Flair for grooming a young generation
Flashy signboards all through the Kandana town make a few things clear. The area has an abundance of salons promising everything from just pampering to the more heavy-duty bridal make-up. People rushing in and out from the early hours of the day make it clear that competition for beauticians is fierce. This competition however doesn’t affect veteran Chrissy Rozairo’s outlook: Her passion, profession and source of much joy is the beauty industry. After 25 years of edgy haircuts, elegant dye jobs and presenting flawless brides, she says with an air of calm confidence “there is always room for improvement.”
Hairdos that stand out: Chrissy’s students’ creations at the recent Bridal Fair. Pix by Mangala Weerasekera
Taking the plunge into the beauty business in 1989, for Chrissy there were absolutely no second thoughts. Her experience with haircuts and make-up goes further back to when she was a child. Her earliest recollection of haircutting involves her father propping her up on a stool. “When I was tiny, he used to cut my hair.”
Eventually outgrowing the stool she says that on her father’s insistence she had short hair and the trips they took to a salon opened her eyes to what she later grew to love. Her mother too, has always been a well-dressed lady “but she never wore make-up- at that time there was no make-up to suit Sri Lankan skin.”
Four sisters and a host of cousins meant playing around with haircuts started as early as 1967 and she says her first salon, was a joint venture by herself and a supportive older sister.
Before taking-on the tiring day of a beautician Chrissy starts off having breakfast with her mother, whose storeroom was her first salon. Light coloured walls and beautiful green curtains are what she recalls of her first one-roomed salon back in 1989. After being a part of the Travel Industry, and also trying her hand at cake decorating she came back to doing what she loved for the flexibility it offered- “I felt I needed to spend more time with my children,” she shares. Starting her own formal education in hairdressing is 1991 at the Morris Master Class, she went on to Vidal Sassoon for Creative Haircuts and Tony and Guy in the UK for a course on Advanced Hair Cutting in 1998.
The passion to do better and the attention to new trends along with detail is what keeps a beautician in demand, she feels. “That’s what I tell my students,” she says. The students of Chrissy’s Academy showcased their graduation styles at the Bridal Fair late last year with models from the Rozannne Dias Modelling School. While the students were given the chance to do everything from organising to staging the event, Chrissy who sat with the audience smiles, “It wasn’t perfect, but it was good!” High standards and teaching her students to dream big has got her noticed as a tutor and mentor not only in the local beauty arena, but by international bodies like the UK based 
Trinity and Guildhall examination body.Recognised as the winner of a Gold Medal of Excellence for lecturing in 2013, she managed to win yet another gold medal for the Centre this year.
Teacher and mentor: Chrissy Rozairo
Her students who are clearly told that “just six short months of course work” will not equip them to start a salon have also clinched gold medals, a credit to Chrissy’s tutelage. 2010 was a particularly auspicious year, when one of her students won the Gold Medal for the Centre scoring the highest results internationally. How she manages to keep the high standard is simple, for Chrissy it rarely stops at being an instructor, or lecturer.
“It’s not only about styling, or cutting” she says. Grooming her class to always have a positive attitude and constantly look to better themselves, she says the industry is no longer about how good your skills are, but rather an amalgamation of skill and personality. “Some students come to the academy as a last resort,” having not qualified for any other path of education. Then her task as a lecturer is to inspire passion in both the subject and themselves.
Hoping her students would continue to reflect those values, she counts them “blossoming out in the right way and being a positive influence in the lives of others” to be her biggest achievement.