Honest to Blog?

A great way to get a finger on the pulse of consumer beauty culture is to browse the blogosphere. Where should you start? Here are a few of our favorites:
 
All Lacquered Up
Found at alllacqueredup.com, this blog features one polish lover’s passion for everything enamel. She discusses anything from recent polish trends to the newest collections to the search for one perfect color of green lacquer.
 
A Girl’s Gotta Spa!
This blog covers the gamut of the spa experience, not just skin and nails. The descriptions of exotic services near and far are almost too tempting to pass up. It also includes numerous product reviews. Check it out at gottaspa.blogspot.com.
 
The Beauty Blog Network
Both of the above- mentioned blogs are part of this network. Blogs featured on this site are highly selective—a blogger must be referred or invited to the site for quality purposes. The public can sample the numerous blogs by visiting beautyblognetwork.com. Start your blog search with keywords (“nails” is a popular choice) or the newest blog entry. It’s easy to get lost here, but there’s a lot to learn!

Web Wunderkinder

Two manufacturer websites have recently relaunched with brand-new features and functions. Gelousy Gel Nail Systems (gelousy.com) has debuted Gelousy Live, a forum supported with audio and video that allows Gelousy’s techs to answer questions and offer tutorials with live, easy-to-watch demonstrations between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., Mountain Standard Time. The videos will be archived on the website for viewing at any time. NSI has also retooled its website (nsinails.com) to fit with its “The Science of Beauty” tag line; the site will offer video demonstrations and tutorials, and Risé Carter, NSI national director of sales and education, will write a blog on the state of the industry and how it affects the lives and businesses of nail techs.

On The Loose
Marking the occasion with adoring fans and a crush of reporters, rapper Foxy Brown (real name Inga Marchand) was released from the Rikers Island jail facility in New York on April 18. Brown had been serving a year in jail for a parole violation stemming from a 2004 conviction of assaulting two manicurists in Manhattan, but she was released early. Her manager, Chaz Williams, told Billboard, “They had her on continuous lockdown just because she is a celebrity. They were trying to break her spirit.” Now that she’s out of jail, Brown has released an album and is shopping around a reality show based on her life. She’ll also, presumably, be getting her nails done, so watch out.

Turnaround
Just three years ago, five of the eight Canadian nail competitions were cancelled due to low interest levels. But under the direction of Christine Turner, new nail competition director for the Allied Beauty Association (ABA) of Canada, that ship is getting back on course. With the help of former Nailpro competition director Vicki Peters and numerous volunteer techs, Turner has instituted a host of changes to bring Canadian nail competitions up to par with others around the world and regain their credibility. Some of those alterations include the implementation of “salon style” competitions, blind judging and a free seminar prior to the competition to get everyone up to speed. The participation is still low so there’s no separation on the competition floor between tips and sculpting, gels and acrylics or veterans and novices. But the numbers are starting to pick up, and ABA competitions in Vancouver and Toronto attracted well-known competitors such as John Hauk and Lynn Lammers. “In our small competition arenas, it is a thrill to sit near one of these competitors and watch their techniques,” Turner says.
 
New York Blonde
The hit CW show Gossip Girl keeps New York fashionistas on their toes with its depiction of high-society teens on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Star Blake Lively, who portrays rebellious socialite Serena van der Woodsen, takes her role very seriously. She tries a different nail color with every wardrobe change, preferring to stick to neutral tones. One shade she particularly enjoys is Hollywood Blonde from OPI Products, which she specifically requested on the New York set. “My daughter and I are devoted fans of this show, and I am so honored that Blake Lively is a fan of OPI,” says Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, executive vice president and artistic director for OPI. “Blake is talented, charming and definitely a gorgeous Hollywood blonde!”

Buzz-Worthy

The Corvallis campus of Oregon’s Phagans’ Cosmetology Colleges recently played host to electric file maven Vicki Peters. With the help of sponsor Kupa, Peters taught the school’s first electric file certification program for instructors and students. The school’s instructors are now qualified to teach future classes on the proper use of electric files. In addition, the program made Phagans’ the first cosmetology school in Oregon—and among the first in the country—to include this topic in its curriculum. “Phagans’ Cosmetology Colleges are a cut above when it comes to cosmetology schools and they have a deep commitment to the student, especially the nail tech,” Peters says. “They made a financial commitment to make this class happen because they know the need for drill education.”

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A Fresh Face
Essie Weingarten is a familiar face to many in the beauty industry, but thanks to a new ad campaign, consumers will get to know her as well. The campaign was created by ad agency Badger & Partners and began appearing with advertisements in May magazines. The ads showcase Essie’s style and point of view, which jump off the page just as much as the colors of the polishes she creates and names herself. “Essie has a very clear and strong brand character, because that’s who Essie Weingarten is: a sophisticated, chic woman with a very distinct point of view,” says Madonna Badger, founder of Badger & Partners. “We just had to make Essie the focus of the campaign.”

Notable Milestone

Seven years ago, beauty industry veteran Rudy Sprogis founded the b•cause Foundation to promote the charitable interests of salon owners and other professionals in the beauty industry. The foundation recently announced that since that time, Sprogis and his organization have raised $100,000 for various causes. The money came from the foundation’s main arm, the Make A Change Day Program, which collects spare change to benefit charities such as the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, America’s Second Harvest and the Alzheimer’s Association. “When I began b•cause seven years ago, I had no idea a program that started by asking people to collect spare change would have such an impact,” Sprogis says. “The fact that we’ve raised more than $100,000 to date is amazing and has been an enormous help to the charities we’ve supported.”
 
An Old-Fashioned Coming Out
Gayla Burnett graduated from beauty school and started working as a nail tech in 1998. Less than two years later, she knew that she wanted to start her own line of spa manicure and pedicure products. “I tried various products by a number of different companies over those two years only to be disappointed in what was available—one thing had the wrong texture, the next had the wrong fragrance, etc.,” says Burnett, who works at Total Image Hair & Nail Salon in San Angelo, Texas. “My storage area was getting cluttered from all the products and I couldn’t use them fast enough!”
 
It took her six years to start her Gourmet Spa Essentials line and another two to bring the burgeoning company to its current position. Burnett made her first trade show appearance with her Gourmet Spa Manicure and Pedicure lines at the IBS Las Vegas show in June and hopes to expand distribution beyond her west Texas home. The process of getting there has been tough, especially since Burnett is doing most of the company’s work herself, including choosing the containers, designing the labels and logos—and manufacturing the products. “My husband built me a little warehouse in our backyard, and that’s where I’ve been working,” she says. “I’m learning a lot—for instance, some ingredients will harden with sugar but are OK with salt; others separate with water.”
 
That work has yielded Buffing Crystals, Whipped Therapy Creme and Cuticle Quench for manicure services, in addition to a line of Master’s Chef Blend pedicure products that hark back to Burnett’s early nail tech days—they’re odorless and colorless and come accompanied by sets of color and fragrance drops to allow service providers to customize services. “There are 12 different fragrances right now, and we’re working on the website so we can have new fragrances available every season,” she says. “This way, techs can create different pedicure themes without having to change product lines.”
 
Throughout her time developing Gourmet Spa Essentials, Burnett has continued working as a nail tech in San Angelo, but hopes that she’ll soon be able to transfer manufacturing duties to another company so she can kick back and enjoy some of the fruits of her labor. “This venture hasn’t been monetarily successful yet, but it has given me a great deal of reassurance for my family’s future!” she says.

colors from the new CND Plexi Pop collection. Clearly Pink was also the choice of Ali Landry, but she counted her bottle of Stickey as her true prize. "Everyone should have Stickey," she said, noting that she has used the product for years.
 
Miss South African Nails

The recently named Miss South Africa 2008 Tansey Coetzee has been tapped as the face and hands to best represent NSI in Africa. Coetzee, who graduated from Rand Afrikaans University with a degree in corporate communication, has already participated in her first photo shoot with the company, wearing custom-blended enhancements created by NSI Africa head educator Katia Da Silva. “Tansey represents strength and beauty both on the inside and outside. We couldn’t think of anyone who would better represent NSI in Africa,” said Ashleigh Mac-Kinnon, marketing manager for NSI Africa.

 
Eastern European Education

OPI Products spokesperson Joey Brown recently traveled to the Eastern European country of Estonia to host the first official company introduction there. Before an audience of distributors, nail techs, salon owners and estheticians, Brown went over the OPI brand and provided education on OPI retail products and how to sell them. There were also demonstrations of OPI manicure and pedicure treatments, as well as the Axxium Gel System. “The women of Estonia are extremely fashion conscious and very into the darker OPI nail lacquers—a big trend that is circling the globe,” Brown said. “All attendees were eager to learn about the hottest trends for spring and summer 2008 and they were able to get a broader view of what OPI is and our tremendous success internationally.”