The combined smell of nail polish, shampoo, and perfume fills the cosmetology lab as students work diligently on their personal beauty projects. Girls sitting in seats line the mirrors as their peers cut their hair while R&B music blasted from speakers inside the classroom, giving all the students a chance to sing and dance while hard at work.

Cy Ranch offers a three-hour cosmetology class, often shortened to ‘cosmo.’ Students must complete an introduction class before they can advance to cosmo lab. Cosmetology teacher Nicole Brooks teaches students how to cut, style, and dye hair, paint and apply nail polish, practice make up techniques, and many more skills.

Students spend the first hour of each day in the classroom where they learn the logistics of using chemicals to treat hair and kill bacteria that grows in contaminated salons. During the last two hours of the class, students are able to conduct hands-on projects. After learning how to do things such as curl hair, the students are assigned to then apply their skills on their mannequins to show what they have learned.

Typically students use plastic figures for practice, but every Friday, they are able to use each other as models. Speaking to some of the student cosmetologists, they all agreed that free Friday is one of the best parts about being in the class.

“On Fridays we get to cut each other’s hair, do each other’s make up, and paint each other’s nails,” junior Madison Taylor said. “The best part about free Friday is that we get to learn from one another. I might see someone apply eye shadow in a different way than I do, so I can watch and learn. It gives us a time to have fun with each other. We play music and dance together while working, so it’s always a day we look forward to.”

After completing a certain amount of hours in class and passing an end of the year exam, advanced cosmetology students have the opportunity to graduate high school with their beauty license. With this, some students plan to work at a salon throughout college, while others plan to make it a full time career.

“I took cosmetology class because I thought it would be fun and it is also a good back up career,” junior Lydia Phillip said. “I hope to get my license when I graduate so if I ever want to work in a salon, I will already have my license. So far I’ve learned about all different types of bacteria, how to clean the salon and all about different types of hair. If anyone is thinking of joining the class, do it, because I promise you that you will love it. The best part about cosmo is that we are like one big community.”

Trusting one another enough to cut and style each other’s hair, the students in comso have a close knit bond. Each day the class spends three hours together, so they often are up to date with what is going on in each other’s lives.

“I am definitely closer with my classmates in cosmo than in any other class,” junior Branden Batson said. “Whenever we get into an argument with another cosmetology student, all the other students make us resolve it because we have to see each other for three class periods everyday for two years. Recently we went around the class and spoke about something that has changed our lives forever. It was really emotional and there were a lot of things that I wouldn’t have shared with anyone else, but I shared it in that classroom and I believe that is what the other students did too.”

Watching the students work together made it very clear that they have a special bond. On free Friday, Brooks walked throughout the room checking up on her students and occasionally singing and joking with them.

“Ms. Brooks calls us her family,” said Batson. “She says this is like her second home and that we shouldn’t be scared to share anything because we are all one big family. We all laugh and grow together and that’s what makes this class so special.”