Orlando Pita, a world-renowned fashion and beauty expert, was the guest mentor of last night’s competition offering professional advice during their competitions.  Each episode features two competitions, where stylists are given two hours to transform their clients or models for competitions. The first challenge is a short cut where stylists get an opportunity to demonstrate their hair cutting, texturing, and coloring skills with clients in the traditional salon setting, the second being the elimination challenge.  For the elimination round, stylists teamed up with swimwear company, L*Space to create unique bikini top styles (using hair styles of course) covering only the top portion of their body, as models were only to be wear their bottoms for a risqué fashion show.  Guest judge was L*Space’s creator and swimwear designer, Monica Wise. Tops were created using braids, frizz, twists, wraps, long locks and more. Competitors tried to replicate the looks of halter tops and even a simulated fabric look.

After judges reviewed and discussed, in the top three came April, Janine, and Brig. Janine won the overall competition.  The bottom three left Joey, Amy, and Adee in elimination panic.  Their styles were either unpolished or lacked creativity placing them in the position of potential elimination.  Ultimately, it was Joey, a popular Australian hair stylist and part-owner of Rokk Ebony salon, who they said good-bye to and had him pack his bags.  Although being the first cut from Shear Genius’s competition, he still leaves with prestigious Hair Expo Australian Hairdresser honors (being one of four finalists this year), and has made a name for himself directing hair at the Perth Fashion Festival.

Eleven stylists are now one step closer to the $100,000 grand prize.  The competitions are sure to get harder and with some of the personalities we saw last night, I’m sure we’ll also witness a little drama as the competitions start getting a little fiercer!