summer hair....summer knot

So my computer crashed when I was in California. I am over it. Well I am trying to be.

Summer is here and so with it comes summer hair. You know that nasty dried out, chlorine ridden, crusty/dusty hair. So here are some tips on how to prevent, revive or restore your summer hair.

Plan on a mid-summer trim. It helps. If you keep the ends off you may not have to cut as much off at the end of summer.

Sunscreen. It is not just for your skin. If you have color treated hair it is a must. Leave-in conditioners are the best at this. They help fill in holes in the hair shaft and protect it from the inside out. There are lots of products out there that have sunscreens for your hair and scalp.

Pool. The shark in the pool is chlorine. It does not turn your hair green. It coats your hair and hardens trapping water inside causing mold to grow. That is the green. Preventing this is easy. Most people do not like to take the time though especially with kids. Wet the hair down before getting in the pool. Next comb through a leave-in conditioner. It creates a slick so that the chlorine will have a harder time latching onto your hair. When you get out wash your hair before it dries. Do not let that bake onto your hair in the sun. Simple but hardly ever done.

End of the summer cut. Has to be done. Hopefully you have taken great care of your hair all summer and we only have to do a deep conditioner and trim. Some will have to have the ole mechanical conditioner otherwise known as a haircut.

I hope everyone has a wonderful summer and I know I will be back soon.

san fran here we come

Tomorrow morning I step on the plane at 6:30am. Very early for me, but much worth it. I am headed to sunny California. Well, California at least. I will be back on Thursday March 4. If you are looking to get a hold of me please do. Call and leave a message or email me and I will get back with you as soon as I am able.

happy new year

Well I am officially a bad blogger. This is the one and only post for the whole month of December and it is on the last day. This has been one of the busiest Decembers of my career. What wonderful thing that is to say. Many thanks to all my clients that have followed me and supported me on my first six months of business. I appreciate each and every one of you. I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas. I wish you all much happiness and success in the new year. My resolution for this next year is to be a better blogger and keep doing fabulous hair!

christmas is coming........

How exciting it is to be in my new space for the holidays. I get to decorate how I want to. Unfortunately for my graphic designer I love glitter. I know she is worried about me being set loose to shop for Christmas decorations and getting things too over done. I have been using made up words like glitter-frication. Makes her very nervous. It is beautiful though and it makes me very happy. The smallest things make me happy. Wearing the cloths that I want to. Working the hours that I want to. At first I thought I would loose all control and go wild with freedom. Funny thing is that since I am allowed to do what I want, I find I want to be at work. I love my spot. I enjoy the people that work here. I delight in the fact that the other day I could watch Oprah's man makeovers while my clients hair was processing. It is all about the finer things in life.

november deals

Well November is upon us. With it comes one of my favorite holidays. Thanksgiving. I have a lot to be thankful for this year. I have a new salon, and new car and a new lease on life. I am so thankful for my clients that I have a great promotion for the month just for you. When you purchase a Matrix box deal of shampoo and conditioner for $20 saving you $11 you can also get a free Matrix hairspray. That way you will be thankful your hair will stay in place in our lovely Kansas wind.

halloween fright

Beware! Colored hair spray on fair hair children often times leaves it stained. If you are spraying a lot of hairspray or using hair goo to get a ghoulish look the best way to take it out is to mix baking powder with your shampoo. It will remove the residue and leave your hair clean. No it does not take the whole box just a handful. The makeup you ask? Baby wipes.

no stinky feet allowed

Well color me disappointed. My foot bath quit working. What good does it do to get a pedicure in cold water with no bubbles? I guess I could get a really long straw and blow the bubbles myself. Probably end up light headed and pass out though. I called the service number and now I have to mail the whole thing in and hope they send me a new one right away. I will do it though just to prove a point. It isn't even 6 months old. It is professional grade and I have only used it 7 times. Wish me luck!

smell my success

Why are dumb celebrities allowed to make perfumes? I would never buy this particular fragrance simply because it has Paris Hilton's name on it. That does not stop me from rubbing the free sample in a magazine all over me.I even love the packaging on this one, but it has Mariah Carey's name on it. People will ask me what perfume I am wearing and I would have to say Luscious Pink. How embarrassing. I just can't do it. I guess I will have to keep searching for my signature scent. One that does not scream out that I support really wrong celebraties and their great noses for fragrance.

now is the time

Welcome to the static season. Hats and coats seem to bring it out in all of us. Spray the inside of your hats and hoods with a little aerosol hairspray and that will help a lot. Makes no sense to me that the wettest time of the year is the driest for your hair so good to deep conditioner this essential. If you do not have one at home or do not have the time to do it yourself feel free to call me. I can get you in for a great scalp massage and deep conditioner for only $10 extra. Your hair will thank you.

rain rain go away

I would love to give you guys a product that would hold up in this crazy rain, but I doubt anything would help at this point of the game. Redken has a great humidity control hairspray. I went outside and sprayed it in the air. It is still raining. Good luck and wear cute rain boots.

the power of touch

I went yesterday and had the most wonderful massage. Marie is so great to me. I don't go often enough. I find it funny how I touch people everyday and yet I forget how heavenly it feels to get a massage. She listens to my problems and encourages me. I imagine it would be like having a really great husband except I just pay her and leave. I never have to deal with her drama or wash her underwear. So therefore I am staying single and getting a lot of massages.

mission impossible

Nothing like not posting on my blog to learn how many people actually read it. Truth is that I have not been very inspired to write lately and was hoping that the fall hair shows would do the trick. Unfortunately without having found a car yet I am not going to the shows. So my new inspiration is going to be the bad hair of the world. My aim is to make it better. I have chosen to accept the mission. This message will self destruct in 10 seconds.

revelation

I over think everything. When I decided to open my own spot I thought and thought about color schemes, curtains, accessories, etc. My newest obsessive musing has been about price stickers for my products. Yesterday I spent most of the morning going to three different stores never finding exactly what I wanted and still spent $75. That is right for price stickers. I get to the salon and am thinking I am going to be spending all afternoon making price tags by hand, ordering a custom made stamp, and creating a whale of a mess. Then an epiphany. Why can't I use my little cards that Holly designed for me? They already have my logo on them, and my phone number, and my blog address. Punch a hole in the corner and tie with a piece of elastic. Write the price on the back corner. Not only are they cute as all get out, now every product that leaves here has an extra card that could be handed out to another perspective client. So viola I look really smart. My products look like I have custom tags on them and I will take all the credit. Oh yeah thanks Holly for talking me into Moo cards. They ARE great for everything. And if you couldn't tell I used my dictionary today. A lot.

shoe advice

I am all for wearing cute shoes. Yesterday was a particularly cute pair, my favorite stripe wedge sandal. This is my advise too all us girly girls out there wearing those cute shoes. Keep an old pair of sneakers within reach in your car. I found this very helpful as I was surrounded by broken glass trying to climb out of my vehicle that was tipped on its side. I was able to chuck those cute sandals out the window and pull on my New Balances which were much better in glass and a pool of gasoline. A bonus too that the hot firemen were impressed with my preparedness. I did not tell them that I had accidently left them in there the night before.

comic hair

I have not read the Cathy comic strip by Cathy Irving in a long time but could not help but post this one when my sister sent it to me. It was particularly funny to me as I have had this client. Note to others: they usually do care by the end of the haircut.

fun new product alert

When the sales rep brought in this little bottle of powder and told me what it did I just gave her a skeptical look, smiled and nodded. Then I put some in my hair. Hmmm, I bought 6. The first day I had 1 for my use and sold the other 5. It is some awesome stuff. It gives you lift at the scalp. It is a dry powder so it does not look greasy. In fact if your hair is a little dirty it takes that right out. If your color is grown out it boosts the hair up enough to help hide that. It is the closest thing to a miracle in a bottle that I have found. It retails for $19, but the plus side to that is if I do your hair you automatically get 20% off. Who can really put a price on a miracle though?

back to school

Every year I get a little sad at back to school time. It is a busy time of year, which I am glad about, but it is another set of kids that are grown and usually gone. College. It is a wonderful experience and all that jazz, but that is when my kids decide they can do without me. They get busy. They find someone new. Someone cooler, hipper, what ever word they are using this year. Anyway they outgrow me. Like the many prom pictures I have been promised in the past, I hear all about them but don't see them. I am not bitter. Just sad. Luckily for me there is always a new crop of fresh faced clients to see. So as I send kids off all over Kansas, Missouri, and else where, I start over. I got a great starter with this one. Seth is about to turn 1. He loves me. He thinks I am cool. Sure that is mostly from the promise of a treat but I will take it. The next few years will be full of wonderful new adventures and experiences. I will see Seth go to his first day of kindergarten. He will sulk in my chair full of pre-teen angst. Then one day he will be in for a hurried trim and tell me where he is going to college. I will smile and nod, and think....... Honey, I know you are going to K State. I gave you your first haircut there isn't much I don't know about you. For now I am just going to enjoy him thinking that with a haircut comes a sucker and that makes me the most awesome person in the world.

i am so over the toes

At least I am trying to be. Oh well and life goes on. Especially when there are new nail polishes getting ready to come out. Oh so very exciting indeed. I love OPI. Sure they discontinue colors, rename them, and then reissue them. The new names are always fabulous though. This new line is called Coleccion De Espana promises to be full of passion and drama. I personally could use more passion and less drama but beggars can't be choosers. So check out this site it is full of OPI eye candy. www.nailpolishdiva.com

once bitten

twice shy. Friday night when I got home from the art crawl downtown I had 3 nasty looking bites on my leg. Weird. They didn't itch and I did not remember feeling like I got bit by anything. Saturday morning I had 10. Son of a gun they hurt. Saturday night I realized they were not bites, but a lovely case of Mycrobacterium Fortuitum. In other words a leg infection most commonly gotten from unsanitary pedicures. Oh I was mad. I paid good money for that pedicure the least they could have done was clean the jets in that basin. I had an antibiotic prescription at home that I started on and by Monday they looked better. I called my doctors office and most importantly emailed the Kansas State Board of Cosmetology. This is exactly what I was trying to keep my clients away from. This will take a long time to heal. I have to be on anitibiotics till it does heal. I can't swim. I can't shave over that area. When they do heal enough to shave over I have to throw away the razor after each use. It will be a while before anyone touches my feet again. I know not all nail salons are like this but it sure makes it had to want to get another pedicure.

do as i say...

not as I do. I gave you all the look fors and do whats for pedicures yesterday I and now have to tell you the sad story of mine. I thought it would be great to start at the closest nail salon to me. Most of the Sola salons refer out to Mani/Pedi. It is just down the strip from us and had rave reviews. Twenty minutes into the pedicure I had made up my mind to not go back. The girl was nice and very polite, but when she slid over from the first pedicure she was working on to me, a brunette, there was no hand washing. She then started trying to sell the add ons. I did not mind. That is how they make their money when they work on commission. As she did that though she handed me a menu and there on the bottom was ....waxing. Dang it I thought to myself, I know better than to just go on referals. She did a great job and my toes looked awesome as I went to sit under the dryer. I started flipping through a magizine and paid $45 as I had the add ons. In walked a tall blonde lady looking to get in right now for a pedicure. Must be the day for it, I thought as I was humming to myself. The music in there was horrid and was about to drive me mad. I looked up right as the blondes feet were going into the basin from the first chair. The same chair that the brunetter was in. There was no cleaning going on. No bleach. No barbicide (the blue stuff). Nothing. Well dang. My first pedicure in 4 years and it was going to be a bust on here. I had such high hopes. So to sum up Mani/Pedi on east 37th is a 10 toes down.