Gulhan Cildir is excited to graduate this year and start her own career. Photo credit: Sevval Kokten

At an early age, Gulhan Cildir had a growing passion for doing people’s hair and helping them with their beauty needs.

A second-year hairstyling student, Cildir works at the Woodroffe campus’ salon.

“Hairstyling is a career that never goes out of style, whether you work at a salon as an independent hair stylist or work at your own salon,” Cildir said. “It is a profession that can be found anywhere, without the need to know the language of the current country an individual is in.

Located in the heart of the A-building, Algonquin’s Salon, Spa and Boutique offers haircuts, colorings and keratin treatment, while also providing facial services like peeling, makeup application and waxing.

When students bring models in class to practice on, they are often done under the supervision of professors. The pricing varies on what services an individuals requires. The salon was operating at Confederation High School before moving to its current location in March of 2015.

Due to the pandemic, the salon is quite different from what it used to be. When you entered the salon, you would find maskless people reading magazines and waiting for their turn but now, with the new restrictions, only a number of fully vaccinated individuals could enter the salon.

Students used to be grouped into two groups to use the salon but now that there are four groups each having five students, that use the salon on different days.