Girl A real world definition: Being the person that does a specific thing well enough for a client to get recommended to an associate of that client. As in “My girl gives an amazing bikini wax.” or “You should try my girl.”

I can remember when it hit me that I was going to be someone’s girl. I was sweating grotesquely on the treadmill at the gym, and I heard one of my clients tell another person that she should go see her “girl” for facials. I knew she was referring to me since I see her monthly for facials. It was weird. I was someones girl. It felt strange. Messed up. Suddenly being someones “girl” made me feel menial. I am sure that I probably said something like that to one of my friends about my esthetician at some point, but I’d never noticed how owner-like and demeaning it sounded until it was said about me. I might as well be Kunta Kinte for all the importance my name and rank were. All my training, skills, and knowledge. All the unique qualities that made my work special had been reduced to one word “girl”.

Now I am NOT saying that my client did anything wrong. Please don’t take this post the wrong way. I am just sharing how I felt when it was said. In fact, after all those emotions I thought how silly feeling like that was! My clients love me. Hell, this one loved me enough to send someone else to me! What more could I ask for? And yet no one says let me send you to my “girl” or (God forbid) “boy” when referring to their dentist or tax attorney. So why does someone who has a life altering job like mine get reduced to girl status?

I think it may all come down to the stigma of what I do. Historically “Beauticians” are about superficial things. Ditsy things. Things that don’t take brains. I think this idea is changing. People are starting to respect my industry because they realize that what I do isn’t easy and brainless. Hopefully this blog is helping to correct any misconceptions about the beauty industry because in the end I don’t mind being someones “girl”, but I’d much rather be their Skin Fitness Expert and Esthetician.

It’s official. The holidays are here…and well almost over too! The new year is about to begin, and many of us are planning the new us for the new year. For me the new year holds a lot of change and I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has stood beside me.

To all those wonderful emailers. I love every email, and it makes me all warm and fuzzy to know that people from all over the world are learning from my blog. Thank you for the kind words of support and the thoughtful questions.

To all my clients, friends, & family, my days are filled with the search for the perfect spa space, and all your help in this has been wonderful. I have checked every lead you have given me and will continue to do so – keep them coming! Remember, Toluca Lake, Burbank, & North Hollywood are my target areas…

Finally a special thanks to all the people who have shared their skin with me. Thank you for allowing me to join in a partnership with you that has improved my skills and your skin. My clients are my friends, and I’m glad so many of you are going to continue our relationship even when I move onto other things.

Happy Holidays – however you celebrate them!

Water. It makes up 60%-75% of the human body. A person can survive months without food, but can only survive a week at the most without water. It is the most vital nutrient needed to live. It is also the most vital substance to healthy skin. When we don’t have enough water in us it causes dehydration.

The most common problem in skin I see is dehydration. It’s my belief that 90% of skin conditions can be solved by getting enough water on and in the skin properly. You see, although water is the most important nutrient for the body, our current Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Red Bull, and fizzy water drinking society isn’t getting enough H20 to meet the bodies basic functions – let alone support healthy skin.

I know, I know. I hear it all the time. “But I drink lots of water.” Do you? Do you really? Let’s do a little test. Take your body weight and divide it in half. That is how many ounces of water you need for minimum daily existence. For example, if you are 140 lbs you need 70 ounces of water. Now add up the number of caffeinated (coffee, cola, iced tea) or sodium based (soda and often fuzzy water) drinks you have a day. Any idea how many ounces that is? Most of us haven’t a clue, but realize for every one of those above beverages, you need TWO glasses of water of equal size to replenish the H20 those drinks just leeched out of you. So if that 140 lbs person has a Grande Latte (16 oz) every morning they need to drink an additional 32 oz of water. That makes a total of 102 ounces a day for minimum functioning. That’s a little over 3 liters of water. If you exercise you need to drink between 4oz-8oz every 15 minutes depending on how hard you workout or sweat. You also must make allowances for hotter and dryer climes etc.

For the people who only drink decaf and are really good about their water consumption congrats! You are a step ahead of the game. On most days this is me. But like me, I am sure you have days where you don’t get enough water. When this happens your body needs even extra water over the next few days to make up the deficit. Also if your body is ill, or having any problems it’s very possible it needs extra water.

And this brings us back to the question, are you getting enough water? Many people don’t realize that the skin is the last organ of the body to receive nutrients. This is why when you aren’t feeling well the first thing people say to you is “You don’t look so good.” The other organs of your body take what they need and the skin gets whatever is left over. So if you aren’t getting enough of something, such as water, there won’t be enough to feed your skin, and your skin will suffer.

Even people who drink water religiously may not be processing the water correctly. The type of water you drink matters just as much as the type of food you eat. Knowing what water is best for you can really help alleviate dehydration.

When I first began working as an esthetician I was awed that on the client questionnaire, in the same section as “Do you smoke, drink coffee, eat candy?” I saw “Do you drink tap water.” Kind of horrific isn’t it? When I moved to Los Angeles my cats wouldn’t drink the tap water. My poor orange cat Milton just walked around the bowl mewling his thirst and wrinkling his nose at the bowl of water I filled from the sink. Now I am not condemning all tap water, but check to see what’s in yours. I know that NYC has some of the best water in the country, and my boyfriend’s home in Maine has lovely water too. There is good tap water out there, but there is less and less of the stuff.

Distilled water is water that has been boiled and the evaporation has been captured and bottled. It really is the purest example of H20 since it has nothing else in it, but it isn’t the bodies answer to hydration. I know some people swear by distilled water only, but our bodies also need minerals and water is an excellent source.

Bottled water comes from many sources and can be processed in a number of ways. The one you choose to drink often depends on taste preference, but there are some waters out there that stand above the pack such as Penta, Fiji, and Trinity Springs Water. These are waters well known to be from pure sources, or have exceptional filtration systems.

All this said, most people still won’t drink enough water to meet their skin’s needs. This is why topical H20 and water binding products are important. You can’t just go spraying Evian onto your skin. The water molecules are too large to penetrate the dermis, but products like Jane Iredale’s D20 that has a hydrogen molecule that’s twice the weight of the molecule in ordinary water and is therefore 10% heavier than H₂O, or Bioelements Equalizer which is an ionized water that is perfectly pH balanced, will immediately hydrate and prepare the skin for the next product. Products that have Hyaluronic Acid which binds water to the skin and pulls it from the air such as Bioelements specific are what you want to use to lock in hydration all day.

In most cases once dehydration has been eliminated the skin will balance itself and many skin disorders go away. Certainly the skin looks and feels healthier. I know it seems simple, the idea of just adding water, but for every client I see it is their first step to better skin.

Hello again! I know I haven’t posted for the past two weeks, but that’s because I just got back from a 2.5 week vacation that started with me at a Medical Aesthetic conference in San Fransisco and ended with me in Britain touring castles and studying advanced skin care. All of this will make for some excellent future blogging (additionally fueled by the $600 worth of skin books I couldn’t stop myself from purchasing in SF), but this weeks blog is about change and the need for it.

This isn’t the first time I have spoken of change. It very well might be this blog’s “theme” since I do deal with a lot of it. Change in the skin, change in the environment, change in products, and most of all change in lives. For a while now, I’ve known that it was time for a professional change in my life. I love my clients. I love my work. I love what I do. But I don’t love “working for the man”. I am an entrepreneur at heart and over the last month I have been taking a serious look at my life. The start of this blog and launch of this website were all steps in the direction I want to head – which is owning my own practice and freeing myself of the constraints that bind me from doing the best job I possibly can.

For some reason Britain is a country that speaks to me. When I look back at my life a trip there always leads to a revelation and life altering decision. This trip is no different. I have put in notice at Total Woman and reduced my hours drastically at the laser place. I plan to use this time to seriously look for a location for the first version of my Skin Fitness Studio, and begin writing my Skin Fitness book.

I know there is a mixture of joy and sadness with this news. Many of my clients are comfortable with how things are, but I think we all know that this is a change for the better. At my current locations I am not given the freedom to take my skills and my clients skin to the next level. With my own location I will be constrained by nothing but a need for results, and my clients desire to receive them.

I will be finishing out my December as usual. After that…well we will wait and see what the new year brings. 🙂