Hundreds of beauty professionals and students gathered at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Sunday March 25 and Monday March 26 for another exciting and action-filled Allied Beauty Association (ABA) show.
This year’s event was jam-packed with fun and interactive presentations, classes, demonstrations, product launches and meet-and-greets with beauty influencers including Larisa Love and Pulp Riot’s Ash Fortis.
From Babyliss’ pinball obstacle course to Redken’s arcade-inspired interactive game, a Battle of the Barbers, Bridal Long Hair competition and men’s grooming class hosted by Matty Conrad, there was lots to see throughout the two-day event.
Here are a few highlights from this year’s Toronto ABA show.
Larisa Love: For the Love of Hair
Hairstylist and social media influencer, Larisa Love, took the stage on both days to inspire her audience through signature colour technique demonstrations.
Putting a focus on blending, foiling, surface painting and clean sections, Love also moved the audience with the story on how she began her hairstyling career; touching on subjects including parent disapproval and the importance of the client experience to build and maintain clientele.
“Paint in a teardrop formation so it blends with the balayage towards the back,” says Love. “If your sections are clean, your work will be clean.”
“When colouring clients’ hair, you always want to do the opposite colour from their skin tone. For example, if you’re cool-toned, the opposite of cool would be warm shades, which include golds, coppers and reds,” explained Love.
Anne Veck’s Tricks of the Trade
Anne Veck took the stage with Revlon Professional to do a live demonstration of techniques, including an array of avant-garde styles that stunned the audience.
Putting a deep focus on texture, extension pieces and colour techniques, Veck also answered questions that touched on the importance of practicing and perfecting hairstyles on mannequins and the art of competition including her experience competing over the years.
“When my kids were younger, they were never allowed to touch my mannequins,” explains Veck. “It’s always important to practice any hairstyles on mannequins first.”
Veck’s looks included various retro-inspired voluminous curls, a high ponytail and short textured bob which all walked the runway before announcing the winner of the Style Masters Awards 2018.
Canada’s Style Masters and American Crew All Star Challenge Winners
The winners of both Revlon’s Style Masters Awards and the American Crew All-Star Challenge 2018 were revealed live on stage as the crowd gathered in anticipation.
Congratulations to Raffaele Fiorante from Toronto’s Fiorio Salon – Cumberland on her Style Masters win!
Congratulations also goes out to American Crew All Star Challenge Canada winner, Hassan Nasser, who celebrated his third consecutive win.
Tasting the Rainbow with Pulp Riot
Ash Fortis, Ruby Devine and Kelly O’Leary took the stage on behalf of Pulp Riot to showcase various colour techniques. The show kicked off with Pulp Riot owner and social media influencer Fortis, who stunned the audience with her infamous marbling hair colour technique, which has over 700K views on YouTube.
“Use a comb to print the design onto the hair.” explains Fortis. “If you want a more pronounced design, print it on top and if you want a more defused design, place it under the bottom.”
Devine’s balayage techniques were next followed by O’Leary’s rainbow hair tutorial.
“You can use Pulp Riot’s Blonde AF for creating babylights,” explains Devine. “I start about a quarter of an inch away from the new growth and then feather it out.”
Overall, the three Pulp Riot colourists showcased a range of colourful and unique techniques that intrigued the audience and excited them prior to their meet-and-greet.
Panel of Influencers
New age, new media. Hairstylists of this generation know the importance of their presence on social media and have taken advantage of the fact that they’ve been able to build their clientele and following by incorporating certain techniques into their platforms.
The panel included 5 influencers; Matty Conrad, Larisa Love, Zach Mesquit, Matthew Collins and Liraz Jacoby, who answered questions on the main stage west to educate the audience on the specifics of posting, metrics and the importance of authenticity.
Comments are closed.