Busy Beautiful Mommy: Moisture Madness

Moisture Madness

With the weather changing as often as it has lately, your hair, skin, and nails are probably freaking out! Anytime the weather takes drastic changes, your body tends to dry out. Follow these tips to rehydrate your entire body!

Skin

• Use a creme cleanser (Like Aveda Botanical Kinetics Creme Cleanser) so you won't dry out your skin too much. Tone, then moisturize with a heavier cream moisturizer to give your skin a little extra love. The Aveda Green Science Firming Face (and eye) Cream is excellent for providing a lot of moisture.

Nails

• Give your skin a little extra love throughout the day. If your hands are extra dry, try using Davines Body Butter to super hydrate your hands. If the skin is just slightly dehydrated, try Aveda Hand Relief. Also, apply a small amount of Aveda Cuticle Control to your cuticles and any hangnails. Keeping your skin and cuticles moisturized will help to prevent any skin cracking and prevent rough hangnails.

Hair

• Start off by coming in for a Botanical Kinetics hydrating hair treatment. This will help either add amino acids to your hair and strengthen it, or it will add 84% more moisture to your hair, depending on what it needs. Next, take home a bottle of Aveda Dry Remedy Treatment Masque. Use this treatment as part of a weekly routine by leaving it on for 30-45 minutes on damp hair, covered by a shower cap. Covering the hair with the shower cap allows the hair to heat up, which will let the treatment penetrate the hair cuticle even better. At a minimum, leave the treatment on for 15 minutes, then rinse well.

Use these tips to give your body a full rehydration. To rehydrate the remainder of the skin on your body, use the Carribean Therapy Body Creme. Try them out and see how much better your body will feel!

Busy Beautiful Mommy: Quick Date Night Updo

Quick Date Night Updo

When date nights are few and far between, you should really work hard to take advantage of the time you do have with your significant other. While your time may be short, you can still create a great updo for your evening out! Follow these quick steps to make an elegant sideswept ponytail.

• Start with a deep side part to create a little drama.
• First, spray a thermal protectant or hairspray onto the length of your hair. Then, curl the just ends of your hair with a one inch curling iron.
• Spray the curls with hairspray and allow them to cool for one minute. Take this time to start putting on your face!
• Next, tease a small section of hair (no thicker than 1/4") in the crown area. Cover up your tease by combing back some hair from the top of the head.
• Loosely take your ponytail and secure it on the side of your head behind your ear. If you have bangs, make sure to put your ponytail on the same side.
• Pull out a few face framing pieces of hair from the ponytail and curl them loosely to create some romance
• To cover up your ponytail holder, take a 1 inch section of hair and wrap it around your ponytail holder. Take a bobby pin and secure it on the underside of the ponytail.

This updo is especially great for women with shoulder length or longer hair.

*Style tip: For your big night out, add a little extra drama with some dangly earrings to compliment your updo. This updo opens up your face and draws more attention to it, so you might as well give them something extra sparkly to look at!

Real Talk: Split Ends

The Truth About Split Ends

 

• Split ends will only keep splitting- once your hair has split- that's it. If you continue to put heat and color on it (mainly bleach, and boxed hair color) your ends will continue to split, up your hair shaft, then break at the root. You basically need to cut it off at this point. Yes, you won't appreciate the length at first when you get all of your split ends cut off, but it really sets the stage for healthy hair. Whether it be 1-5 inches, it will make the difference and begin your healthy hair journey in a great way.
  
  
• Split ends can't really be repaired- there are products that claim to completely repair your split ends. That doesn't happen. Yes, it will make your hair feel better for the duration of that style, a few days, sure. However, it doesn't fix the issue at hand- it is only a temporary remedy. If you are looking for a product that does this, the only one I recommend is Davines Melu Split End Serum.
  
  
• The more heat and color you do to it, the more it will be damaged- (again, mainly bleach/highlighting, and boxed hair color) highlighting and using boxed haircolor will ruin your hair. Overlapping bleach and boxed hair color will ruin your hair as well. Try shampooing your hair in the evening instead of doing it in the morning. If you shampoo in the evening, you give your hair the chance to dry overnight while sleeping, naturally, without using any heat. If, by chance, your hair retains a lot of water, or is extremely thick and doesn't fully dry by morning, you can lessen the amount that you use the blow dryer. If your hair is curly, you can flat iron the next morning. I endorse flat ironing slightly more than blow drying- because blow drying can just blow out the cuticle of your hair entirely compared to flat ironing which will smooth. But don't get me wrong, both used in excess will really damage your hair. Heat, shampoo, and color can all change the chemical makeup of your hair in a heartbeat.

 

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.  

• Demi-permanent hair color can actually improve the condition of your hair. I can't speak for any other color lines other than Aveda, but their Demi-permanent line is extremely conditioning to the hair and will improve the condition of your hair every single time you do it. Davines Finest Pigments lasts a much shorter stint of time, but is very conditioning to the hair as well. However, it only lasts for about 6 shampoos, in opposition to the Aveda that lasts 28 shampoos.
• There are products that will eventually change the texture of your hair. You can use Davines Oi Oil: Absolute Beautifying Potion- this product is seriously one of the best favors you can do for your hair. Its rich in beta-carotene which is extremely moisturizing, at least double the moisture you'll get from most products that are out there.

The bottom line:

Split ends are inevitable. They will happen whether you put heat to your hair, or have never owned a blow dryer. However, the way you handle the situation and prevent split ends as much as you can will make a big difference in the way your hair behaves on a daily basis. The first step is to get a good haircut to trim off all of the split ends- not just some. The second step is to maintain the healthy hair by using less heat, and using products that will provide moisture (and protein if necessary for extremely damaged hair) will help keep your hair long and strong!

Busy Beautiful Mommy: Bored With Your Hair? Try Bangs!

Busy Beautiful Mommies,

Are you bored with your hair?  If you don't want to change your cut or color up, one option you have is to add bangs to your look, or change the bangs you have! Bangs will instantly change the way your face looks, and it is only a ten minute service! So if you're a mom on the go, you can stop by any of our three Bay Area locations to get a complimentary bang trim- no appointment needed!

There are a few basic looks that you can experiment with your fringe, here are pictures of different types!

This style of bangs is a forward fringe, but pieced out with some of the weight removed. These bangs are light and airy.

This is the side bang, which is wildly popular! This image features a longer version of the fringe, and can be round brushed or flat ironed to get this look.

This style of bangs is the split! Split either on the side or the center part, these bangs look great on most face shapes!

The blunt forward bang, this bang is one of the more extreme versions of fringe, but looks great on oval, pear, and diamond face shapes. This look was made wildly popular by Zooey Deschanel!

 

Want bangs, but not the commitment?

While fringe grows out fairly fast, you can also purchase clip-in bangs from your local beauty supply stores (Like Sally Beauty Supply) to try them out. This will give you a good idea if you would like get real bangs cut, and what style you would rather have.

As always, consult with your stylist and see what the expert thinks is the best style of fringe for your face shape. And please, come in for our complimentary bang trims instead of handling the job yourself!

How To Cover Rosacea With Makeup

How To Cover Rosacea With Makeup

If you are one who suffers from makeup challenges with rosacea, there are still options for your makeup without using thick, pore-clogging makeup. From experience, this method works well to cover rosacea while moisturizing the skin and maintaining a natural look.

Products You'll Need:

• Aveda Mineral Tinted Moisturizer (Also has SPF 15)
• Aveda Mineral Dual Foundation or Pressed Powder

Follow these easy steps to cover your rosacea with ease!

1. Cleanse your hands and face.
2. Tone your face using your favorite toner.
3. In place of another moisturizer, take the Aveda Mineral Tinted Moisturizer and apply a small amount to your fingers and spread the product in a thin layer on your face. (You can also apply to your neck and decollete if necessary.)
4. Now, take a large foundation brush and apply a small amount of Foundation to the brush. Brush the foundation evenly across your face (and decollete if necessary).

Now, your skin should have a nice, neutral palette, ready for any makeup you may choose to apply after the foundation has been set. One myth that clients with rosacea tell me is that you can't wear blush if you have rosacea! This is absolutely not true! If you have prepared your face like mentioned above, you now can apply a small amount of blush to accent your cheeks.

Try these tips and imagine the makeup possibilities!

Overstyled: What To Do When You've Had Too Much... (In Your Hair)

Have you ever just completely overstyled your hair?

Meaning, have you put in a ton of products, all supposed to give you lift and desirable, sexy hair, and all that comes out after extensive styling is just a shapeless blob? This is the point where you just can't get your hair to do anything you want. You want lift, it falls flat. You like curl, it stays straight. You're hoping for straight hair now, and you get frizz. These issues come from the number one hair crime: overstyling.

Once you've reached this point, it may feel like its the point of no return, like there's nothing you can do. However, before you hop back into the shower to start over from the beginning, try out these two tips!

1. Try a dry shampoo. (Oscar Blandi works wonders, and sprays 100% clear!) Dry shampoo can be purchased at drug stores and local beauty supplies. Once you have your can in hand, spray the miracle worker at your roots, all over the top of your head where there is likely the most product. Let the shampoo dry completely (about one minute) and take a paddle brush from the roots to the ends of your hair. The dry shampoo will absorb the oils from the products you used, and will allow you to sort-of start over with your hairstyle. *One great bonus about dry shampoo is that it also gives your roots an instant lift once brushed out!
2. Wet your hair with a fine mist. This may sound like you should just get back into the shower- but really, its a better solution! Find a water bottle with an extremely fine mist and lightly saturate your hair. Brush the style out, and blow dry again without adding any more products to the hair. While this is not as effective as option #1, if you haven't gone too extremely far with the product overload, this will help you get a decent hairstyle!

If all else fails, then work a ponytail for the day! Ponytails often work better with one day dirty hair! Try out these tips if you ever have any overstyling experience!

Date Night: Taste of The Nation San Francisco

Taste Of The Nation San Francisco

Its a good time for a date night -and since we're giving you plenty of notice here- you busy beautiful mommies out there have time to find a sitter! On March 29, 2012 (that is about six weeks away...) at San Francisco's Bently Reserve, there will be a wonderful event hosted by Share Our Strength's!

Share Our Strength's is a national non profit organization whose goal is to end childhood hunger- and they are doing just that! S.O.S is "connecting children with the nutritious food they need to lead healthy, active lives... Through its No Kid Hungry Campaign". The event features gourmet foods and drinks from the best chefs and mixologists in the Bay Area as well as a silent auction, and live entertainment. This is definitely an event you won't want to miss! All proceeds will benefit Three Squares and Children of Shelters- two local charities that are fighting to end hunger.

At the Taste of the Nation San Francisco, you can eat, drink, and be merry, while benefiting children who can't help themselves. A night out to feel good about! Mark it on your calendar, and find a sitter! Here are the details, and you can read more about the event here.

• Where: Bently Reserve, San Francisco (located in the Financial District)
• When: March 29, 2012

12 Years of Thanks

We're very excited to have just celebrated 12 years of service at our Pleasanton location! Because of your years of dedication and devotion to our salon, we've been fortunate enough to provide hair salon service in our Pleasanton location and the surrounding community for 12 years now. For us, it’s all about the local community and we show that by supporting local schools and other local organizations. Your continued support also allows us to be able to provide careers for many within the community. What’s super important to us, however, is to help our guests (that's you!) look and feel great. We're looking forward to continuing to provide quality service to you for years to come!

Busy Beautiful Mommy: My Hair Falls Flat!

How To Keep Hair From Falling Flat

Many a day in the Bay Area, and plenty of areas around the country, the humidity and elements can get to your hair and destroy the hairstyle you just spent so much time creating! This especially happens in areas like Houston, Georgia, and Florida where there is a lot of humidity in the air. These tips will help you avoid saying once again "my hair falls flat"!

• Use a shampoo and conditioner specifically for volume! At all three of our locations we carry Aveda Pure Abundance shampoo and conditioner that encourages voluminous hair, and swells the hair strand so that it feels thicker as well.
• Use a product that creates body in fine, limp hair, like Aveda Phomollient. A fact that isn't very well known about this product is that it has honey and aloe in it which gives great hold without the hair being sticky. Before blow drying, disperse a few pumps throughout your hair to give it some body and hold.
• Try a hairspray with some real hold! Aveda Control Force aerosol hairspray gives extreme hold without making the hair really "crunchy". After styling on a humid or windy day, give your hair a good blast of Control Force. If Control Force is a little too strong for you, try Davines Glam Power Spray. This hairspray is more "invisible" on the hair and still gives a great hold.

Try these awesome tips for keeping your hair voluminous in the elements!

Downtown Pleasanton Farmers Market

Downtown Pleasanton Farmers Market

Every Saturday, in Downtown Pleasanton, there is the most darling Farmers Market! Rich with fresh, local produce from farmers in the bay area, the Pleasanton Farmers Market isn't one you will want to miss!

• When: Every Saturday, rain or shine!
• Where: Main Street and W Angela Street in Downtown Pleasanton
• What time: 9 am to 1 pm
• What can I buy? California grown vegetables, fruits, and other produce. In addition, you can pick up a local wine, a rotisserie chicken, or fresh handcrafted foods!

With different produce in season year round, you will be sure to find something different and intriguing every time you visit! And of course, if you still have the shopping bug after you leave the market, you can head a few blocks down and visit us here at Fusion 3 Salon Pleasanton!