Lexie Cochran Took the Long Way to Beauty School, and Brought Everything With Them

Meet the Educators

Stage makeup, disaster drills, an EMT certification and a stretch answering 911 calls came first. Now the cosmetology educator teaches curls, vivid color and the theory underneath it in our salon in Old Town.

Before Lexie Cochran ever worked on a head of hair, they were making people look hurt on purpose.

It started in high school, when the theater department needed someone on makeup. “They just kind of threw me in there.” That is where Lexie learned stage makeup and special effects. Then, they took it further than the stage. Their mother was the trauma coordinator at the local hospital, and when the hospital ran disaster drills, Lexie did the special effects makeup for the volunteers. “Which was really fun,” they say.

Cosmetology was not the plan, though. They trained as an EMT and did that work, then went on to answer 911 calls. It was a career built around other people’s worst days. Then, in their mid twenties, their life changed course, and they made a decision for themselves. “I’m going to do what I want to do,” they remember thinking. “So I’m going to go to cosmetology school at 26 and be one of the old ones in there, but that’ll be fine.”

It was fine. And the idea of being “one of the old ones” has aged, too. “We have quite a few students in their thirties,” they say of the classrooms they teach in now.

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Now is Aveda Institute New Mexico in Old Town Albuquerque, where Lexie is an instructor of cosmetology. Their specialties are curls and texture, and vivid color. On the curl side, student artists learn from them how to cut curly hair, how to maintain it, and which products to reach for. On the vivid side, they learn application, and something harder to see from the outside. “What do you need underneath to make a certain color?” they say. “All of that color theory stuff.”

Showing skills first hand, and correcting students in real time can come down to small things, like the angle of a brush. As one student artist kept holding hers wrong, Lexie reminded her. Then reminded her again. “Hey, hold it like this.” Finally they showed her a different way to hold it, and the student tried it. “It just clicked with her,” Lexie says. “I could see the light bulb moment. I could see it just made sense in her mind, and it was really great to see that and be present for that.”

Their classroom is built so that moment can happen early. They start with theory, a short lecture on what the class is about to learn. Then they bring out their own mannequin head, and every student artist takes a turn on it, doing the thing they just talked about, with them right there. “So I can correct anything right there, then and there, before they go out on their own,” they say. Only in the last part of the class do they move to their own mannequins.

“It introduces it a little bit more slowly,” they say, “so they have more time to soak it up and learn.” By the time a student artist is working alone, the first mistakes have already been caught and fixed in front of someone who knows what they look like.

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Ask Lexie what they want for the people who leave their classroom and they answer enthusiastically. “I want them to succeed and have an amazing career that they love,” they say, “because that’s what it’s all about, loving what you do every day.”

If you are thinking about AVEDA Institute, Lexie says, “We’re very open and welcoming, so come on in, even if you just want some tea or some coffee. It’s not like a big scary school. We’re very warm and welcoming here, and I think the vibes are good. Come in, check it out. It can’t hurt anything.”