Media Credit: PEARL wU/the daily northwestern Stephanie Glass, 19, practices putting rollers in the hair of her fellow student Jamie Gordon, 27, at Pivot Point International Academy in Evanston. [Click to enlarge]

Getting a haircut at Pivot Point International Academy is cheap: $5.25 for students.

Attending Pivot Point International Academy is not so cheap: its 10-month cosmetology program costs $16,000.

"It's like the Harvard of cosmetology school," 19-year-old student Amanda Reeves said, surrounded by high-end products by Redken, Harologi and Bioelements, snipping away with a $300 pair of shears.

Amy Cruz, Pivot Point's clinic operations manager, said people come from all over the world to be one of its 275 students that study cosmetology and aesthetics at Pivot Point's flagship school in Evanston. One student is from Hawaii and another is from Korea, she said.

Located on the second floor of the Rotary Center, 1560 Sherman Ave., the Pivot Point Student Clinic offers beauty care to everyone at bargain prices. All services are performed by unlicensed practitioners.

Pivot Point International Inc., with member schools worldwide, offers professional training to students interested in hair, nail and skin care.

The Evanston campus is the corporate world headquarters of Pivot Point, which was founded by Leo Passage, an immigrant to Chicago who became a world-famous cosmetology artist.

The academy's curriculum is based on the philosophy of Bauhaus, a German school of design that encourages artistic experimentation.

Kyle Witt, 21, left his studies as a vocal performance major at Columbia College to come to Pivot Point in search of a new career opportunity.

"I realized I wasn't going to have a steady job right out of college, and I wanted a good source of income," he said. "Just realizing how much money there is in the beauty industry is really amazing.

"On top of that, I love doing hair," he said.

Cosmetology students must earn 1,500 hours of training before they graduate. Classroom training is divided into five phases, each followed by a four-week session "on the floor," where students practice their skills on real customers. Each educator supervises about 20 students, coaching and correcting as needed, Cruz said.

The school also encourages its students to enter beauty competitions like the Chicago Midwest Beauty Show.

"It's like the beauty Olympics," Cruz said.

Gold-medalist "platform artists," who impress judges with their flair for hair and make-up services, often come to coach students at Pivot Point, Cruz added.

Brendan Ryan, a 24-year-old senior at DePaul University, visited the clinic Wednesday to lend his head of hair to friend Hannah Smolarcik, 19, a Pivot Point student who needs to fulfill more curriculum hours.

"You get the same treatment here (as you do at a professional salon)," Ryan said, "but here you might be the only person getting your hair cut that day, so that's nice; you get more attention."

In addition to a shampoo, cut and blow-dry, each client receives a free hair-strand test from the Swedish-brand Harologi system, which tests for strength and moisture and generates a personalized recommendation for hair-care products.

Mayadah Moussa, a professional model from Chicago's Ford Models agency, came in to Pivot Point to get what she calls her "big curly Afro" straightened.

"I've done things with Pivot Point through my agency, and they were always very professional, very thorough," she said.

But Moussa recognizes the risk of trusting a novice stylist.

"You have students that want to experiment with different products and may not necessarily know the outcome," she said. "If you go to a professional salon, they have more experience, and if they mess up, their reputation is on the line."

Second-time Pivot Point client Kathleen Zink said she used to visit Salon Vole in Highland Park before she moved to Evanston.

Highlights and a haircut used to cost her about $180, but at Pivot Point she can get the same services for about $45, she said.

Zink said she plans to return in the future, even if the stylists are not professionally certified.

"They have supervisors, so they're not going to make you look awful," she said.

There are some occasions when clients are unsatisfied, Cruz said, but the clinic can offer monetary compensation and supervisors can fix the problem or switch stylists.

"You know, students are students," she said. "They're still in the learning process."

Reach Erica Schlaikjer at

e-schlaikjer@northwestern.edu.

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