Scalp Benefits at Ashka Salon Spa

Scalp Benefits Line

When I was talking to Jessie the other day about our favorite shampoos she said, “I feel like AVEDA’s Scalp Benefits is a real hidden gem”. It really made me stop and think. I personally had not ventured into that line at all. She said that she normally has a very oily scalp and since she started using the line, she has been able to extend the amount of time in between shampoos!

After our conversation, I was talking to my manager about possibly writing a blog about the Scalp Benefits line. She immediately said it was a great idea and that Jessie was exactly right. My manager uses it for her hair as well and loves it just as much.

Scalp Benefits Line
Scalp Benefits Line

What is Scalp Benefits?

Aveda’s website describes the shampoo as a “daily shampoo that cleans hair down to the root and removes excess sebum and other build-up, creating the ideal foundation for healthy hair”.

The conditioner is described as a “daily conditioner that hydrates hair and soothes the scalp, creating the ideal foundation for healthy hair”.

The last product in the scalp benefits line is the Scalp Benefits Dandruff Solution. It is a “daily leave-in treatment that relieves itchings, reduces flaking by up to 41% in one week and helps prevent the reoccurrence of dandruff to promote a healthy scalp”. This statistic was determined by a one week clinical study which of course, like all AVEDA products was done only on humans. 🙂

The point of the scalp benefits line is to help balance your scalp’s pH. It will help with both dry and oily scalps!

I Tried Scalp Benefits for the First Time!

Something that amazed me about this line was that both Jessie and my manager swear by it. Even though they both have very different hair! I was super excited to try it out myself.

What I found was that my hair felt extremely clean after shampooing. I shampooed twice, which I normally do, but I still couldn’t believe the difference.

I am a conditioner hoarder. There is no other way to put it. I mean, I know for a fact that I use way more conditioner than is needed. I just can’t stop! Being nervous about not having my SUPER conditioning Damage Remedy for the day, I pushed through with my experiment because I needed to know how it worked.

Much to my surprise, my hair felt so incredibly silky! I still am blown away with how much I really liked the Scalp Benefits shampoo and conditioner! I did not try the Dandruff Solution simply because I am fortunate enough to not have to worry about that.

Moral of the story is that I HIGHLY recommend getting your hands on some of these products, no matter what your hair is like!

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

Wellness: Vision Boards, Intention, Breath, Sound

Sound Healing Wellness

As I have said in the past, one of my new year resolutions is to be very tuned into my yoga practice. An overall sense of wellness throughout my life has become super important to me. Shardae Sanchez from West End Yoga Company held a workshop called Art of Intention, Breath, and Sound Bath in mid January. I challenged myself to sign up for it. I knew this would help to push myself in the right direction of achieve my goal. In the workshop we were going to make vision boards and learn about the importance of intention.

Vision Boards Wellness

We started our workshop with talking about the importance of intention. There is scientific proof that by thinking about something, you are sending that out into the universe. I believe what you send out into the world is what you receive. This is the exact point of making a vision board. It has been proven that you are more likely to achieve your goals, if they are written down.

Wellness

We used water colors to paint an “I AM” circle to put on our vision boards. Once it dried, we wrote “I AM” in the center with positive adjectives around it. I choose words like: strong, caring, and enough. You can put any adjectives you want, whether you think you encompass that trait or not. Fake it till you make it! 😉

After we made our “I AM” circles, we went through magazines to create our vision boards. I found things eluding to accepting that I am not perfect, my desire to travel, and my need to wellness.

Breath and Sound Wellness

After we got done doing our vision boards, we did two different breathing techniques. The first one that we did was called the “Bee Breath”. This one is good to help empty your brain. If you are anything like me, you never have an “empty mind”. I really felt the benefits from this breathe immediately. We also did alternating  nostril breathing. This is meant to help balance the left and right sides of the brain.

We also did a short session of sound healing. It was very interesting. I don’t know a lot about it so I am definitely interested in learning more about it. All I really know as of now is that there are 7 bowls that are all specifically designed to create the sound associated with the 7 chakras. We meditated while listening to the bowls.

If you are interested in any of this definitely check out the West End Yoga Company website as well as Shardae’s website Gaia Love. You can also follow both of them on instagram: @westendyogis and @gaia_love_yoga.

Sound Healing Wellness
Sound Healing Wellness

At Ashka Salon Spa we are required to do at least 2 different “personal growth” things in order to receive our bonus. This workshop was the first thing I have down for the year for my personal growth! All in all, I loved every second of it. I look at my vision board daily to help keep me on track.

 

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

 

 

New Year Resolution – Wellness Lifestyle

Wellness Lifestyle

It is that time of the year again when the gyms are overflowing, everyone seems to be dieting, and there are endless new ways to try and save money. However, this year, I want to challenge everyone to make their New Year resolution about overall wellness: mind, body, and spirit. While attempting to live a wellness lifestyle, we are slowly making attempts to become more whole.

Wellness Lifestyle – Mind

My “Mind” resolution this year is to read at least 12 books. I really do love reading, however with the craziness of life, it sometimes becomes an afterthought. I am going to push myself to read at least one book a month. However, I am going to give myself the freedom of what I want to read.

Wellness Lifestyle
Wellness Lifestyle

For January I have been reading “Power Your Happy” by Lisa Sugar. She is the founder of POPSUGAR, an incredibly well thought out blog site. This book is inspiring me to take a hold of my own writing and to truly enjoy it every time I am doing it.

For February, I already have Amy Schumer’s “The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo” on my bookshelf and waiting for me. I have heard this was a hilarious book. I’m excited to read it because it will be a little bit more of a laid back read.

I cannot wait to read more this year, furthering my mind and allowing it continued growth.

Wellness Lifestyle – Body

In 2017, I am dedicating this year to getting a regular skincare routine. I have personally always struggled to stay on top of a routine and continuing it for an extended period of time. I want to incorporate getting facials more frequently and purposefully. With AVEDA coming out with all of these new products and facial protocols, I thought it would be a perfect goal for myself. I always feel great I have a freshly washed face. It is just a matter of doing it!

Wellness Lifestyle
Wellness Lifestyle

Here is my idealistic skincare routine:
Morning:

  1. Dry Brushing and Oleation Oil
  2. Cleanse Face
  3. Tone/Treat/Moisturizer

Evening:

  1. Cleanse Face
  2. Tone/Treat/Moisturizer

Weekly: Masque at home
Bimonthly: Facials

Wellness Lifestyle – Spirit

Spirit is something that I believe to be super personal. This year, to enhance my “spirit” I am going to take yoga classes multiple times per week at West End Yoga in Canton. I started my yoga journey the last couple of weeks in December and I have been obsessed ever since. I couldn’t believe how connected to myself and the earth I felt after my first class. It will help me to clear my mind and have a better sense of what really matters in life.

Like I said, spirit is super personal. Some people will take this as religion, and growing closer to God and that is wonderful too. Really take a deep look at yourself and find what it means to you this year.

All in all, I am excited to have a life enriching new year resolution this year: to live a wellness lifestyle. You should join me!

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

Salon Assistant Training Program

Salon Assistant Training Binder

I was already working at the front desk at Ashka Salon Spa when I started to near the end of my cosmetology program. I needed to consider if it would be a good fit for me as a stylist. One of the many reasons I decided to begin my career with Ashka Salon Spa was their intensive salon assistant training program. There are two major parts to the New Talent Training Program here: classes twice a week with our Training Manager, and following our mentors.

Classes in the Salon Assistant Training Program

Salon Assistant Training Binder
Salon Assistant Training Binder

At Ashka Salon Spa, the assistants are lucky enough to take classes twice a week. They are usually with Evelyn, our Training Manager, Jozie, our General Manager, or Lisa, our Owner. We cover most services that we provide. They range from hair cutting to make up, and even eyebrow waxing. It is great being able to meet so often to talk about different subjects. We also usually have “homework” that we need to do on our mannequin. Our mannequins, also known as doll heads, have real hair to be able to duplicate working with real clients as closely as possible.  It typically takes about a year to get through the entire program.

“I think my favorite part of training is watching the “ah hah” moments… the dots connect and the light bulbs come on. It’s very rewarding as an educator to watch everything come together.” -Evelyn, Training Manager

Mentors in the Salon Assistant Training Program

Courtney, Christine, and Lisa are the three Master Mentor Stylists are the salon currently. I went through my program working with Courtney but throughout the year I also had a few instances where I worked with the other mentors. I think it is extremely important to assist a successful stylist when you are first starting out. You see what works for them and what doesn’t. While I don’t do everything that my mentors did exactly, it definitely helped to form my own techniques.

While following your mentor, you are interacting with their guests and see what they like. You also are able to how a seasoned hair stylist faces challenges. This all helps to improve technique.

Next time you are in the salon, take a look around and find some of our assistants. We are extremely proud to have them as a part of our team. I am ecstatic to see their career flourish!

Until Next Time,

Josie 🙂

 

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 🙂

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 🙂

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 🙂