THASA Alberton's Beyond the Chair Avant Garde Competition Winner: Juanay Muller

My name is Juanay Muller and I am a first-year hair apprentice at The Moulin Rouge Hair Studio, while also studying at THASA Alberton. This year, I entered my very first hairstyling competition — the Goldwell Avant Garde Competition — and to my disbelief and excitement, I won.

What drew me into the hair industry was the way you can enhance someone's inner beauty with just a few techniques and styles. I love that everyone’s hair is different — from hair colour and texture to thickness and curl pattern — and that you can take all of these qualities and create something magnificent that is completely suited to the individual. One of my favourite moments is watching someone look into the mirror once their service is complete and do a double take at themselves. Seeing the confidence that comes from enhancing what they already have is something I find incredibly rewarding, working with what they already have to help them see themselves in a different way.

The industry is shaping me differently every day. It has pushed me out of my little bubble and taught me how to adapt and communicate with multiple different people and personalities all in a single day. Every client, colleague and experience teaches me something new. It has also encouraged me to challenge myself creatively, which is where the Goldwell Avant Garde Competition has played such an important role for me. It has encouraged me to think outside the box, experiment with different techniques and do things that I would normally feel uncomfortable doing.

Entering this competition was something I knew I wanted to do almost instantly when my instructor, Carmen, first mentioned it to me. It wasn't because I thought I was particularly good at avant garde hair — in fact, it was almost the opposite. It was something completely new to me.

I saw the competition as an opportunity to challenge myself, learn new styling techniques and push myself towards something I would normally shy away from. I wanted to create something that would make people stop, look twice and wonder how it had been created. More than anything, I wanted to see what I was capable of.

One of the biggest challenges for me was learning not to overthink what I was doing. When I first saw my inspiration photo, I knew that the final look needed to feel almost like organised chaos. The problem was that I am anything but chaotic. I like everything to be neat, structured and to have its own place. I had to learn to become more free with my craft and reach almost a flow-like state, where I wasn't constantly overthinking what my next move should be. Instead, I had to trust the process, move with the hairstyle and allow the strands of hair to guide me.

My process itself was chaotic. There was hair, glue, wire and hairspray everywhere. I started the hairstyle by creating my triangular structure using lightweight, flexible wire. Once the wire structure was complete, I cut pieces of foam and cable-tied them all around it. There were hundreds of cable ties involved!

At this stage, the structure looked very questionable, but I had to tell myself to trust the process.

Once the structure was complete, I could finally get to the exciting part — the hair. I started by matting a large section of the hair to create a “hair blanket". This would cover the foam and give me a solid base to build my texture onto.

There was just one small problem that I hadn't considered: synthetic hair does not curl! I was completely stumped. Then, while I was at work one day, one of our operators had her braids done and was curling the ends of the braids around a foam roller before soaking them in hot water. It was a brilliant idea, and I immediately realised that I could use the same technique with my synthetic hair. I rolled sections of the hair onto foam rollers and used hot water to create the curls. I alternated between drying the hair around the rollers using our Climazone and using my hairdryer with a diffuser attachment so that the air could be distributed evenly. It took forever! I then started experimenting with thicker sections of hair by moulding them into the shapes I wanted on the counter and completely saturated them with hairspray to help them hold their form.

I used these thicker pieces first, pinning them onto my hair blanket to create the basic shape and curled texture. I then used the smaller curled strands that I had created with the hot water and rollers to add definition.

Finally, I used hairspray and my hairdryer to secure each curl and wave before removing all of the pins. It was messy, time-consuming and definitely not the neatest process — but slowly, the vision started becoming a reality.

Once I had completed the entire look, I stepped back and experienced a moment of doubt. Don't get me wrong — I thought it looked amazing. But it wasn't my usual style at all. I was unsure whether I had managed to capture exactly what I had imagined when I first started. I was proud of myself for creating something that I never would have thought I was capable of doing, but a part of me still wondered whether anyone else would feel the same way.

I have never felt as much pride in myself as I did when I heard that I had won. Winning gave me a confidence I never realised I needed. More importantly, it reassured me that I should continue pursuing the creative side of hairdressing.

It showed me that even though I am still early in my career, I don't have to wait until I have years of experience before challenging myself or trying something completely outside of my comfort zone. Being recognised for something I had never done before was incredibly rewarding. It taught me to trust myself, to problem-solve when things don't go according to plan and, most importantly, to let go of the need for everything to be perfect.

I am still at the very beginning of my career, and I don't know exactly where the hair industry will take me. What I do know is that I want to continue exploring the creative side of hairdressing and continue challenging myself to create things that are different. I want to keep learning new techniques, experimenting with different styles and throw myself into uncomfortable situations as that is usually where we learn the most.

The industry is constantly changing, and I want to change with it. I want to remain curious, keep learning from the stylists around me and take every opportunity to grow. This competition has given me a glimpse of what I might be capable of, and I am excited to see where that takes me next.

I am truly grateful for all of the support I received throughout this experience. A huge thank you to my instructor, for encouraging me to enter the competition in the first place and for supporting me throughout the process.

Thank you to every single person at my salon who encouraged me, listened to me talk about my ideas, helped me when I doubted myself and just stood and stared at my work for minutes just processing everything and also celebrated the achievement with me. Thank you to the clients who cheered me on, asked about my creation. And lastly thank you to my family and amazing boyfriend who kept encouraging me to carry on and do my best.

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