Tulasara Facial Treatment Update

Tulasara Facial Treatment

Good skin care is so incredibly important. It will help you age gracefully, allows you to apply make up more flawlessly, and in general gives you more confidence over all. As you all know, AVEDA has launched the new skincare line “Tulasara“. With this launch, AVEDA has also updated their facials to a Tulasara Facial Treatment.

Tulasara Facial Treatment
Tulasara Facial Treatment coming February 2017 to Ashka Salon Spa

One of the many perks of an AVEDA facial is that they are completely customizable. One of the updates that continues to follow this motto is that you now are able to customize your Tulasara Facial Treatment aroma. Following “tulasara” we believe that everything, including aroma, affects how you feel and how your body acts. We offer you a choice of 2 to 3 aromas that is meant for whatever your skin type is. You will close your eyes and take a deep breath of each aroma. From there you choose which one you like best! I have done a sensory journey with someone using an aroma for their skin type and one that doesn’t match, and they still picked the one that aligns with them. I think it is crazy to see that first hand.

Tulasara Facial Treatment
Some of the aromas used in the Tulasara Facial Treatment.

I have gone on and on about how much I have been loving my dry brush at home. So much so, that I’m sure you guys are sick of hearing about it! But I am so incredibly happy to tell you about how AVEDA has incorporated dry brushing into our Tulasara Facial Treatment. I know that you will love the feeling of these brushes on your skin and you love how your skin feels afterwards even more!

Sarah, Emily, Adrianne, and I have been training hard to perfect these new techniques for all of our wonderful guests. We are ecstatic about these new products! We cannot wait to share it with all of you. Expect to see the new Tulasara Facial Treatment on our menu starting in February 2017.

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

Ashka Salon Spa’s Popular Beauty Gift

Popular Beauty Gift

It is that time of the year again! We all know those people who are great at giving gifts. They always seem to find the perfect thing for everyone on their list. Gift giving can be stressful when you can’t seem to find anything for your loved one, no matter what the occasion. I decided to help make everyone’s shopping lives easier this holiday season by creating a popular beauty gift list! I asked some of the girls in the salon to share what AVEDA gifts they would be giving this year.

Popular Beauty Gift Recommendations

My personal recommendation as a popular beauty gift would be AVEDA’s new Radiant Awakening Ritual. I have been super into perfecting my skincare routine this year. This specific product will make for a great gift because it is good for all skin types! Everyone’s skin can use some exfoliation with AVEDA Dry Brush. No one would ever say they didn’t want their skin to look “radiant”.

Popular Beauty Gift
Popular Beauty Gift

I asked Jessie what she would get someone for the holidays and she immediately said they everyone needs Hand and Foot Relief. Winter is so incredibly drying for so many people. Help your loved ones out this year by giving them the gift of moisture. They will be thanking you all the way until spring because their hands and feet won’t be splitting!

When I asked our Front Desk Representative, Shayna, what products she loves to give as gifts she said:

I’d choose the Beautifying or Stress-Fix Compositions. The compositions are great because they have so many uses! They’re awesome to add to a bath to relax and helps add moisture to your skin. You can also try mixing it with body lotion for even more moisturizing benefits. Another way I like using them is by mixing with the compositions with water and spraying on your pillowcase to help ease you to sleep.

Popular Beauty Gift
Popular Beauty Gift

There are endless amounts of popular beauty gifts for you to choose from at Ashka Salon Spa. Stop in today so we can help your find the perfect one!

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

Power Painting with Ashka Salon Spa

Power Painting

Two weeks ago, I traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio to attend the Hair Color Magic: Power Painting class! This class has been a hot commodity ever since it came out at the beginning of this year. Since hair painting techniques such as balayage, have been all the rage lately, Hair Color Magic thought it would be best to create a class for it.

What is Power Painting?

Power Painting
Power Painting

Power Painting is Hair Color Magic’s version of hair painting! It gives a flawless blend with customizable amounts of dimension throughout the hair. Lupe Voss, the founder of Hair Color Magic, took the time figure out the best formulas using AVEDA enlightener and viscosity for this technique. She also spent time using multiple types of application brushes to find which one works best with our particular product. I actually got one of the brushes from attending the class, and let me tell you, it’s a miracle worker.

This grown out, hand painted, sun kissed look seems like it should be around for a while. There are so many ways of rocking this style. And realistically who doesn’t want to look like a glowing goddess? I know I do!

Why Should You Power Paint?

Power Painting

By “power painting” you are using AVEDA products. In my personal opinion AVEDA products are the best. You are able to condition your hair with the AVEDA’s plant power while getting your dream hair over time. After getting your color it is always important to properly care for your hair. Your stylist will recommend the best at home care, personalized just for you! One of the biggest benefits is that power painting does not mean one specific look. Everyone’s will be different! No one will have the same color as you. You are also able to ask any questions you may have about your personal style.

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

Holiday Promotion 2016 at Ashka Salon Spa

Holiday Promotion 2016

The holiday promotion 2016, Season of Savings, has started everybody! Ashka Salon Spa has a different deal everyday for the rest of the year. There is something for everyone on here! I am going to talk about a few of my favorites.

 

Holiday Promotion 2016 – Product Deals

Holiday Promotion 2016
Holiday Promotion 2016

For the remaining Sundays in November you will receive 20% off all products with an appointment. Get freshened  up for the holidays and also save on some gifts for your loved ones (or maybe just yourself ;]). If you are going to be traveling at all this year for the holidays, it is important to be able to bring your favorite AVEDA products with you! November 18th, you will receive 30% off all AVEDA travel. On November 29th, you will receive a free, full size AVEDA hairspray of your choice will you spend $175.

We will be kicking off December with a buy 2 styling products, get 1 free deal on the first! Perfect for any holiday gifts. December Sundays, 4th, 11th, 18th, all give you 15% off products with an appointment. Later in the month on December 22nd, receive a free pair of Ashka Salon Spa tech gloves with a $150 purchase. There is so many more product deals that you just have to take advantage of. What an amazing holiday promotion 2016.

Holiday Promotion 2016

Holiday Promotion 2016 – Service Deals

Holiday Promotion 2016

There is an endless amount of deals on services this season! Whether you want your nails, or hair done we have something for you. Some of the deals include: $25 off a Pure Brazilian Blowdry, free Lip Wax with Eyebrow Wax, $20 off a Full Highlight, and free Haircut with Ombre color! No matter what your favorite service is, I am sure you can find a day where there is some kind of deal associated with it. Every Saturday from now until the end of the year, buy a $100 gift card and receive a $20 bonus card. Our Season of Savings calendar is absolutely incredible and you need to take advantage of it this holiday season!

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

13 Year Salon Anniversary in Canton, MI

Salon Anniversary

This past week marked Ashka Salon Spa’s 13th salon anniversary of being open! To celebrate I thought it would be fun to ask the people who have been here since the beginning how they have felt about the progression Ashka Salon Spa has made throughout the years.

Salon Anniversary

What Does a 13th Salon Anniversary Mean to the Owners?

I started by asking the Owners how they feel about having a business for 13 years now. They talked about the early years and how this business really was “their first child”. They are incredibly pleased with how their hard work has paid off.

Lisa Curry, Owner:

It’s been a wonderful journey being an entrepreneur, everyday is different and we never stop learning. We have been so blessed to have a great team, we started with 4 and now we have almost 30! I want to thank the community for welcoming and supporting us. Ashka has grown even more than what we had dreamt of!

Steve Curry, Owner:

We’ve had a great 13 years’ operating our business in Canton. The culture, economy and technology in our country have been rapidly evolving over the years. Today’s entrepreneur needs to stay flexible, and ready for change. Our company, and our ability to engage with guests has evolved to meet the needs of the community. Learning and being flexible is a core value of Ashka Salon & Spa and we have had an amazing journey being proactive in business growth. As owners we have invested in the Canton community, living and raising our children here. We look forward to many more years of providing exceptional beauty and wellness services to Canton and our neighboring communities.

Celebrating 13 Year Salon Anniversary with the Originals

I think that it would be hard to find a salon of this size anywhere where they have two stylists who have been there since the very beginning. Kristin and Amanda are Lisa and Steve’s first employees. It was so cool to hear about Ashka Salon Spa’s unwavering commitment to it’s values.

 

Kristin Halliday, Senior Stylist:

Thinking back, starting my career as a hair stylist with Ashka Salon & Spa (before the doors were even opened for business), was both scary and exciting. Thirteen years later, I can tell you that it is definitely one of the best decisions I have ever made. Ashka is a success because,  we are a company that lives up to it’s mission, while having a strict set of core values which each and every team member encompass. Often, guests will comment about how welcomed and comfortable they feel whenever they enter our building and I agree.  I am very blessed to be surrounded by great women and men who care, respect and encourage each other. It doesn’t really feel like work at all. It feels like home. I love this place 😊

Amanda Allen, Senior Stylist:

I can’t believe it has been 13 years since we have opened! The biggest change over the years is that we started off with 6 employees and now we have grown to 30!  Our core values are the same as they were in the beginning. We all respect each other and strive to give the best service to our clients. We are a big family at Ashka and will continue to be today and in the future!

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

The Importance of Recycling

recycling

My whole life I have been told how important it is to recycle. For some reason though, I have never thought to ask why. I have a feeling I am not the only one either. I am writing this post to help inform myself as well as others on why recycling is so incredibly important. Why should I take the time to separate it? What can I recycle?

What are We Recycling?

recycling

I found out from the Waste Management website what exactly we can be recycling. I was amazed by some of the statistics they had on there.

Metals: Americans now discard about 2.7 million tons of aluminum per year and only about 50% of it is recycled. We can save an enormous amount of energy by recycling. For instance, recycling aluminum and tins can will save about 74% of the energy used to make them!

Paper/Cardboard: There is about 71 million tons of paper that is used every year here in America; that is 29% of our municipal waste! The good news is that most people are aware of their paper products so approximately 63% get recycled.

Glass: Did you know that most of the jars in America now contain about 27% recycled glass? I think that is wonderful that we are slowly working our way to being more recycling friendly.

Plastics: While plastic is convenient, it takes resources and contributes waste to our environment. It is crucial that your plastics are clean when you recycle them. One contaminated container can completely ruin an entire barrel!

Batteries/Bulbs: You need to be careful when recycling these items. Be sure to figure out the proper way of disposing them in your community. You can also make an effort by switching to rechargeable batteries.

Electronics: Often called “e-waste”, electronics contain a lot of chemical and mineral elements that can be recycled. If they are recycled properly, they can become a valuable source of materials.

What Happens to Our Recycling?

When I really started thinking about how to recycle, my next question was “What actually happens to our recycled materials?”.  Once our recyclables are picked up, they are brought to the Materials Recovery Facility (MRF). Once at MRF everything is then sorted and separated into their different materials. One these items have been collected and sorted they become valuable to people in the worldwide market. I was shocked by how simple of a process this really was.

AVEDA puts on a “CaAVEDA makes a point of using a high percentage of post-consumer recycled materials in their packaging. I think this is just one more way that AVEDA is a stop above the rest. Stop into the salon today to pick up your recyclable products!

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

AVEDA’s Mid America Hair Show Part 2

hair show

Last week I talked about the first part of AVEDA’s Mid America Hair Show! I wanted to finish telling you all about my wonderful experience this week. Hair shows are one of my favorite ways to find inspiration because of how intense they can be. I did not think it would be fair to try to squeeze all of that amazing-ness into just one blog post. Here it goes!

AVEDA’s Hair Show – Barbering

Hair Show
Dusty Rhode at the Hair Show

Dusty Rhode came on stage to talk about AVEDA’s barbering world. He talked a lot about different hair textures and how we, as stylists and artists, need to do what we think is best based on the hair type. For instance, using AVEDA’s Grooming Cream is great for longer textured hair. Some new products that Dusty talked about were the Men’s Thickening Paste, and the Men’s 5 minute Grey Blending Color! There are a lot of new and exciting things in the barbering world.

AVEDA’s Hair Show – Haircutting

 

Ricardo Dinis is the Global Artistic Director of Haircutting. When he came on stage at the Mid America Hair Show, he said that he recently has been extremely inspired by the art world. A powerful quote from Ricardo that I can’t stop thinking about is, “When you see something beautiful, you have to stop and stare”. He was talking about how we have the power to create a look for our clients that causes people to stop and stare.  I have been striving to create a look like this for each one of my clients.

AVEDA’s Hair Show – Texture

hair show
Tippi Shorter with her team and models at the hair show.

Tippi Shorter works with all kinds of textured hair. She is AVEDA’s Global Artistic Director of Texture. She talked a lot about a new class she is designing called “Architexture”. This is a class on how to properly cut curly hair. Tippi mentioned how when she is working with her celebrity clientele, she works with a lot of wigs. She wanted to give us tips for working with wigs. Although I personally do not work with wigs all that often, it was still very interesting.

AVEDA’s Mid America Hair Show was absolutely incredible. I am counting down the days until Congress 2017.

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

AVEDA’s Mid America Hair Show

Mid America Hair Show

Last week I had the honor of attending AVEDA’s Mid America Hair Show. As you have probably noticed, I take a lot of pride in being able to travel to shows for knowledge and inspiration. This show was both and more for me.

Mid America Hair Show
Mid America Hair Show

The show started with Van Michael Salon. Van Michael Salon is a chain of AVEDA salons near Atlanta. They talked a lot about the importance of consultation. When their stylists consult with their guests about possible styles, there are four main points of consideration.

  1. Hair Texture
  2. Body Silhouette
  3. Face Shape
  4. What the Client Wants

While 3 out of these 4 points I have always considered, body silhouette is new to me. It was just an interesting concept that I am eager to learn more about. I cannot wait to apply it to my own consultations with my guests.

Next up was Ian Michael Black, Global Artistic Director of Hair Color. He talked a lot about AVEDA’s new hair coloring trend, Eclipting. The coolest thing about this new technique is that it is different on every single client. We, as hair artists, use hair color to contour our clients face shape. The thought was, if we can do this with makeup, why can’t we do this with hair color too?

Create a Demand for Change at the Mid America Hair Show

Aveda has recently partnered with the Audubon Society. The Audubon Society is a mission driven wildlife conservation society.

Mid America Hair Show
The National Audubon Society’s mission shared at the Mid America Hair Show

Audubon has been studying how climate change affects the birds in our country for the past 7 years. It has been found that within 50 years 188 bird species will have lost 50% of their safe climate habitats. Even crazier, 126 bird species will be completely extinct, forever. AVEDA has partnered up with them by donating a certain amount of money for every Love Composition Oil that is purchased to help plant native plants in order to help balance the climate change.

The biggest thing I took from this presentation was that we NEED to talk about the importance of climate change on our world. Only about 3 out of 10 people will talk to their friends about this. If we get more people talking about the danger our world is in, we can hopefully take more steps in the right direction. We are what hope looks like to a bird. We can help. Love drives both Audubon and AVEDA.

There is so much more to tell you guys about! Stay tuned for my next blog post to discover more about AVEDA’s amazing Mid America Hair Show!

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

New York Fashion Week with AVEDA

Working behind the scenes of New York Fashion Week has always been a huge dream of mine. Being able to help major designers fulfill their visions of their art sounds absolutely incredible. When I found out that AVEDA guest artists work on these incredible shows regularly, I knew I wanted to work with them.

New York Fashion Week – AVEDA

New York Fashion Week

One AVEDA Guest Artist who works backstage for fashion weeks all over the world is Jon Reyman. Beginning his career with AVEDA, Jon followed all the way through with it. He became a Purefessional and was working as the Artistic Director of the Advanced Academy by 2002. He works with a lot of celebrities and behind the scenes at multiple fashion shows and photoshoots. Jon is very passionate about education and it shows.

My Future New York Fashion Week Goals

New York Fashion Week
The Skingraft AW15 Show

Through personal research, I have found out that there are classes offered at the AVEDA Advanced Academy that allows you to attend New York Fashion Week. I am determined to attend this course within the next couple of years. This amazing opportunity is taught by Jon Reyman himself. I cannot even imagine the amount of knowledge one would acquire from this class. Starting with a 2 day hands on workshop in New York, then you meet back with Jon Reyman for New York Fashion Week to assist behind the scenes on some of the biggest runway shows.

Honestly, I am continually in awe about the multitude of possibilities that AVEDA supplies through their company. I am so thankful that Ashka Salon Spa is as involved as I am when  it comes to continued education. I cannot wait for the time to come when I can write a blog about how I get the chance to go to New York Fashion Week.

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

Wellness and Tulasara Lifestyle

As I have said before, Tulasara means to “bring into balance”. With AVEDA’s new skincare line coming out, I have been thinking a lot about this phrase. How could I bring my life more into balance? I recently moved into a new condominium. With such a big lifestyle change, I want to be as close to “balanced” as I possibly can. I truly believe that by living a Tulasara lifestyle and maintaining my wellness, I will be on the right path for achieving the balance I aim for in my life.

Tulasara Lifestyle

What is a Tulasara Lifestyle?

I believe the Tulasara lifestyle can be characterized by consistent efforts toward balance, whether this be moral, physical, mental emotional, etc. This can be compared to something as simple as eating an apple and peanut butter instead of going out for pizza. This can even be applied to more difficult matters in one’s life. No matter what situation, though, this life is made up of choices. We have the ability to choose to work towards balance. We have the ability to choose to move farther away from balance.

“Balanced skin is the absence of negatives, it is free of stress, healthy and beautiful”
– Dr. Upadhyay

While the quote by Dr. Upadhyay is obviously talking about skin, I think that it is applicable to life. When I get rid of negative energy and thoughts, I can physically and mentally feel the difference in my life.

While life can never be completely stress free, our stress can be eased. This is one way that Ashka Salon Spa can help everyone move towards a tulasara lifestyle. By coming into the salon, you are  promising yourself a time to sit and relax. Use our space as your oasis. Leave your worries at our door and enjoy the time that you have while we pamper you. I promise it will help bring you closer to balance, closer to Tulasara.

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂