Mid-morning last Thursday, six women sat in black leather swivel chairs as teenage girls stood behind them, carefully cutting, coloring and styling their hair.

Most were regulars at the Somerville High School Cosmetology Clinic, where students in their senior year practice the skills they’ve learned in the classroom on the trustful public.

Their teachers, Stella Apostolakos and Gregory Wright, supervised the girls as they attended to their customers, many of whom learned about the clinic through word-of-mouth or advertisements at senior centers.

Carol Specter was having her hair dyed red, cut and styled that day by 18-year-old Tiffany McLaren. 

“I love it,” Specter said. “It’s professional; you get for a really good price good services, definitely.”

A few stations away, a graduate of the high school was having her hair washed and styled, as she has been doing every week for the last five years. 

“It’s so much fun,” she said.

Get a haircut or a pedicure for a low price 

The clinic, which opened in the 1980s, offers many of the services that any other hair salon would, except that it charges much less for them. Together, a wash and cut cost $3 and an application of color costs $10, instead of the $45 and $55 that a woman might pay elsewhere in Somerville.

The school charges only for the materials said Apostolakos, who has been a teacher in the cosmetology department for 13 years. 

The students also do highlights, scalp treatments, waves and hair relaxers, manicures, pedicures, facials, eyebrow tweezing and waxing, facial waxing, make-up applications and updos.  

Vocational program provides students a leg up in the field 

Since the Massachusetts State Board of Cosmetology controls the cosmetology department’s course of study, Apostolakos said, students who complete the program don’t have to go to a cosmetology school to get their license, which saves them about $14,000.

Many of the students in the vocational program go to college to study business or other subjects, Apostolakos said as she pointed to a bulletin board covered with acceptance letters directed to last year’s seniors.

Others work at the salons on Newbury Street, in Boston, after they graduate, Apostolakos said.

“We’re always getting calls for help,” she said. “They love our students.”

The Somerville High School Cosmetology Clinic is open from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., two to three days every week that school is in session.   

Anyone may call for a schedule and make an appointment by calling 617-625-6600, ext. 6225.