Welcome to another blog from West Midlands Nail & Beauty Academy, the colder weather is upon us, which brings out warm winter sweaters, digging out our winter boots, also getting ready for winter festivities with Christmas looming. Therefore it is a very busy time for salons as everyone gets ready to glam themselves up for Christmas parties etc. Everyone wants to look their best, but with winter comes central heating being used non stop in our homes and offices or workplaces, which in turn can play havoc with our skin.
Skin Care
Looking after our skin in winter is essential, I hear it so many times from people, “Gosh my skin is really dry and dehydrated’, how many times do you feel that especially in the winter? I do myself. So the question is what can we do about it? Well there are plenty of solutions believe me. Firstly, our skin becomes dehydrated when we do not drink enough water. By drinking 6-8 glasses of water a day, we can really improve the texture of our skin, it becomes less dry, making a conscious effort to do this daily helps wonders.
I drink minimum 2 litres of water a day, maximum up to 3-4 litres some days, be careful though as too much water for you is bad, so please don’t think I am telling you to drink 4 litres a day, but minimum at least 2-3 litres a day are the recommended amount. Not only does it help clear impurities in our skin, it also helps flush out toxins in our body, it is good for our vital organs, it has such huge benefits to the skin and body.
Also, we can look at our diet, are we eating plenty of healthy fruits and vegetables each day as this has such an impact on our skin, are we avoiding sugars as much as possible, I don’t mean natural sugars found in fruit but in fizzy drinks, sweets, chocolate etc as this can really bad for the skin too when we have too much of it.
Great Skin- using an exfoliator for our skin at least twice per week, this removes dead skin cells, therefore giving a fresher glowing appearance to our skin. A weekly facial mask, this also clears out impurities in our skin, sweat, grease which can all cause blackheads (comedones is the official term for a blackhead). Booking a weekly or a monthly facial will help a lot, the therapist will analyse your skin type and inform you of the correct products for your skin type. I see such problems with peoples skin due to them not using the correct products for their skin type this can cause a load of issues and problems, it is essential to use the correct products on your skin for a number of reasons.
We should be using a cleanser on our skin morning and night, a toner, serums, moisturiser, eye creams etc according to our age. An eye cream is designed to be lighter around the eye area as moisturisers can be too heavy for the eyes and help with fine lines and wrinkles.
Microdermabrasion- This is a gentle resurfacing of the skin/face. It improves collagen, plumps the skin, improves texture, removes all dead skin cells and makes the skin look very fresh, I personally love microdermabrasion for my skin to keep it fresh at least 2-3 times per year but weekly sessions can be carried out depending on skin conditions and client requirements.
Caci facials- Again I love these, they are anti-ageing facials using microcurrent, a lot of the celebrities favourite facial. Imagine taking your skin to the gym? It gives your facial muscles a good old tightening, when you do a class or exercise at the gym, you ache for a few days but your muscles start to tighten with regular sessions, it is the same with this facial, it tightens and tones muscles in the face, which with age starts to droop and sag, we lose collagen in our skin it depletes with ages, we lose elasticity too unfortunately, if we could create a youthful elixir it would be worth billions to stop the ageing process, but with regular facials that suit your lifestyle and budget this is achievable. Try some of these tips and really see your skin improve over the winter season.
We all have a passion for things in life and I must admit mine has to be skincare, it is important to educate our teenagers from the age of 12 onwards as when they hit puberty, there are some simple things they can do to help with their skin due to teenage spots developing, I have a 13 year old daughter who is brilliant and loves to make up her own facial masks with ingredients I have in my kitchen, so it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. eg. She likes to make oatmeal masks, using oats, and then using live yogurt mixing up together and applying to her face, she makes her own avocado masks, with a drop of pure honey, which is very anti ageing not that she needs that mask at 13, but it gives her skin such a soft feeling and her skin glows, natural facial masks are really great for the skin, getting our teenagers to use the correct products for their skin can help them massively and to help build their confidence at this age, try looking on you tube and have a go at making up a natural mask for your skin and see the results when using on a regular basis and something to do with the teenagers its a great creative task for you both to do in the kitchen or bathroom and doesn’t cost much at all, just a little time and effort.
We offer a 2 day Skincare Facial course or we do a facial unit on the NVQ level 2 beauty therapy course which is a 20 week course in beauty therapy, see our links below.
https://westmidlandsnailandbeautyacademy.co.uk/product/2-day-facial-and-skin-care-course/
https://westmidlandsnailandbeautyacademy.co.uk/product/nvq-level-2-beauty-therapy/
Autumn Colours
What are the colours that will be using on clients nails ie nail polishes gel polish etc Well there are some interesting warm colours almost like the colour of autumn leaves, burnt oranges, dark greens, olive green, custard yellow, butterscotch, merlot, cranberry, biker red, brown and hazel colours, those are the colours currently showing on the current catwalk, these colours are determined in our nail colours, the colours are determined 12 months ahead the big nail polish brands work with the fashion designers to determine ahead the colours that will be out up to 4 seasons ahead. Animal prints have made another comeback this year and will be very much on trend this season too, therefore a lot of animal designs will be on trend for nails this season and those colours stated.
National Hair & Beauty Awards 2019
As you know we were up for the best training beauty academy in the uk. We had such a wonderful night celebrating our success, we didn’t win as it was done on public votes not through a judging process, but nonetheless we are still very proud to have been one of top 6 in the country which shows our commitment to our students and their learning journey, they really are at the heart of everything we do at the academy and without them we wouldn’t have been at this awards ceremony so a huge thank you to everyone that voted for us, this means such a lot and with your continued support we hope to be up for more national titles in the future, we will continue to work hard and support all of our students in their learning and pastoral care too, we love to follow their journey and their success, we have plenty of success stories that we do not publisher all our students only some of their successes do we share, which we should really shout about and hopefully update our website to include our students journey from the start of their course, to setting up their own successful salons/businesses.
At the academy I share a lot of my salon experience when I had my own salon, the pitfalls, the health & safety stories from when I had environmental health visit my salon in a 8 year period, very successful visits from them I must add, real life stories really give such an impact and if I can help any student to avoid any pitfalls that is my mission, anyone who comes to train with us, will get to meet me Lyndsey (Managing Director) and our lovely tutors, who are passionate, always willing to help, share our successes and businesses that we have owned and ran, we are people friendly and passionately want to see everyone of our students succeed, we wish them every success, all the wonderful cards we have from our students we keep, I will not throw, as it is a reminder of all the amazing training my tutors and I do, day in day out and what makes our academy successful.
One thing we are great at is making our students feel comfortable when they train with us, they may not have done any previous training since school or college and can be quite nervous at times when they arrive for the first time, however, we put them at ease and share with them how we felt when we went to college for the first time, I remember my very first course when at 29 was Swedish body massage I enrolled at Dudley College, I was so so nervous I really was, I thought I would be the eldest person on the course, how wrong was I? So I do know how it feels, do not worry, we will pick up on how you feel and re assure you you are doing the right thing in developing your own skills, to give confidence, to start a future business for yourself and your family, to build upon your current skills and to enter this amazing world of beauty! 23 years now and I still love this industry how it changes each week/month/year to year, evolving constantly, new skills to learn all of the time and at 51 myself I love to enrol on new courses and learn latest procedures and I think I will still be doing it in my 60’s!
Louise (tutor) on left, Lyndsey (MD) and tutor on right.
Enrolling for January 2020
We are now enrolling now for January NVQ courses, please register an interest now for any of our 20 week courses. We are sending out enrolment forms fast, as you know we only have limited places on these courses. To enquire email: wmnailandbeauty@yahoo.com. For more details.
Discount Courses 10%- December Courses
All short courses will have our usual 10% discount on for courses attended in December only, so if you are thinking of training for any beauty courses, we will be sending out the discount code please keep a careful eye on out twitter/facebook or Instagram page for the code. This month is the perfect time to get a discount, we only run this offer once per year and to be honest we get fully booked up with courses in December due to this, so to avaoid any disappointment please book your courses early.
Well bye for now, and see you for another blog in December.
Best wishes. Lyndsey xx