Gorleston hairdresser storms competition

TALENTED Natasha Jones of Gorleston put Great Yarmouth College on the hairdressing map this week by winning a top regional competition.

Natasha, a full-time student, took the top spot in the UK Skills regional contest at Bury St Edmunds beating off stiff competition creating two hairstyles against the clock.

She is now waiting to hear if her scores were enough to send her to be among the 15 finalists in the national finals at the L'Oreal Academy in London next month where the winner will qualify for the World Skills championships next year.

The contest at West Suffolk College was the first the Great Yarmouth College hairdressing team has entered.

Natasha, who works in a Norwich salon on Friday and Saturdays, was surprised and delighted to win.

“I had been so engrossed in my own work I hadn't looked at what other people were doing so I had no idea what the competition was like. I didn't think I would be winning competitions when I came back to college - I won the college's hairdressing competition earlier this year - but this sort of thing certainly wasn't on my agenda when I decided to come here.”

And tutor Sue McQueen was not surprised that 26-year-old stormed to victory.

She said: “She really is very talented and there has been a lot of hard work planning her styles.”

Natasha, married mother-of-eight-year-old twins Kobie and Kelise, created a male and female style on mannequins using colour and cutting in three hours for each head.

“She used under-cutting and lots of texture in her gentleman's asymmetric cut with nine different colours which blended from dark to bright copper. For her lady's cut, she undercut the perimeter and used clippers to achieve a very blunt bob also with an asymmetric look with two colours from deep copper to bright copper.”