Taking Care of Your Xtreme Lash Extensions

1.      Avoid getting your lashes wet for the first 24 hours to allow the adhesive to dry.

2.    Remove contact lenses for the application and you can put them back in right after.

3.    Try to sleep on your back so you don’t crunch your lashes in the pillow.

4.    Avoid hot steam, saunas, jacuzzis, swimming and tanning salons for the first 48 hours.  Try to keep them to a minimum in order to keep your lashes longer.

5.    You can ONLY use oil-free makeup remover.

6.    Anything oil based will remove the lashes, so be careful with eye creams, moisturizers and eye liners

7.    Do not wipe lashes harshly.

8.    If you use mascara, only put it on the tips and do not use waterproof mascara.

9.    Be as gentle as possible with your lashes

HEAL ON, MR. MIYAGI

Just what was Mr. Miyagi doing when he healed Daniel’s leg in the Karate Kid movie?  He was doing reiki.  Reiki is a Japanese healing technique that transfers energy from one person to another.  It was started by Mikao Usui, and brought to America in the 1970’s.  I know it all sounds hokey, pokey, but modern science has now proven that the transference of energy from one person to another exists.  Science has also proven, that reiki energy heals tissue and bone at certain frequencies.  Reiki is almost like a laser, healing whatever needs to be healed.  Reiki energy heals by flowing through the affected parts of the energy field and charging them with positive energy. It raises the vibratory level of the energy field in and around the physical body where the negative thoughts and feelings are lingering. This removes the negative energy.  Reiki clears, straightens and heals the energy pathways, thus allowing the life force to flow in a healthy and natural way.  Reiki is a special kind of life force that can only be channeled by someone that has been attuned.  Everyone who legitimately practices reiki, has been attuned or given the reiki energy from someone who comes from a direct line of practitioners from Mikao Usui.  Reiki symbols are used to increase power. They used to be handed down from reiki masters in secret, but since the explosion of reiki, you can find a lot of information on the internet and books.  Reiki can never hurt the person giving it or the person receiving it.  It is pure energy, thus it knows exactly where to go and what to do!  Although Reiki energy is spiritual in nature, Reiki is not a religion, it is a healing technique.

How does a reiki treatment work?  Reiki energy flows from the practitioners hands onto the client. The client is usually lying on a massage table, but treatments can also be given while the client is seated or even standing. The client remains fully clothed. The practitioner places their hands on or near the clients body in a series of hand positions.  Each position is held for a few minutes, depending on how much reiki the client needs at each position.  Feelings of deep relaxation are usually reported. People may also fee a calming, glowing radiance that flows through and surrounds them. Reiki encourages one to let go of all tension, anxiety, fear or other negative feelings. A state of peace and well-being is experienced. Some drift off to sleep or report floating outside their bodies or have visions and other mystical experiences. At the end of the treatment, one feels refreshed with a more positive, balanced outlook.  Intense and miraculous healing has been reported for years, all over the world due to reiki. By now, most people know someone who performs reiki or have had it done.  I highly recommend adding reiki to your spa treatment or having it done as a solo treatment.  Heal on and feel great Daniel-son.

GIVE GOOD FACE

With so many skin care products on the market, how is the average person supposed to know what products are best for their skin type? It’s really not that confusing once you have a few basics down. There are a few myths I am going to dispel, as well as a few tips I’m going to share. The skin is the largest organ of the body and the least respected. In your average health class, you probably learned all about every other organ and how to take care of it. I’m sure you were never taught how to take care of your skin. Most people would say they learned everything they know about skin from beauty magazines. Well magazines are paid by the cosmetic companies to promote their products, so you might not always be getting unbiased information.

Only in the past 10 years has skin care in America become popular. Here are a few quick basics tips to get you started on achieving beautiful, glowing skin.

1. Squeaky clean skin is not clean skin. That squeaky clean feeling is actually skin that has been stripped of all the moisture. That moisture is made of oil and water that is needed to protect the skins outer layer. A lot of people say, “Well if my skin isn’t squeaky clean, then I get oily after an hour.” What is really happening is that you strip your skin and it thinks it’s dry, so it produces more oil to compensate. You’re probably not as oily as you think. It’s just that you’re not used to having moisture on your skin. Blot away with a tissue if you need, and bask in the glow!

2. If your skin feels tight, dry and itchy right after you wash your face, this is most likely due to your cleanser being too strong for your skin type. Change your cleanser to something milky and more gentle and you’ll probably correct that problem after one cleansing. After washing, your skin should feel clean but still soft and moist. You don’t cure skin problems like acne or breakouts with a cleanser. You use a treatment serum to do that. A cleanser only removes makeup, surface debris, dead skin cells and excess oil.

3. A dermatologist specializes in skin diseases and medications to treat those diseases. They do not get trained in cosmetics and taking care of the skin cosmetically. The samples they give you are given to them from the sales reps, and samples are an easy way to make the client feel like the Dr. was at least trying to help. There are a few dermatologists who study cosmetics and how to take care of the skin. Some will even employ estheticians to cosmetically take care of the skin while the doctor takes care of the medical side.

4.You don’t need a banana boat load of products to have beautiful skin. The three most important products are a gentle cleanser, gentle exfoliator and sunblock. Sunblock is to youthful skin as location is to real estate! Make sure your products don’t contain mineral oil, sodium laurel sulfate, talc, petroleum, petrolatum, lanolin, or paraffin. These are usually common pore cloggers. The first 5 ingredients are the most important, since that is what the product is mostly made of. Anything after the first 5 ingredients is in such a small amount, it doesn’t really effect the product that much. So if the cream says it’s Vitamin E based and Vitamin E isn’t in the first 5 ingredients, then there is almost no Vitamin E in the product. Start reading labels and you’ll be shocked at how the advertising claims don’t match the ingredient list.

Here are a few skin care lines that I absolutely love. I have worked with these lines for years and my clients have seen great results with each of them. They are, Nelly du Vuyst, Phoenix Rising All Natural Skin and Body Care, Young Living, and XTREME Lash. Price is not always a factor in a product being effective, but I will tell you that there is definitely a difference in lines you find in the mall and/or drug store as opposed to those you find in a spa. Mall and drug store lines use models, celebrities and huge ad campaigns to promote products to consumers. Salon and spa lines have to prove the product to the licensed esthetician first, before they’ll promote it to their consumers. The goal of an esthetician is to have a clientele, so if the products they recommend don’t work, their clients won’t come back for their expert advice. It’s the estheticians job to read the labels for the client and recommend products according to their skin type.

I hope these few tips get you thinking about how to take care of your skin so it stays youthful and glowing. Hopefully your friends will start asking you for skin care tips!

THE WHOLE BALL OF WAX – LITERALLY!!

It’s almost that time of year again, and I don’t mean Christmas. I mean bathing suit time. Bathing suits mean you’ll be showing more skin, which means your skin needs to be silky smooth and hair free. The best way to remove hair in the summer is by waxing. Personal grooming “down there” has become quite popular for women as well as men. Lets face it, we love it when a man returns the favor! Here are a few pointers when looking for a bikini wax whether you’re a man or woman.

A basic bikini wax consists of the hair that comes outside your basic bathing suit bottom, even if it’s a speedo! A Brazilian wax can be called a few different names, so I recommend speaking with your waxer to determine just how much hair you want to remove. Brazilians usually consist of removing the hair from the buttocks and in-between the butt cheeks. The hair from the labia and general bikini area is removed. The front part is waxed into the infamous landing strip. Some women choose to remove it all from the front or you can leave a smaller patch of hair. I like to call a mans Brazilian, a Boyzilian! In this case, all the hair is removed from between the butt cheeks. You can leave or remove the hair on the buttocks. All the hair is removed from below and along the sides the testicles as well as the base of the penis. The hair in front can be removed, trimmed or buzzed down. This is all a matter of personal taste. No pun intended!

I highly recommend getting a referral for a waxer from someone you know. This is not an area you want to trust to any cheap nail salon.  Not all salons that do waxing, work on men, so make sure you ask if they have done male bikini or Brazilian waxing before.

If this is your first time, relax! It’s not as bad as the movies make it look. I do recommend taking an aspirin about ½ an hour before the treatment though. Don’t do anything that will make your skin cells swell before waxing, because this will make it more painful. This could include drinking coffee, eating chocolate, working out, sweating and of course your menstrual cycle. Waxing should feel like a band-aid being ripped off, and the pain should dissipate shortly after the strip is removed. After any waxing, be careful not to expose the area to the sun and use sunblock so the area does not become discolored. I also recommend using a scrub brush or body scrub a few times a week over the waxed area to prevent ingrown hairs.

Brow Recovery
Gone are the days of pencil thin, tweezed within a hair of their life brows. People are now saying fuller, big brows are “in”. While this may be true, don’t go Brooke Shields on me yet! Fuller and bigger brows just mean in proportion to your face, as opposed to the pencil thin brows of the early 90’s. This is part one of an article to teach you the first step to perfect brows. In the quest for the perfect arch, women have tweezed 1/2 their eyebrows off. It’s time to recover your perfect brow, and the good news is that it’s just waiting to grow or be filled in. Follow these steps to create the perfect brow shape. Remember to be objective in your measuring!

1. Take a make-up brush with a handle approximately the size of a lip liner and put it along the side of your nostril (where it dents in) with the brush tip angled straight up to your brow. Make a mark with powder and this is the point where your brow should start. It is not the point above the inner corner of your eye.

2. Take that brush and now place it at the base corner of your nostril and follow an imaginary line to the outside corner of the eye. Make a mark, and this is the ending point of your eyebrow.

3. Place the brush handle on the tip of your nose and angle the brush so it crosses over your iris. Make a 3rd mark and this is where the all important arch should be located.

The highest part of your brow is the arch. If you follow along the roots of the hairs to where the highest point is, that is your arch. Don’t go from the top part of your brow. If you have over-tweezed, your arch will most likely be too close to your nose as opposed to diagonal from the iris. Brows are so important because they give proper balance and symmetry to your face. Studies show, the more symmetrical your face is, the more beautiful you appear to others. Look at pictures of yourself from the past with different brow shapes to see how your face changes with each brow. If you look at most celebrities, they have balanced brows that are not very thin like the average woman. They tend to leave their brows to the professionals. You’ll really notice the difference in pictures of celebrities in their early years before they had a team of groomers. Some great before and after celebrity brows are Julia Roberts and Madonna. Sometimes it’s best to “step away from the tweezer”.

Here are a few examples of celebrities with great balanced brows: Oprah, Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, Faith HIll, Hilary Swank. Here are a few examples of celebrities with questionable brows: Hillary Clinton, Hayden Panettiere, Kelly Ripa, Marlene Dietrich and of course Donald Trump.

So recover your brows and recover your beauty! Stay tuned for the next article where I’ll teach you about coloring your brows and the most effective technique for creating the perfect brow using pencil, powder and creams.

HOW TO FILL IN YOUR EYEBROWS TO CREATE BROWS A CELEBRITY WOULD ENVY!

Filling in your eyebrows can be the perfect solution for brows that stopped growing or have sparse hairs. The most import thing to remember when filling in your eyebrows is to make them look natural and even. I’m going to give you a few tips on creating a perfect natural brow. Your brow stylist at the spa can create your correct shape, but the daily brow grooming is literally in your hands!

If you’re looking to tweeze your brow but always make them uneven, fill your brows in first to the shape you desire BEFORE tweezing. Fill them in with a dark color to get a very clear line. Then tweeze anything that is outside that dark outline. Don’t let the dark eyebrows fool ya! Go along that guide and know when to stop. Cut the hairs above the dark outline and then wash off the color to reveal even brows. Don’t worry if you have holes or gaps when you remove the powder outline, because you are now going to fill in those holes with a matching powder.

Take a brow color powder close to your BROW hair, not the hair color on your head. Your brows should be relatively close to whatever color your hair is at that moment. If you need to dye your brows than do that to create a harmonious look. Your brow color should be 1-2 shades darker if your hair is light and blonde. If your hair color is dark, your brows should be 1-2 shades lighter. Natural blondes need to be careful to not look washed out with blonde brows. Tinting them a light brown will do wonders for bringing out your eyes. Dark brows with dark hair can give a very harsh and aged look. It’s best to dye dark brows 1-2 shades lighter to soften your face. Grey and silver haired women can use a light brown or slate color for brows. Many times their skin color undertones will determine what looks best. If you have full brows but want to change the color, use a brow gel that will lighten or darken the brow a shade and washes out when you wash your face.

Pencils are another way to fill in the brows. The only negative is that unless you’re skilled at the application, it can be difficult to make the brow look natural. We’ve all seen drawn on brows and know the look!!

The 3rd most popular way to fill in brows is with pomade. This is a must for those with no brow hairs. Pomades stick to the bare skin where powders will fade away. Use a synthetic brush to apply the pomade using short feathering, hair like strokes. You can also use a powder over the pomade to make it longer lasting and more natural. Pomades are basically pencils in a cream form.

Play around with a few different alternatives and see what looks best. It is very difficult for people to see themselves differently, so take a picture with different brows and try to look objectively. Ask friends for their opinion and “brows” around fashion magazines to see how full, complete brows make the face look more symmetrical as well as beautiful.