I have been writing articles about the nuts and bolts of running a salon (marketing, customer service, employee issues, etc.) for NAILPRO, a salon industry trade magazine, on a regular basis–eight to ten features a year!–since 2006. (See?) I have interviewed lots of people in the beauty industry over the years as a part of my research, from nail technicians who work out of their home or in rented strip mall booths to managers of mid-sized salons to high profile people like Katie Cazorla and Tabatha Coffey. The similarities and differences of successful salons and spas fascinate me. Recently I was asked by the folks at The Peninsula Spa (located…
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Hey, Beautiful!
Most of my freelance work consists of writing feature articles for two salon and spa industry magazines. In researching these articles, I have e-mailed and spoken with countless salon and spa professionals. Everyone with whom I’ve interacted over the past few years has been really nice, but I may have just found my favorite. Yesterday, I was stressed (what else is new?) because one of my editors contacted me to tell me that one of the sources I used in my most recent article wasn’t going to work, and asked if I would contact someone else for my story. She was nice enough to include a list of possible (and…
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A Nugget From Heaven
At the salon, we’ve been thinking about (and talking about) Margy a lot over the past week or two. Some of you will remember reading the post I wrote about Margy last November, right after her funeral. She was one of my favorite clients at the nail salon ever. EVER. (She was a favorite of just about everyone else who works there, too!) That post happens to be one of my favorites in the more than 650 I’ve written here at the Scrawl, so I’m going to give you a chance to read it now (or re-read it) before going forward. Click here; it’ll open in a new window. And…
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Would You Pay To Let a Tank Full of Little Fish Munch On You?
Being in the salon industry (both working at one and writing for a trade magazine), I see and hear of lots of unusual things. Shortly before I left work today, a few of the girls started buzzing about this new “Doctor Fish Pedicure” that is being done in Alexandria, Virginia at Yvonne Hair and Nails Salon. Apparently it was on Good Morning America and Diane Sawyer gave it a go. (It was also on Ugly Betty!) Being a Today Show Addict myself, I missed the segment. So we pulled it up at the reception desk and I watched it with my mouth hanging open. I have to admit that I…
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Fall Festival…It Came, It Saw, It Kicked My Butt
The salon has two very special, very huge events every year: our Cinco de Mayo Fiesta (which we’ve done every May 5 for four years) and our Fall Festival (which we did yesterday for the 2nd time). These events are huge: did I mention that? On Cinco de Mayo, we have all nail technicians working: they are doing services (mainly Margarita Pedicures) all day long. The Fall Festival is more of an Open House to spotlight our new holiday retail, and we have a couple of vendors come, too. This year, we had a Jane Iredale cosmetics rep, a dermatologist, a Taste of Home Entertaining rep, a jewelry designer, and…