Take It To A Professional Ladies.....

Has there ever been a time in your life when you thought hm mm...I think I'll scour my face with a Brillo pad, then wipe it off with bleach, then dunk my face in acid and follow that with a soothing dip in alcohol....twice a day? No? Well me neither but I'm always amazed at the craziness I run across on some of the message boards I frequent. Lets take for instance one young woman who wanted said board to critique her daily routine which she posted for our viewing pleasure. In the AM she washed with prescription strength salicylic cleanser, toned with a glycolic toner, applied a vitamin c serum all over, along with a retin-a cream, all topped off with a glycolic moisturizer. In the PM she did the same routine except she added some manual exfoliation and twice a week(yes twice a week)she did a TCA peel that she ordered on line. Her question was 'why does my skin always felt so tight and dry'? WTF?!? How about I just hold you down and dip you in battery acid and get rid of your entire face quickly instead of the slow steady decline you're subjecting it to. What are people thinking? I admit that before I became an esthetician I was a product whore. I'd try anything and everything as long as it was in a pretty package and told me I'd be beautiful post treatment. But even I wouldn't have been ballsy enough to do an at home TCA peel. I've posted advice on some of the boards and since they know I'm an esthetician I always get the remarks about how I'm trying to promote my profession. No smart ass, I trying to promote commonsense, something that the Internet seems to suck out of people at an alarming rate. I look at it like this; I wouldn't post on a board asking how to repair my car brakes because I know nothing about brakes and more than likely the person who answers my question doesn't know anything about brakes. They went and googled 'how to repair your own car brakes' and they are posting what they've read from someone else who read it from someone else who posted it because they thought it would be funny to post a sarcastic snarky blog on how to not fix your own brakes and somehow when it was spellchecked the not got taken out of the title(improper grammar is a bitch) and now millions of people are home repairing their brakes the incorrect way. You ever see a guy run a red light with a slightly confused look on his face, he repaired his brakes himself and if you look in the passenger seat and see his wife you'll notice her face is a dry, flaky mess because she tried to DIY her face with the equivalent of battery acid. Somethings just need to be left to the professionals... Estheticians Unite!!

You Have The Right To Remain Silent......

Well ladies before I start regaling you with this tale of woe and a ho; may I suggest you get comfortable, grab a drink, maybe get a snack because this is a long one, but so worth the read...I swear. First though, I'm going to give you a little background on our drama filled day. Thursday we had a lady come in get a brow wax from me and about $150 in product from the store. She wrote two checks and then went next door got her hair did(keeping it hood) and wrote another check. Friday the manager from the posh salon next door came over to tell us the checks were going to bounce because the account had been flagged for fraud and was actually closed. Of course the boss was upset but we figured what can you do, we'll never see the woman again. Well, it seems our intrepid thief was rather ballsy. On Saturday she called our place and scheduled a brazilian...with me. Our owner went next door to tell the salon owner and she wanted us to take the appointment so she could call the police to come get the thief when she showed up. So we all agreed when she came in for her appointment the cops would burst in like gangbangers and take her down...book 'em Danno!.... OK, now let me tell you how it really went down. She shows up for her appointment an hour late and stumbles in the door almost taking out an entire table of purses. I grab her at the door act like nothings wrong and take her back to my room where she proceeds to cry for 10 minutes because her girlfriend has left her for another woman. This whole time I'm waiting to hear my boss knock on the door and tell me I have an emergency so the police can...book 'em Danno! Right? I mean how long can it take? The police are next door after all. So to stall I give her paperwork to fill out and tell her I'll give her a few minutes to pull herself together. I walk out and my boss informs me I have to stall her longer because they aren't ready...what the hell??? Back in I go to find she's filled out her paperwork and is still crying over her girlfriend. I should also mention she is totally loopy, blotto, cracked out, stoned, whatever you want to call it. She can barely string two words together. Hell, she can barely sit up straight. I walk back out of the room with her papers and my boss again tells me you've gotta stall her longer....what the hell??? I don't get paid enough I'm telling you. Back in the room I go and find her completely naked from top to bottom, lying on my bed with a tiny wee towel draped over her crotch. She's a lot of woman, probably around 6 foot and about 250 so that towel was working overtime to cover anything. Great...did I mention I didn't get paid enough? So I tell her to put on her shirt since we're not waxing any of that and start trying to figure out how to draw this out without actually waxing. After 10 minutes of naked small talk I have to do something so I pull the towel back enough to expose her thigh and lay down a strip of wax and rip it off. I do the same strip of skin for 15 minutes cuz no way am I going to do all that work for nothing. Finally, thank you little baby Jesus, my boss knocks and out the room I go explaining I have a family emergency and we'll have to reschedule. She slurringly tells me no problem and I hide in the back until she leaves. It takes her fifteen minutes to make it out of my room(Oh yeah,we'll get back to that one) I hear the door tracker ding so out of my hiding place I spring to watch her stumble out and the police finally converge on her all swat like....book em Danno! Yay, drama over I go back to my room to straighten up the mess. I walk in look over to where my personal stuff is and see that my purse is gone. Lets just say I have moments in my life when I'm not quite capable of controlling the words that come out of my mouth..ie this is one of those times. I turn around storm out into the middle of the store and yell..loudly...that fucking bitch stole my purse! OK, did I mention I work in a Merle Norman and you can't throw a rock in there without hitting a 60 year old lady so guess who heard my nasty potty mouth? Out I storm in my three inch heels across the parking lot and yell...loudly(damn why am I loud at the worst times)...that fucking bitch stole my purse! OK to hurry this along we'll skip over the most of it and I'll tell you I got my purse back with everything in it so no harm done. Back into the store I go, purse in hand, through the gauntlet of little old ladies to go clean up my room. Of course the ladies loved all the drama, they'll probably be telling the story for a good month. I march back in my room and turn to the other side of the room and HOLY SHIT...are you ready for it? She had pissed in my floor, on my rug, and on the curtains. I honestly didn't know the human bladder could hold that much fluid.(15 minutes of pissing that's why it took her so long in my room) There was so much on the floor I thought she'd spilled one of my bottles but the smell and color gave it away. So I go charging back out into the store yelling...loudly(yeah, I need to work on that)..that bitch pissed in my floor. The little old ladies are fired up and one of them walks over to me and says that bitch pissed on your floor?! Just to hear those words come out of a sweet looking little old lady made the whole damn thing worth it. I'm telling you I don't get paid enough...book em Danno! Estheticians Unite!!

I'm Gonna Wash That Spa Right Out Of My Hair...

As some of you know I've recently quit my first spa job to take another, in a less bitchy, catty, moody, cheating me out of clients kind of spa. It's actually amazing what working in a toxic environment does to you and what it makes you want to do to others. My husband wouldn't let me handle sharp objects for months. I'm an easygoing kind of gal and I guess that's my problem. I'm not competitive enough to lie, cheat and steal to get the appointments...now if we're talking about chocolate truffles that's a different story. I'd probably do all the above for a yummy, rich, gooey truffle....yum, but I digress. The experience at my first spa(that shall remain unnamed)was great, at first, and admittedly I learned some things. Namely how to spot when you're getting screwed out of appointments and to never sign a non-compete agreement, but beyond that I learned how to be a better waxer(I so sorry little old lady with three inch hair), microderm, and in general how to be comfortable in my skills as an esthetician. Now I've taken those lessons and moved onto a smaller place where I'm the only esthy. That's right ladies..me the head honcho, the big Kahuna, the champ, the contender, the wax goddess...I'm surprised my fingers actually allowed me to type that last one they were laughing so hard, but I digress yet again. It's a completely different clientele though it's only 4 miles away from my old place. So far it's mostly older ladies and all I'm doing is waxing. I never realized how hairy little old women are, in out of the way places. The other day I was waxing a jawline and found the longest single hair in recorded history(I'm sure of it). For whatever reason the wax didn't pick it up(The wax was scared..trust me). So I get out my handy dandy tweezermans and charge in for removal. Only to find I didn't know where it started. What? Yes, It was so long it curled and wrapped back around toward her ear so I had to uncurl it and then tweeze it. I so wanted to save that thing but I figure that would put me on the same level as Buffalo Bill(It puts the lotion on the skin!)And really who wants to be even steven with a serial killer?? It's an interesting new world for me at the moment so hopefully I'll have lots of goodies to share in the future...Estheticians Unite!!