With the growing uncertainty of future places in our universities, many young New Zealand and International students are choosing career training for the beauty industry as a more secure option.

‘A sound programme of ‘hands-on’ training with nationally and internationally recognized qualifications  will set you up for lifelong employment – or even prepare you to own your own business’, says Gael Thompson. As founder and managing director of the Cut Above Academy of Hairdressing, Make-up Artistry, and Beauty Therapy, Gael should know. For over thirty five years she has been at the cutting edge of the hair and beauty industry.  After completing her own training as a hairdresser she opened her first salon in the Auckland CBD, launching what was to become the iconic Cut Above brand. Over the next three decades the chain of salons morphed into the hair and beauty Academy, which now trains around 500 budding hairdressers, beauty therapists, and fashion and SFX make-up artists each year.

But Gael has never let go of her other passion for English literature – nor her ambition to complete the Arts degree she started thirty years ago. ‘Business came first’, she says, ‘so I had to put it off half-way through.’ Now, in her sixties, she has finally achieved her academic ambition, graduating from Auckland University with not one, but three degrees – a BA and Post Graduate Diploma with Distinction, and an MA with Honors – all in English. ‘My father wanted me to be a writer’, she says, ‘but for my mother I became a hairdresser. So I’ve managed to combine my love of literature with my passion for the beauty industry.’

 Based on the training principles that have made the Cut Above name synonymous with quality, the Academy is now reaching out to the international student market. Under Gael’s direction the teaching of English will be integrated into its syllabus of NZQA approved and international diplomas in Beauty and Spa Therapy, Hairdressing, Make-up Artistry, and SFX Creature Creation for the theatre and film industry.  The Cut Above tutors believe their international students gain the most benefit from integration in mixed classes of Kiwi, Asian, Indian, Pasifica, and overseas learners from as far afield as Sweden and Bosnia. Confidence soon grows, and by the end of their one-or two-year programme, the graduates are ready to face the most discerning salon or spa clients anywhere in the world, or apply for work on an international stage show or film production.