GILROY
– Michelle Bundros sits under a hair-drying hood at Gavilan
College’s cosmetology department and watches Lanett Gorman give her
a manicure.
The Gilroy resident and mother of two relishes every moment of
the special pampering she receives on her
”
Day of Beauty,
”
a present for her 24th birthday from her sister-in-law.
GILROY – Michelle Bundros sits under a hair-drying hood at Gavilan College’s cosmetology department and watches Lanett Gorman give her a manicure.
The Gilroy resident and mother of two relishes every moment of the special pampering she receives on her “Day of Beauty,” a present for her 24th birthday from her sister-in-law.
“I’ve never had a Day of Beauty before,” Bundros says. “This is nice. Everyone deserves a day off once in a while.”
Gorman, a Gavilan cosmetology student and Hollister resident, dabs cuticle oil on Bundros’s nails to condition them. The Day of Beauty is popular with many local women, she says, and some men even come in to take advantage of the offer. The program helps the cosmetology students build up the 1,600 hours they are required to fill to graduate.
“A lot of guys would love to do this, but they’re just too shy,” Gorman says. “We have guys who come here for the Day of Beauty, and they have everything done.”
The four-hour Day of Beauty program costs $30 and clients receive a haircut and style, deep conditioning, scalp treatment, manicure, facial, eyebrow arch and makeup. All the work is done by Gavilan cosmetology students and supervised by instructors.
At 44, Gorman decided to go into cosmetology after years running a carpet store.
“It’s never too late to start,” she says. “I’m halfway there.”
Cosmetology is the perfect career for Gorman because she enjoys working with people and finds fulfillment in raising self-esteem by making them feel good about themselves and how they look.
“I love people,” she says. “We’re the best doctors. If you see someone happy, that gives you such a lift.”
The brightly-lit cosmetology department buzzes with activity as the cosmetology students work on their clients. There’s a vibration of joy filling the room as the students obviously are having fun with their customers. But throughout the department, mannequin heads rest on shelves, giving a visitor the creepy feeling that behind all this levity, there’s a guillotine waiting in a backroom.
Sitting on the shampoo chairs in another section of the department, Grace Caparelli, a second-semester cosmetology student, uses a tweezer to pluck straggler hairs out of a Dispatch reporter’s eyebrows.
“This business is a lot of fun,” she says. “It’s a great program, very family oriented. There’s a lot of comraderie here just coming in to know the gals.”
The department has 88 “girl” students and three males, she says.
Caparelli worked as a stylist 30 years ago, and is at Gavilan’s cosmetology department as a “refresher course.” In the last three decades, the tools and techniques of the cosmetology trade have changed, she says, but the overall goal is the same: to make people better about themselves through beauty.
It usually takes students two years to go through Gavilan’s program, but some do it in a year and a half by taking summer school and special evening classes.
After graduating from the program, the students take a demanding written and practical test from a California State Board of Licensing. The license is good for two years, and can be renewed by the students without having to undergo more tests.
Rose Hernandez is in charge of the cosmetology department. She keeps the atmosphere in the cosmetology fun by special parties and holiday events for the students. But she also emphasizes a professionalism of attitude and skill in her students. The students are provided with top-of-the-line materials such as makeup and shampoos, and instructors from cosmetics companies teach the correct use of their products.
But she also emphasizes to her students the importance of developing their people skills.
“This is one of the few professions you can still touch people and not call it sexual harassment,” she says. “Our industry is a beauty industry. The students learn to make people feel about themselves.”
The national average salary including tips for stylists is about $32,000 a year, but in the Bay Area, graduates of the cosmetology department can expect to make between $50,000 and $100,000 after a few years of building up their client base, Hernandez says. Some of the more swank Silicon Valley beauty shops have stylists making up to $200,000 a year, she says.
“I have a student in Morgan Hill who is making $1,000 a day,” she says. And job satisfaction is another benefit of cosmetology. One of her students was laid off from Internet-company Cisco recently and found she likes working with people rather than computer routers all day, Hernandez says.
“That’s one of the things we emphasize with the students,” she says. “You don’t have to be the top stylists in the world. Just treat them like royalty, and they’ll love it.”
The cosmetology department is located at Gavilan College’s main campus in Gilroy. Free parking is available to clients. Get a parking permit from the receptionist at the front desk.
For details on the Day of Beauty program call 842-5055.
