Bringing their trademark humour and personality to the industry awards circuit, Excellent Edges and its owner Pete Walstab introduced a new awards platform into the Australian hair industry. Cheekily titled the NAFA Awards (that’s Not Another F- Award), the platform promises to reward the industry in equally important and playful categories with some seriously impressive prizes on offer, and its just surprised, announced and awarded their first ever crop of winners.
The awards were built on the idea of rewarding recipients with over-sized trophies and a prize pool worth $100,000 in total. Brands such as Excellent Edges, INSTYLE, Stellar Hair Global, Iconic Coaching, The Barber Academy, Crispy Club, Attache Line, Hair Festival, POD by Ecoheads, The Daniel Mostyn Lab, Lil off the Top, Conceptual Brands, Foil me Foils, Salon Social School and Your Salon Support donated must-have prizes to the winners. Pete then travelled Australia to surprise the winners with these trophies, sharing the all the fun to social media. The platform acts as a true celebration of our local hairdressing community.
“Our prize pool was kindly donated by amazing companies who wouldn’t be getting much back in return, but they still did it and we love them for it,” Pete shared. “The NAFAs is the first peer nominated award of its kind for our industry and had over 2500 voters in its inaugural year meaning it’s the largest pool of judges for any awards in our industry.”
Congratulations to all the winners across the awards. In regional awards, the title of Fave Australian Hairdresser was won by Belinda Mills, while Amelia Jane won for QLD, Lyndal Salmon won for VIC, Kirsty Anne Sekulla-Sage won for SA/TAS, Sharlene Lee won for WA/NT and Natalie Anne Ayoub won for NSW/ACT.
Reflecting the fun of the awards, Best Dressed went to Matt Tronson, Best Pest went to Nathan Yip and Best Party Team went to EVO led by Jay Kownacki. Benni Tognini was simply named MVP, while Sheridan Rose deservedly took home the title of Fave Person on Socials.
O&M won Fave Hair Company, Chloe Hegan won Fave Sales Rep and Iconic Coaching won Fave Business Coach, while Jules Tognini won Fave Educator. Other specialist categories included Fave Colourist for Stevie Corthine and Fave Mens Hairdresser or Barber, which went to Gina Yates. Best Hussle and NAFA Campaign was taken by K’cie Gordon, while Melanie Corthine finished off with the Best Smoke Bomb.
Fusing fun, celebration, genuine talent and some essential cheekiness into the mix, the NAFA Awards are a welcome addition to the awards circuit. Congratulations to the winners!
For more information follow @thenafaawards on Instagram
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