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| About Aveda Florida |
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April 4, 2008
Aveda Corp., the international beauty-products company with thousands of hair salons, stores and spas, is bringing yet another of its marketing concepts to the Orlando area: a vocational-style school that teaches hair, skin and nail care. The Aveda Institute, on the east side of Winter Park, is still undergoing renovations and isn't accepting customers yet, but the first students already are four weeks into their studies. The school, Aveda's third in Florida and 40th in the U.S., teaches cosmetology, which involves primarily hair styling and nail services, and "esthiology," the study of skin care and hair removal. Eventually it will offer upscale haircuts for $12 -- if you don't mind a student chopping your locks. Aveda Institute's Florida headquarters is in St. Petersburg, where the business also offers massage-therapy courses. Tallahassee is home to the second Aveda Institute, and a fourth one is set to open soon in Fort Lauderdale. "Orlando, to us, is going to be our largest market, we believe," said Jim Petrillo, president of the Florida operation. "We look for a place where they [students] can travel and get inspiration -- it's a national travel city.... Orlando is a natural match for bringing in our advanced education as well as our [teacher-] instruction classes." The school, at Semoran Boulevard and Aloma Avenue, will include a retail store for Aveda products, 80 hair-cutting stations, 10 treatment rooms for facials and waxing, and classrooms that will be available for use by community groups on the school's off days. It hopes to begin offering facials and haircuts by the end of June. Central Florida already has a number of beauty schools, from Woody's Hair Styling School near downtown Orlando to the Redken-affiliated Salon Professional Academy in The Villages ofLake County. "I know that it will give people another choice. And competition, which some people will call it, is always good," said Giulio Veglio, director and part-owner of the Paul Mitchell school in Casselberry. "It keeps everybody on their toes, and it keeps us being able to offer more and a better education and better quality.... I think it's great that people are able to really shop around and see where they really belong." According to Petrillo, the Aveda school expects to attract about 85,000 salon customers annually. Aveda, a unit of New York-based Estée Lauder Cos., sees the school's location as an advantage because it's close to Full Sail University and not far from the University of Central Florida -- and, like them, it attracts young, creative students. "I decided to go into cosmetology -- it's something I've been passionate about my whole life," said Sarah DeBelles, who earned a psychology degree from Stetson University in 2005. "After researching all the schools and things like that, Aveda isn't just about beauty on the exterior, it's about feeling good within as well. And having gone to college for psychology, it's really struck a chord with me, and it's what I love." Aveda is Estée Lauder's "natural" line of beauty products. The 30-year-old company, based in Blaine, Minn., makes plant-based products as part of an environmentally friendly mission to offer natural, but professional, beauty care. Learning to become such a skin specialist or hair stylist doesn't come cheaply, however: The four-month esthiology course costs $6,800, while the cosmetology course lasts 10 1/2 months and costs $14,000. "Audition" videos are required from prospective students, who once accepted learn about the company and its products as well as the skills needed to land a job. Cosmetology trainees start with mannequins and then practice on friends and family before working on actual clients. "If anything, it's going to set the bar higher," said Lisa Maile, image consultant for Lisa Maile Executive Seminars & Coaching in Orlando. "We have lots of valid [beauty] schools in Central Florida, and the more good training we have, the more good people we attract to the area.... We're growing in the entertainment business slowly... [and] Aveda is only going to be another step in that direction for fashion or beauty." According to Aveda's Web site, the average salary at a spa or salon is $48,000 a year, but the institute also encourages students to think beyond simply cutting hair. Aveda alumni elsewhere have gone on to open their own salons, to teach or to work in the fashion business on photo shoots and runway shows. "The thing that I love about getting this education is that I can take this pretty much anywhere in the world with me," said Derek Donovan, one of the students in the Winter Park school's inaugural class. "I'd love to be a part of Fashion Week in New York or Paris. It's the thing that attracts me most about getting this education -- taking it anywhere with me and being able to provide for myself." For the most part, though, Aveda and other local beauty schools hope to keep the talent in Central Florida. "Our desired outcome for Orlando is to raise the quality of the work through the training that we're offering in the school, to populate the Central Florida salons and spas as well as hitting North [Florida]," Petrillo said. "In Florida, we have about 235 salons, and we definitely have a need to populate out of Orlando to those salons." |
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