Intern Adventures: Beauty School Guinea-Pigging

As a Bostonista intern, one never knows what a day at work will hold. Wrangling puppies for one photo shoot? Outfitting sweaty rock stars for another? It’s all in a day’s work.

Typically, fellow intern Raj and I squeal with delight when asked to try out beauty services in the name of research. But last week’s assignment to brave Blaine Beauty School was hardly the Newbury Street spa day experience we were hoping to brag to our engineering major pals about.

Sign number one that this was no Bella Sante: Upon arrival, we were asked to sign a waiver, swearing that if a Blaine trainee jabbed us with a pair of scissors or burned us with a curling iron, we wouldn’t sue. Hot.

When asked what kind of services we wanted, we went the safe route with manicures ($10), as opposed to the more daring facial ($10) or body treatment ($30 and up). The polish color choices were slim so I ended up choosing a Malibu Barbie-pink hue. (Raj went for the simple clear coat.) And once the painting was underway, I found that my super-sweet, super-tan manicurist-wannabe’s had never attempted a manicure on digits actually connected to a living, breathing, human. But since everybody has to start somewhere, I was glad to be of service…even if she may not have so much as filled in the shapes in a coloring book before my visit.

But actual results aside, the staff and students were welcoming and sweet. And being incredibly clean scored Blaine major points.

Maybe next time I’m feeling really gutsy, I’ll volunteer to go for a blowout ($22). Even gambling on your hair beats transcribing!

-Daisy Shaw

Blaine Beauty School, 30 West St., Boston, 866-232-2771, blainebeautyschool.com.

To apply for an internship at Boston magazine, please email internships@bostonmagazine.com.