, I killed it. So I walked back to the sinks and these sinks were set up so you can only see the back of their heads, right? So I come over the back and shampoo. I start applying Megan's toner and I'm just trying to go as fast as possible. I am putting this on her. I go to Jennifer's sink. I grab her toner. I put on her hair and I'm mushing it in and I'm like, hold up one damn minute. Oh, and I look over at Megan's hair and I'm like, oh Megan's hair was not red a minute ago. I put Jennifer's red toner on Megan's blonde hair and this wasn't just any highlight. This was a full foil. This stylist took an hour and a half to fully foil her hair blonde and I just put red over her hair. That is a big no-no. I start sweating, dripping. Oh my God, my shirt was drenched. It was so gross and I stopped and I paused and I go, what do I do now? I just kept smiling and Megan asks, is everything okay? Cause I kind of just like stopped doing what I was doing and I go, oh, everything's great. We're all doing well. Yep. You guys just stay there and I will be right back and don't look in the mirror. And she's like, why? And I'm like, don't look in the mirror. I'm just kidding, that did not happen but I thought it was cute to add in there. So I run back to Liz at this point and Liz is in the middle of another conversation and I go, Liz, can I just speak to you for a second? She's like, hold on, I'm in the middle of something and I'm like, I need to speak to you right now. So I bring her back into our little break room and I go, Liz, please don't be mad at me but I put red toner on your blonde client. The words that were exchanged that point are probably not appropriate for me to put on YouTube. Liz went over to the sink, evaluated the problem. We painted more lightener on her hair at the sink. The toner ended up not sitting on her hair for too long so it didn't grab that much. We clarified her hair a few times. We got all the red out. It actually looked really good and I'm still just like nervous. What Megan is going to say? Is she going to notice? Is it going to look bad? Is it going to look good when I blow dry it? So we fixed Jennifer's toner. She's fine. She just got a blonde toner on red hair so it wasn't a big deal. We put the red toner on her. We got her out. She's so happy. I'm working with Megan now and she's looking in the mirror and I start blow drying Megan's hair and this is the moment of truth. My heart is still skipping a beat at this point and it's coming out of my chest and she goes, I love it. Did you guys do something different this time? This looks really good. But I tell you, I was so relieved. I have never felt that good in my life. It was better than any feeling you could imagine. I felt like a pound of bricks had just been taken off my back. She loved her hair. She actually thought it was the best color she's ever gotten since she started going to this salon. My stylist that day that I was working with, Liz, was pleased that she liked the result. However, she was not very pleased with me still. We had to build back that trust, you know? But overall, it had a happy ending and that's all that really matters. If the client's happy, we're happy. Let me just tell you something. I never once put the wrong toner on somebody's hair again. I quadruple checked that glaze before it goes on their head. We are not gonna make a mistake like this again. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And that's story number one. This story all begins when I became a stylist on the floor. We call it on the floor when you finally are done with your apprenticeship and you can actually be a stylist on your own and do hair in the salon. I'm about two months on the floor, so still very new. Still learning the ropes, still getting used to doing all my own clients. I was rapidly building my own clientele at this point. This was also the winter seasons, which is always the craziest in the salon. I had about six clients this day and that, you guys, for one person to handle, it's a lot of pressure and if you mess up one client that day, your entire day falls apart. Now, typically somebody with this many clients in a day would get an assistant, but because I was so new on the floor, I didn't have the ability to get an assistant that day because all the other stylists were higher up than me and there was not enough to go around. So I had to work alone and I said, you know what, it's fine. If I could go through being an assistant, I can do this myself. So for the first part of the day, I did my first, I think it was four clients so well. They were so excited and happy and let me also tell you guys, my book, it was back to back. And when I say my schedule was back to back, that means like you apply a color, you're then going back to your other client and washing out their hair and blow drying it and then going back to your other client. It's like clients on top of clients on top of clients. Nevermind, make sure that they have coffee, water, anything that they want. It's a very stressful environment. So now I have one of my regular clients coming in. Her name is Jamie. Jamie is such a sweetheart. She's an older woman. Not really that old though. She's like in her 40s. She's like 45 or something. She gets such a simple color done. All she wants to do is cover her gray roots. So simple. It's one of the most simple things you can do in hair styling and it makes you a lot of money. So I was very happy to see her that day. So I grabbed Jamie, set her down. We have a little Kiki and a talk. Then I mix up her usual color and I go and start applying her color. We're having fun. She's reading this new book. She loves it. She's so invested in this new book. She's reading. It was a thick book. As I'm doing her hair, I am checking my watch. I'm like, oh, I talked to Jamie way too much. I have my other client who's here who's getting this very intense color correction. So I quickly finish up Jamie's hair and I say, okay, I will see you in 45 to rinse it off. Do your toner and blow dry your hair. She's like, yes, thank you. I'm going to have such a good time. I'm going to read this book. So I go and get my next client. She's a huge project. It's a color correction. She colored her hair herself at home and it turned out very orange and awful and disgusting and this was going to take me until the end of the day. I get so lost in the mess of her hair and I am just also so happy. Like I am leading my best life when I do color corrections actually. So I get so laser focused in the hair that I just begin to not remember that I'm in real life anymore and that there's other responsibilities, which is scary. All of a sudden, Jamie pops back in my head and I'm like, oh my God, it's probably time to wash Jamie's hair. So I look down at my watch and I realize that I have been working on this other girl's hair for two and a half hours. Jamie's color was only supposed to be on her 45 minutes. Now, luckily this is a single process color. After 45 minutes, it really does nothing. It wasn't a big deal. Like her hair is not going to burn off. Like it was not bleach. So I peek around the mirror and I go and look that girl Jamie is still reading her novel. She was just as invested in her novel as I was in this color correction that I was doing because I put down everything swiftly and ran over to her and I go in my head. I'm like, should I apologize? Should I acknowledge the fact that I left her here for two and a half hours? Is she even mad at me? Are we going to get in a fight? I don't want to do this right now. This is scary. So I just go with plan B, which is to not acknowledge anything that I did. I go up to her and I go, we're good to go. I think it's, I think it's processed long enough. And she goes, oh yeah, yeah, I'm ready. It seemed like an awful long time. If it has it, I'm like, don't look at your watch. And I'm like, you know what? Sometimes time just passes by slower. It's all an illusion really. And that is why you feel like you've been here for a long time. And then she goes, well, I came here at this time and I'm here to, I'm like, no, you didn't. I think I had her convinced that she was actually traditional, which I'm so sorry about because she was like, you know what, you're right. I think that I just got really carried away with reading this book and reading into this character and I must have lost track of time. And I'm like, I know, right? I'm like, that's what it must have been. I bring her back to the shampoo bowl. I'm shampooing her hair. I then put her toner on. I bring her back to her seat. I quickly blow-dry her hair. I also took off her toner from her ticket price because I felt really bad. And I was just like, here's a free gift because you're just an amazing woman. I turned her around in her seat to show her her new look. She loved it. She felt amazing. She said I did an amazing job blow-drying that day. And I said, well, thank you. I just happened to put a little more work in for you today. You know, she was an amazing client of mine for a very long time after that. I don't think she ever found out that I let her hair process for two and a half hours. I don't even know how you don't realize that, but I'll take it. Wow, I should probably never lose track of time like that again. And luckily I never have since that day. I have one last story for you. And this one is a juicy one. I had booked my biggest shoot ever. I was going to be doing the hair for a very big model of the time. This was a campaign shoot for a brand. We were working with an amazing photographer who just shot Rihanna like a week before the shoot. This was the biggest thing I've ever done. I was so excited. I was like, this is my opportunity. I'm going to make it in New York City, little 21-year-old Brad. I brought myself here. I manifested this and this is my ticket. So I arrived at this shoot. It is 6 a.m. And let me just tell you the model didn't show up until 10 a.m. Honestly, it was fashion week. It was a crazy time. However, it is still pretty rude to make everybody wait for you. So we were all, you know, a little annoyed, but we weren't taking it personally. We were all going to get over it. It was all fine. This girl gets on set immediately when she gets on set. She looks at all the food and says, I'm not eating this, which again, totally fine. I get it. You're a model. You want to watch your figure. You want to, you know, be very fit. But she only ate this one specific place in Manhattan. And we were in Brooklyn at the time. So we had to send a girl on set an hour away to go get this food for her. And when it came back, she didn't eat it. This is just setting kind of the mood of the day for you. We're all discussing the mood board and all the looks we're going to do for that day. So I realized my look is pretty avant-garde. You know, I am going to be doing something a little bit more out there on her and something not that pretty, which sometimes can be a little scary because models tend to like feeling pretty and don't always love feeling very like androgynous and out there and avant-garde. It's a little bit scary, you know? And if it's not done right, it could go really bad. But I quickly began my first look that the creative director directed me to do, which was that avant-garde look. Hair and makeup takes a long time at shoots. So I'm there for two and a half hours doing this one look. And I was like, whoa, the picture that the creative director told me to do matches perfectly to what I created on this wonderful, beautiful model's hair. And I noticed the creative director is there talking to the model and I'm like, hi guys, like doesn't it look great? And the creative director says, oh my God, I love it. Like it looks exactly like the photo I presented to you. I then say, great, I'm so happy. Like let's get her changed. Let's show her her look and we can move on. And then I hear in the other room her go, oh my God, what did he do to me? Are we talking about the makeup artist, the stylist, the photographer? Because I know you ain't talking about me. That was my first thought, honestly. And so she comes back and she tells me she hates her hair. Honestly, just like that. And I am just like, okay. Because I try to not like clients get the best of me. I know it can sometimes be a very stressful environment. You want to look your best. So I understand where they're coming from. So I said, okay, well, maybe we can make something that's more to your liking. And she's like, can you please give me a slight back ponytail? So I quickly scrambled to get all the pins out of her hair, put up her hair into a tight ponytail. And as I'm coming back, she goes, do you have a Mason Pearson brush? Those, by the way, are $250 brushes. And at the time I did not have that kind of money. And she said, you can only brush my hair with a Mason Pearson brush. I'm like, I have this one that's a lot cheaper. That works the same. Is that okay? And she's like, no. Well, you think you would bring one with you then, huh? I didn't say that, but I wanted to. I continue to do my job. I pull her hair back in a tight ponytail. She looks in the mirror again and says, why does this look so bad? I don't know how it can look bad. It's a ponytail. I mean, it's the most simple style you can do. I know I can nail a ponytail. Let's not go there. I mean, like, come on. You must have something out for me at this point because this ponytail looks like a ponytail. She doesn't like it. It's too high. So I take it out. I do it again. I do a much lower ponytail. This time, you guys, it's too freaking low. And you can see on her face that she is getting so annoyed with me. I'm getting so annoyed with her. And I go, you know what? I'm gonna go to the bathroom. I wanted to give her a rest. I wanted her to just cool down. And I come back and I see her doing her own hair in the mirror with my tools. She's taking my brush. She's putting her hair up in a ponytail. And I'm like, oh my God, this is so unprofessional on so many levels. Like, do not use my tools to do your own hair when I am the hairstylist booked at the shoot. And in my head, I'm like, I'm not gonna let this girl get the best of me. I'm not, not today. Nope. I have tried my best. I have kept it civil. I have been sweet. I have been kind to this girl. And I thought in my head, we're not gonna cry over the situation. We're not gonna get upset. I'm gonna simply leave the situation because clearly I am not wanted here. I subtly pick up my things. I let her have the brush and the elastic. And I said, thank you for letting me work on your hair today. I appreciate it. However, I feel like I'm not welcome here. I am going to leave. All she said was, okay, nice meeting you. And I left. And I promised myself when I left there that I will not shed a tear over the situation, even though it was the most exciting event of my life. And I completely failed at it. I'm gonna learn from the situation. I'm not going to cry over it. And that is exactly what I did. And now look at me. Now I'm wearing a Balenciaga turtleneck with matching gloves. I have my own company. I'm a C.E. Ho. I'm living my best life. And I have all you guys here watching me and I appreciate you so much. And thank you for helping me get everything I have in my life. So I hope you guys enjoyed those stories I have for you today. If you guys would like to see more of these stories, give this video a like and leave a comment below. Make sure you guys hit the notification bell to get notified every time I post a new video. Also subscribe if you haven't done that already. Let me know like what the hell. Make sure you guys follow me everywhere else. Here are all my social media links. Oh, add me. Check out my hair care line xmondohair.com. You can also head to xmondohair on Instagram to check out all we have to offer. Make sure you guys text me so I can notify you of every video drop, any photos I upload, or new things happening with X-Mondo. And I might just have a conversation with you through texts. Today's Instagram shout out goes to Ella and she says, I have no idea how to style my curly hair or what length would look best. I'm not happy with my hair right now. And I feel like everything looks bad on me. Your input would mean so much. You're beautiful. Love your hair. I don't know what you're seeing. That's wrong with it to be honest with you. I could tell you that wave tech will help your hair a lot if you're having problems with your curls and salty but wave tech is sold out. But we are working on a restock soon ish. And I hear all you guys waiting for restocks. We're working on it. I really like your hair. Honestly, I don't know much to say you could trim it, but I love the length on you and your curls look great. Honestly, I think you should keep doing what you're doing and you know, look in the mirror and just tell yourself you are a bad and you rock and you're gorgeous. I think that's all you really need. Otherwise, your hair looks great. And that is all for today guys. Thank you so much for watching today. Don't forget to live your extra life. I will see you guys next time. Bye.