http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2009/02/11/How-Consumers-are-Cutting-Back?refer=email

I’m posting this article I just came across from Conde Nast Portfolio Magazine—they polled their readers about where they were making spending cuts during the recession and guess what: “getting my hair colored” was LAST on the list, with only 1.1% of respondents making that claim. I was pretty amazed to see this—obviously, it’s great news for us, but to see it in print really made me realize how much of an opportunity we all have out there.  Even when people are selling their house, giving up eating out and stopping charitable donations, they’re still loyal to us, their beauty professionals.  So remember that every time you see a client tomorrow—and for the months to come.  They’re scrimping elsewhere to come and see you, so make them feel extra special and don’t forget that add-on treatment.  Remember: when times are good again, they’ll be the ones coming back to you.

I’m waiting to see the first pictures from the shoot we did in December—my first editorial photo shoot for Red Chocolate.  It was a whirlwind few days, but I’m excited about the hair, I think it looked great.  How can it not when you look at the team I got to work with: Peter Gray, one of the best editorial stylists in the world created the styles for the hair, Lupe Voss helped me with color, Rudy Miles completed the makeup looks and the world-renowned Robert Lobetta shot the pictures.   We’ve got seven girls and have run the full spectrum of color from white to pink to orange to lilac to black and back to white again.  I can’t wait to share the final looks with you.  In the meantime, here are a few snaps from behind-the-scenes:

Just came off a great Congress event—five days of non-stop model calls, cutting, colouring, clothing, coffee drinking and chocolate eating—but I think it went really well. 

My theme was “a world without colour”—it’s amazing what everything looks like when you take the colour out of it. Stop signs, flowers, butterflies…but I also wanted to show how beautiful black and grey can be. I coloured my first four girls black and various shades of grey-blue. Ricardo Dinis created classic shapes which really complemented the looks and the results were stunning.

I’ve been working on a new technique involving air-brushing and I think it worked well on stage. The hardest part was getting real haircolour to work in the airbrush—of course it’s not created for that—but after a few months of trial and error, we got it to work. I demonstrated it live on stage—it’s hard to see because the colour takes some time to process, but the effect was there. I had prepared my model by making her blonde to create the “canvas” on which to paint and used the airbrush to define certain parts of the cut, which was a geometric bob. I put heavy a black border on the fringe and the ends, which really gave it some weight and dimension.

In contrast to our first section, Nathanial Hawkin, a great editorial hairdresser who’s done a lot of TV work, created the looks for the “world OF colour.” We showed everything from pale blondes with pastels to blended spectrums of rich colours. His styling was dramatic too—sleek straight hair next to tight curls; glamorous, beautiful and feminine. This section really showcased Rudy Miles’s makeup well.

My final girl had beautiful dark, textured hair which we made vibrant red—my favorite colour. Thanks to everyone who helped with the show, especially Ricardo, Nathanial, Daisy, Lupe and Rudy. See below for a slideshow from the event and color formulas of the looks.