In-person braiding training, Edmonton
Learn to braid properly. In person, in Edmonton, from a standing start.
Ten weeks. Sixty supervised contact hours. Seventeen modules that begin with how to hold the hair and end with you finishing a full head of cornrows to a professional standard. No experience required, and no licence needed to enrol.
Why students choose Celegant
- Built for complete beginners, no experience required
- Every hour supervised, in person, in Edmonton
- The price is published openly, no sales call needed
- A professional skills certificate, not a provincial licence
In Edmonton you can train for almost any beauty career. Not this one.
Edmonton’s largest beauty college teaches cutting, colouring and barbering. It does not teach braiding. Alberta’s other textured-hair school will not enrol you without a hairstylist licence number. Online, you can buy a braiding course for fifty-nine dollars, and nobody will ever look at your hands.
So the people who most want to learn this craft have been left with three bad options: pay for a diploma that skips their hair type, wait until they are already licensed, or teach themselves from video and hope.
Celegant Braiding Academy exists to close that gap. We are a working braiding salon in Edmonton with a classroom attached. You will learn on mannequins, under supervision, from people who install these styles for a living.
Who Foundations is built for
You do not need to have braided before. You do not need to be young. You do not need a licence.
- Complete beginners. You have never sectioned a head in your life. Module 1 assumes exactly that.
- Self-taught braiders. You braid for family and friends, you are quick but inconsistent, and you want the technique corrected properly before you charge for it.
- Career changers. You want a skill you can practise part-time, evenings and weekends, without leaving your current job first.
- Licensed stylists. Your diploma covered cutting and colour and barely touched Afro-textured hair. This fills the hole.
- Salon owners. You are losing bookings because nobody on your team can do protective styling. Train a stylist properly, and see the funding page, because your business may be able to claim most of the cost back.
- Newcomers to Canada. You already know how to braid. What you need is Canadian client expectations, sanitation standards, pricing in CAD and a credential with your name on it.
- Parents and caregivers. Your child has 4C hair, the tightest coil pattern, which shrinks a lot and tangles easily, and you are tired of guessing. You are welcome here, and you will leave able to do it properly.
If your goal is to cut and chemically treat hair as a licensed hairstylist in Alberta, this is not the program for you: you want the hairstylist apprenticeship. We explain the difference plainly on our tuition and funding page and in the FAQ.
The flagship program
Celegant Foundations, the In-Person Braiding Intensive
Foundations is where every student starts. It is ten weeks long, entirely in person, and it runs two afternoons a week at our classroom in Edmonton.
The first ten modules build the things nobody can see and everybody notices: sanitation, hair and scalp science, consultation, tools, preparation, grip, tension and parting. Then six modules take you through six distinct styles, each taught to real beginner competency: cornrows, single braids in both knotted and knotless starts, twists, wigs and weave installation, crochet, and locs. The final module is finishing, edges, aftercare and your capstone assessment.
Pass the capstone in week ten and you earn the Professional Certificate in Braiding Foundations, and a working grounding in all six of the directions our specialty certifications go deep on.
Foundations at a glance
- Level
- Complete beginner to beginner-complete across six braiding directions
- Format
- In person, Edmonton
- Language of instruction
- English
- Duration
- 10 weeks, 17 modules, 76 lessons
- Schedule
- Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 3:30pm to 6:30pm
- Class size
- Maximum 8 students, 2 instructors
- Location
- Unit 316, 8925 51 Ave NW, Edmonton, AB T6E 5J3
- Contact hours
- 60 supervised hours
- Kit
- Mannequin head with human hair, tripod stand, hair clips, rat tail comb and braiding hair, included at no extra cost
- Certificate
- Professional Certificate in Braiding Foundations
- Tuition
- $1,997 CAD
- Next intake
- 1 March 2027
Beginner-complete, the level shown above, means you can take a style from consultation through to a finished, sealed head on your own, safely and to standard. Speed comes with repetition afterwards.
What ten weeks actually looks like
Six hours a week in the room, plus practice at home between sessions. Here is the shape of it.
Orientation, kit and sanitation
Orientation, your kit and station, and professional sanitation: tools, hands, workspace, and the scalp and skin conditions that mean stop and refer.
Hair science, consultation and tools
Hair and scalp science, the consultation framework, hair and scalp assessment, managing expectations, and the full toolkit: combs, products, and how to tell good braiding hair from bad.
Salon skills and preparation
Service flow, detangling without damage, client comfort, cleansing, stretching, and preparing extension hair.
The hands, and the parts
Grip and hand position, the three-strand foundation, tension control, rhythm, and catching your own errors mid-braid. Then parting: straight, box, brick-lay and triangle, and mapping a whole head before you touch it.
Cornrows
The underhand motion, straight-backs, a full head, a basic feed-in, and a clean finish.
Single braids
Both starts, traditional knotted and knotless, plus box, triangle and C (crescent) parting, braiding down and sealing.
Twists
Full-section two-strand twists, adding extensions, and your first passion or Senegalese-style twist.
Wigs and weaves, then crochet
The braided foundation, the weft and the sewing stitch, glueless wigs, then the crochet base, the latch hook and the invisible knot.
Crochet continues, then locs
Installing a curly crochet style, how hair locks, comb-coil and two-strand starters, and a first retwist.
Finishing, aftercare and your capstone
Finishing, sealing, edges and aftercare, then the Foundations Capstone, assessed in person.
The week mapping is how the intensive is designed to run. Your instructor can flex the boundaries session by session. The hands-on style weeks are the ones most likely to need extra time, and we would rather you got it right than got it on schedule.
Download the Curriculum, with the full module-by-module breakdown.
What you learn, and what you leave with
What you will learn
- Professional sanitation for tools, station, hands and workflow
- Hair structure, growth cycles, hair types and porosity, and what each one needs
- Scalp and skin awareness, including when to pause a service and refer
- A structured client consultation, from assessment to documented service plan
- The full braiding toolkit, product selection, and judging braiding hair by quality and quantity
- Cleansing, stretching and prepping hair so it is ready to braid
- Grip, hand position, even tension, rhythm, and correcting errors mid-braid
- Clean straight, box, triangle and brick-lay parts, the last offsetting every row like bricks in a wall, and mapping a full head
- Cornrows: straight-backs, a full head, the basic feed-in, where extension hair is added a little at a time so the braid starts small and flat, and clean finishing
- Single braids: knotted and knotless starts, box, triangle and crescent parting, the last using curved parts that follow the shape of the head
- Two-strand twists, extensions in twists, and a first passion or Senegalese twist
- A braided install foundation, basic wefting, the handling of hair sewn into long strips, the sewing stitch, and glueless wigs
- The crochet base, the latch hook, a small hooked needle that draws hair through the braid, the invisible knot that leaves nothing showing at the scalp, and a simple curly install
- How hair locks, comb-coil and twist starters, and a first retwist
- Professional finishing, sealing, edge and hairline styling, and aftercare counsel
What you will graduate with
- The Professional Certificate in Braiding Foundations, awarded on passing the in-person week-ten capstone
- Sixty supervised contact hours on the record, not sixty hours of video
- A capstone body of work: a full or three-quarter head of straight-back cornrows with a feed-in section, a patch of single braids in your choice of parting and start, a clean two-strand twist section, and professional finishing across all of it
- Your own consultation form and aftercare sheet, drafted by you during the course
- A working starter kit and station setup you know how to use
- A clear next step. You finish having touched all six braiding directions, so you choose your specialty on evidence rather than on a guess
The Professional Certificate in Braiding Foundations is a professional skills certificate issued by Celegant Braiding Academy. It is not a provincial trade certificate, a government licence, or an apprenticeship credential. Read the full explanation.
What it costs, and what that works out to per supervised hour
Most schools in this category will not tell you what anything costs. We think that is the wrong way round, so here is ours, plainly.
Foundations tuition
$1,997CAD
- Early-bird $1,497 first 5 registrations, code FOUNDATIONS at checkout
- Pay in full, or split it into 4 interest-free instalments with Afterpay at the Square checkout
- $33 per supervised contact hour
Divide the tuition by the contact hours you actually spend in the room, and every one of those hours has an instructor watching your hands and correcting them.
For comparison, using publicly advertised prices we recorded in August 2026: a two-day braiding intensive in Alberta runs about $950 for around fourteen hours, which is closer to $68 an hour, and that provider will not enrol you without a hairstylist licence number. A twelve-week braiding certification in Ontario advertises $6,500. An online braiding course costs $37 to $59, and nobody watches your hands at all.
We are not the cheapest way to be shown a technique. We are, as far as we can find, the only in-person option in Alberta that will take a complete beginner, give them sixty supervised hours, and charge under two thousand dollars for it.
See the full cost comparison and funding options
Market prices last checked 12 August 2026. We recheck them quarterly.
Paying for it, and where funding actually stands
All prices include GST. There is no deposit. Pay in full, or split the cost into 4 interest-free instalments with Afterpay at the Square checkout, at no extra cost to you.
We are not aware of a current Alberta grant that our programs qualify for, and we are not going to imply one to get you through the door. Employers do pay for staff training out of their own budgets, though, and if you work in a salon that is a conversation worth having. We will give your owner a written program outline with the hours, schedule and tuition set out properly.
Start with the curriculum. Decide after that.
You will get the full ten-week schedule, all seventeen modules and seventy-six lessons, the tools list, what you will be able to do by week ten, and the complete tuition and funding breakdown. It takes about a minute to request and nothing is charged.
Go deep on one thing
Six specialty certifications, go deep on the one you want to be known for
Foundations makes you a braider. A specialty certification makes you the person clients travel across the city for. Each one is in person, on its own two days a week, with a maximum of 8 students and 2 instructors. None of them has an entry requirement. Foundations is our recommended starting point for beginners, and an experienced braider can apply straight to a specialty.
Specialty certification
Cornrows & Feed-Ins Specialist
Advanced parting and grid artistry, seamless feed-ins, and the stitch, lemonade and tribal styles clients ask for by name.
- 8 weeks
- 48 contact hours
- In person, Edmonton
$1,997
Early-bird $1,497, first 5 registrations, code CORNROWS at checkout
Specialty certification
Single Braids (Knotless/Regular) Specialist
Two complete, service-ready offerings taught to full depth: regular box braids at every size, and premium knotless with invisible transitions.
- 9 weeks
- 54 contact hours
- In person, Edmonton
$1,997
Early-bird $1,497, first 5 registrations, code KNOTLESS at checkout
Specialty certification
Wigs & Weave Installation Specialist
The highest-ticket service track: install-ready braid-downs, sew-ins, closures and frontals, wig construction and edge-safe glueless installs.
- 9 weeks
- 54 contact hours
- In person, Edmonton
$1,997
Early-bird $1,497, first 5 registrations, code WIGSANDWEAVES at checkout
Specialty certification
Locs Specialist
The deepest track we teach: loc creation, maintenance, repair, extensions and the long-term care a years-long client relationship needs.
- 10 weeks
- 60 contact hours
- In person, Edmonton
$1,997
Early-bird $1,497, first 5 registrations, code LOCS at checkout
Specialty certification
Crochet Specialist
The five professional install methods and a full style menu, curly, straight, faux locs and boho, built for speed without losing the finish.
- 9 weeks
- 54 contact hours
- In person, Edmonton
$1,997
Early-bird $1,497, first 5 registrations, code CROCHET at checkout
Specialty certification
Twists Specialist
Full-head protective twists and flat twists with seamless extensions, plus passion, Senegalese, kinky and spring twists.
- 8 weeks
- 48 contact hours
- In person, Edmonton
$1,997
Early-bird $1,497, first 5 registrations, code TWISTS at checkout
Online, self-paced, any experience level
Certified Salon Business Professional: The Empire Blueprint
This one is different from everything above, and we want that to be obvious. The Empire Blueprint is 100% online, recorded video, self-paced, with lifetime access. There is no classroom and no schedule, and it is open to any experience level. You do not need Foundations, and you do not need to braid at all.
It teaches the business of running a salon: setup and registration, financial management, staffing and operations, transferring your standards to a team clients trust, client systems, marketing and brand building, growth, and a capstone business plan you actually finish.
Part 1, Building Your Salon, is complete. Part 2, Scaling Your Empire, ships later and is included free for everyone who buys.
Business program
Certified Salon Business Professional: The Empire Blueprint
The business of running a salon, online and self-paced: setup, financials, staffing, client systems, marketing, growth and a capstone business plan.
- Online, self-paced, lifetime access
$2,997
Early-bird $2,497, first 5 registrations
Not sure which one you need?
Most people start with Foundations, because it is the only program that assumes you have never braided. It is a recommendation, not a rule: none of our programs has an entry requirement. If you are already working, or you only care about one style, compare them side by side on length, hours, cost per supervised hour, class size and what each one qualifies you for.
Who teaches you
Dr. Tina
Lead Instructor
Dr. Tina is a Master Braider and the Lead Instructor of Celegant Braiding Academy. She has braided more than 3,500 clients since 2016, has run her own salon since 2015, and teaches every Academy program personally, with a co-instructor alongside her.
- Master Braider
- Braiding clients since 2016, and running her own salon since 2015
- Experienced braider and loctician
- Experienced wig maker, and wig and weave installer
- A working braider at Celegant Hair Edmonton, not only an owner
The Academy is the training arm of Celegant Hair Edmonton, a professional braiding salon in Edmonton, and Celegant Beauty, a 100% Canadian-owned, women-owned and Black-owned beauty supply store at the same address. The salon’s team of experienced stylists serves over 150 clients a month. The Academy teaches to the same standards those clients are served to.
Dr. Tina has wanted to do two things all her life: build businesses and teach. She has been braiding clients since 2016 and running her own salon since 2015, she teaches from experience rather than from theory, and she adapts her pace to how each student in the room actually learns. Every cohort has two instructors for a maximum of eight students. Her story, in her own words, is on the About page.
Come and see the room
We are in building 3 at our Edmonton address, the same unit as the Celegant Beauty store and the Celegant Hair Edmonton salon. The site is single storey, so entry is step-free. You are welcome to come by, look at the classroom, and ask whatever you want to ask before you commit to anything. Our full address and phone number are in the footer of every page.
In-person enquiries are welcome Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00am to 5:30pm. Unit 316 is in building 3, not on a third floor. The site is single storey, so entry is step-free. Parking is ample and includes two designated accessible spaces, and the salon and store are wheelchair accessible. The washroom fits a wheelchair but has no turning clearance and no grab bars, so it is not a wheelchair-accessible washroom.
Do you need a licence to braid hair in Alberta?
It is the question we are asked most, almost nobody in this country has written an honest answer to it, and we are not going to pretend it is simpler than it is.
Celegant Braiding Academy issues a professional skills certificate. It is awarded by us, based on assessed practical work. It is not a provincial trade certificate, not a government licence, and not an apprenticeship credential.
In Alberta, Hairstylist is a compulsory-certification designated trade. Braiding is not named specifically in the government sources we reviewed, and we will not guess on your behalf. The authoritative answers live with the province:
- Restricted Activities List, Hairstylist, Alberta Apprenticeship and Industry Training: tradesecrets.alberta.ca
- Barber and Hairstylist certification in Alberta: alis.alberta.ca
- Apprenticeship and Industry Training Client Service Offices: call them and ask about your exact situation.
If your plan is to cut and chemically treat hair as a licensed hairstylist, the apprenticeship route is the one you want, and we will tell you that plainly. Our program is for braiding, twisting, locing, crochet and install work, and for the business skills that go with them.
Educational information only. This is not legal advice.
What students from our previous braiding masterclass say
I would highly suggest anyone looking to learn the skill of braiding to take the masterclass. It is very informative and most definitely worth the price! The instructor/owner is amazing and it is a great class!
Ten weeks from now, you could be finishing a full head of cornrows.
Start by reading the curriculum. It is free, it is detailed, and it will tell you honestly whether this is the right program for you. When you are ready, you can reserve your seat and pay securely online, or talk to us first if you would rather.