For hair color trends and celebrity hair, colorists turn to The Colorist. Celebrity hair, hair color ideas, hair color products and more.
Issue link: https://thecoloristmag.epubxp.com/i/112273
icons the power of positive thinking TIGI���s Richy Kandasamy has worked hard and stayed focused, and it���s paid off. 24 The Colorist | MARCH/APRIL 2013 | thecoloristmag.com PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF TIGI. Richy Kandasamy gave up island living (he grew up in the Seychelles, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean where William and Kate spent their honeymoon) for life as a jet-setting hairdresser. Technical Creative Director for TIGI, Kandasamy worked on boats with his family as a young man and imagined life as an engineer on ships that would take him to far-���ung destinations. Hairdressing was more of a hobby, and he cut hair for friends and family after school. ���I didn���t think it would end up being my career,��� he says, ���but now I make as much money as I would have as an engineer and get to travel all over the world as well.��� Kandasamy apprenticed with Fabio Colucci, an artistic director for TIGI Italy. ���I was living in Perugia and had to take the train to Florence to meet with him,��� Kandasamy recalls. It was a twohour trip each way, and Kandasamy was worried that he���d miss the last train home that night. ���He spent the entire day with me, but he thought I was too old to be an apprentice.��� Kandasamy was 22 at the time, but he had already made up his mind that he wanted this job and told Colucci that he���d work for free for three months in order to prove himself. Colucci reluctantly agreed, and when a position opened up, he o���ered it to Kandasamy, who sold his car, his scooter���anything of value to make enough money to live on for the next three months. He has never looked back. While he began his career as a barber, Kandasamy fell in love with hair color. ���To be a good colorist, you have to have an eye for beauty,��� he says. ���It���s not so much about completely changing a woman���s look, but rather about adding di���erent elements.��� While he���ll allow that we haven���t seen the last of the ombr�� trend, he suggests that it���s evolving. ���Placing light around the face is what���s in now, so instead of going from dark to light in a vertical fashion, we���ll be going from light to dark, starting in the front and moving toward the back.��� Dip-dying was more of a DIY trend, while this kind of subtle contrast requires the services of a professional, and that, says Kandasamy, will be good for business. His advice for any colorist who wants to make it in this business is to ���keep on doing what you love, don���t stop learning, invest in education, assist talented people, work for free if you have to, absorb everything you can, and your time will come.��� He worries that young hairdressers are more focused on how much money they can make and insists that it���s more important to learn as much as you can. Education, he says, is the key to a ful���lling career. Kandasamy admits that he continues to hone his craft by teaching at the TIGI Advanced Hairdressing Academy in Manhattan where his desire to communicate with his students has resulted in some surprising discoveries and new ways of getting results. So what���s the best advice he ever got? ���Work hard and don���t waste your time concentrating on what you don���t want,��� he says. It���s advice he���s taken to heart and advice any aspiring colorist would do well to heed.