Guest blog post by Maritza Lara, TUBC student at our Glendale Heights Campus.
On March 3, 2013, Tricoci University students of Glendale Heights were delighted to have Ivan Zoot as their guest speaker. Ivan Zoot is a very talented professional cosmetologist that has been in this business for many years. His success has now made him into Marianna’s Director of Education. Marianna is one of the biggest cosmetology production companies in the world.
When Ivan Zoot graduated from cosmetology school he worked for a top notch hair salon as an assistant. He had to do the job that nobody enjoys. He was known as the “shampoo girl” as he called it. After working there for a couple of years he decided to get a part-time job at place he called “Zippy’s down by the mall”. At that little shop he took a training program that the salon offered. He started learning what he never learned in cosmetology school.
One of the things that Ivan said that was important was, “It’s your choice to be better”…” The secret to success after cosmetology school is taking advantage of all the education that is offered by this industry”. Education is everywhere, you could get important information by going to private classes, going to a beauty show or watching professional videos online. Ivan Zoot has over 500 videos on his YouTube channel. Each of them have been viewed many times. He has a video called Skip Guard Technique. In that video he shows everyone how to blend a fade. Which I believe is one of the hardest things to do when it comes to men’s cuts. Education is key in this industry because it changes every day. It’s our job as a cosmetologist to keep up with all the new trends and styles so that our guests are happy after a service.
Ivan Zoot specializes in clipper cutting. He taught us a few of his techniques that could help us when we do clipper cuts. Some of the techniques he showed us were clipper over comb, cross cutting and up cutting. He explained to us how to use the clipper correctly. The way you clipper cut is with a rocking motion or heel to toe cutting. When you’re doing a clipper over comb cut, the comb acts as the guard and depending on the way the comb is angled the more or less hair will be cut. All these different techniques prove to us that there is more than one way to cut short hair.
Having someone as successful as Ivan Zoot come in and talk to us students really inspires me. I start to think about my future. For example, where I see myself in ten or twenty years. I know that if I work hard enough I too can be a successful cosmetologist like Ivan traveling across the globe to educate students like me to strive for what they believe in.