Saturday, September 19, 2009

Comments will now be moderated

My perfumes are unique, controversial and singular. So are my friends. Feel free to comment any time. If you are sincere in wanting to discuss and share your own perfume experiences you will have no problems.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Sometimes a gal's just gotta treat herself


Wearing:
Lindenblossom abs, ambergris,musk. Yuzu, Orange Fl Abs, Civet,White Rose Abs, ancient sandalwood, Tuberose ether,Lav Abs, 1800 meter lavender,

Monday, July 13, 2009

Ask Yourself the Correct Question

The issue in all services is not how to squeeze them in. Anyone can offer "time saving" services.

That is code for "Get em in, shove em out"


The real jewel is a practitioner willing to spend uninterrupted leisurely time with your body.
A practitioner who doesn't watch the clock, or shave minutes off your service.

I would point out: It is a rare practitioner who is willing to spend a full hour with you and who carefully scrutinizes and administers to all your subtle physical and metaphysical reactions.

Don't cheat yourself.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Waxing Services

WAXING SERVICES


· Eyebrow Design 20.00 to 25.00 waxing or threading
· Eyebrows maintenance 12.00 to 15.00 waxing or threading
· Lip 10.00 waxing or threading
· Chin 12.00 to 15.00 waxing or threading
· Forehead 10.00 to 15.00 waxing or threading
· Sideburns 12.00 to 20.00 waxing or threading
· Nostrils 15.00 to 20.00 waxing or threading
· Ears 12.00 to 15.00 waxing or threading
· Full Face 35.00 to 40.00 waxing or threading


· Neck 12.00 to 25.00
· Open Collar Men’s Wax 15.00 to 25.00
· Armpits 20.00 to 30.00
· Shoulders 25.00 to 40.00
· Half Arm Wax 25.00 to 40.00
· Full Arm Wax 35.00 to 50.00
· Chest 30.00 to 50.00
· Stomach Line 15.00 to 20.00
· Full Stomach 20.00 to 30.00
· Back (does not include shoulders) 35.00 to 50.00
· Lower Back around waist 20.00 to 25.00
· Half Leg 30.00 to 40.00
· Full Leg 50.00 to 60.00
· Feet and Toes 10.00 to 15.00

· Bikini 30.00 to 45.00
· Brazilian Female 60.00 to 75.00
· Brazillian male 85.00 to 110.00


Thursday, April 16, 2009

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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

The best friend I didn't meet






WFMU radio provides vertigo inducing free form radio. If you're a sound junkie, WFMU is the purest shit there is.

I turned on Irene Trudel's show this past Monday to hear John Goodman, Ed Haber and Kenny Kosek memorializing some dude named

'Citizen Kafka'.





I vaguely remembered hearing that name on WBAI radio but had never heard the show - Citizen Kafka having left years ago. I had always assumed it was a political show about loss of individual rights.

I was wrong. So very wrong. Citizen Kafka aka Richard Shulberg of Bronx and Brooklyn New York was a zany, brilliant genius who I would have adored following. As I listened to Irene Trudell's radion show, falling out of my chair laughing, I recognized a kindred spirit.

On March 21st, 2 days after Citizens's 'change in vibrations/transmigration' as his friends put it,
NPR's All Things Considered recapped Citizen Kafka's life.
If you enjoy these audio and video clips of Cit's work and are curious about who he was, I recommend a listen. It is cheesy, like most of NPR's All Things Considered, but it gives more info on the man.



Sleuthing around the internet for more traces of Citizen Kafka,
I came across this gorgeous hand stamp signed "Citizen Kafka"
I'm pretty sure it's the same person.





More views into the inside of Citizen Kafka's head can be found
at his Secret Museum of the Air



Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter!


I found this email awaiting me when I turned to the 'puter after work. I love the tying together of myth and practice and also Roxana's inclusive writing. I hope you all enjoy it too.

Roxana writes through her yahoogroup: Roxanas_Reports


Easter, April 12, 2009
© Roxana Muise 4/12/2009
The religious holiday, Easter, which is also, inexplicably a secular celebration has the potential for being a unifying tool on Earth. This underscores the metaphysical/esoteric principle of Oneness. May we pause to explore this possibility?
Within our Universe, we live in a multidimensional mobiustrip, which is endlessly counted and recounted by our Earth in its spiral journey around our Sun.
We, inhabitants of the Earth enter and exit in fractal periods, guided by invariant concepts and laws, both collective and specific, either unconsciously or consciously, guided by mathematics, astronomy, linguistics, astrology, mythology, paradigms - through allegory – all in search of continuity and meaning. Bear with me through my philosophical ravings. I will eventually get to the historical observations that brought me to this point.
There is a constant blending, as individuals, families, groups, nations, ideals, and faiths travel this uncharted path. As individuals, and as groups, we are defined by birth, discovery, growth, and death. To make our lives meaningful, we band together, not always knowing that we all share that same cause.
We celebrate pause-points within each cycle – all leading to culmination and yet each providing commencement in the never-ending pathway of shared consciousness. Overlapping cycles keep us guessing about what comes next in linear sequence, the time/space framework of our manifested trips.
The fortunate who choose to serve as wayshowers (astrologers and other students of cycles), often themselves only slightly more aware of the cyclic interactions that we all share.

"The importance of the calendar for the groups was that it enabled them (early religions) to place themselves in relation to various important events of the past, moving ahead of them, and so predict what was coming along behind."

We all emerged from the same cradle, whether by intelligent design or evolution or a combination of both. It is no accident that Earth's three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam arose from the middle-Eastern section of the globe, all early procurers of science through religion. They all celebrate the cycle of life correlated with the Earth's orbit around the Sun, and the Moon's around the Earth - through metaphors: their stories of creation, the birth of the light; and death, resurrection and ascension, and the processes in between. They all hold in common esoteric studies that parallel each other, based on the old testament – "In the beginning, God created…" these are mirrored in ancient studies of Pagans, which are unabashedly based on the natural cycles of life.
Muhammad Migrated from Mecca to Medina 427 years ago, which marks the beginning of the Islamic calendar. Islamic days begin at sundown the day before the full day of their new year at Ramadan. Islamic years are, however based on a purely Lunar calendar, which creates a very changeable year compared to calendars based on the Earth's orbit. Muslims do recognize Jesus as one of the prophets of the Old Testament, which they revere along with the Qur'an.
The Jewish calendar has four dates for new years, each for a different segment of their culture. Since September 29, 2008 we are in the Jewish year 5769. Their day begins at sundown and with a partial Lunar calendar their main new year is Rosh Hashana, the beginning of their 7th month, the festival of the sacred moon and feast of the trumpets. The Hebrew religion recognizes the prophets of the Old Testament, their link with Christianity. Jewish Passover coincides with the Christian Easter season.
Fear comes from and creates separation. Disagreement arises in what we do with creation, and where it leads – control of a common language – and who's in control of unity. All throughout history these groups have been at constant odds each other and with secular groups, whose purpose it is to control nature (human and otherwise), all finding it difficult to keep separate from politics. Overlapping cycles make for strange bedfellows. Would that we uncover the unity within.
Over time, the mystical and the scientific, originally joined and then separate, are now spiraling forward towards reunification. As Thomas Kuhn tells us, paradigms shift when those in control die off.
Disambiguity, the process of resolving ambiguity was brought to bear in the case of the terms: BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini – In the Year of Our Lord), when part of the Christian calendar was changed to BCE (before the common era, or before the Christian era), and CE (common era) to remove calendric computations from segregation within Christianity, thus embracing a religiously neutral alternative. The labels refer to the time of Jesus of Nazareth, and the Gregorian calendric system, which lends the question: who controls the beginning? The shift from BC/AD to BCE/CE seems to have its roots in the universities in the 1960s and 1970s, and was formally implemented in the beginning of the 21st century when changes were made in text books.
The western European Christian culture instituted the use of BC and AD to denote the beginning of the Christian epoch. Their ongoing argument was mainly concerned with how to demark the beginning of the year and the rules for determining Easter.
Prior to A.D. (or C.E.) 325, Easter was celebrated on various days of the week, including Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That year, the Council of Nicaea, in Bithynia (present-day Iznik in Turkey) was convened by Emperor Constantine. This is thought to be the first ecumenical (meaning world-wide) council of the Christian Church, as it was called to create uniform Christian doctrine, which at that time reached the limits of the Roman Empire. During the Nicaean Council, the Easter Rule was instituted, which states that "Easter shall be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full Moon on, or after the Vernal Equinox.
Eventually, the Julian Calendar (used at the time) was untidy, and too long, causing the Vernal Equinox to drift backwards in the calendar year. This caused a considerable change in the holy days of Easter. Clearly, an adjustment was needed. A considerable length of time went on before that could be accomplished.
Aloysius Lilius (c. 1510 – 1576) is said to be the creator of the Gregorian Calendar, through his manuscript entitled Compendiuem novae rationis restituendi kalendarium (Compendium of the New Plan for the Restitution of the Calendar). His plan designated the beginning of the epoch defined by the life of Christ (the issuance of the year 1); the beginning of the year; the beginning of the week; the beginning of the day (midnight, sunrise, noon, or sundown); and the grouping and naming of the months, the days of the week, and special days (such as leap year). His system aligned religious and economic cycles with recurring astronomic phenomena. The crater Lilius on the Moon was named after him
The reform to the calendar occurred six years after his death, when Lilius' brother Antonio presented his manuscript to Pope Gregory XIII. The manuscript then proceeded to the Church's reform commission, and after some modification, on February 24, 1582, a Papal Bull ordered Christians to use the new calendar. The Easter Rule was maintained. Since the ecclesiastical "vernal equinox" is always on March 21, Easter has since been celebrated on a Sunday between the dates of March 22 and April 25. And so the date of Easter is, each year, always on a different date.
Even before the Christian rule for Easter, humans have celebrated the vernal equinox and the return of spring as a time of renewal, consonant with the meaning of Easter. Besides the reference of the word "resurrection" to Christian theology and "…Jesus rising from the dead after his death and burial", Webster's Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary also offers, "a coming back into notice, practice, use, etc.' restoration or revival…"
Symbology such as the Easter Basket dates back to pagan traditions and Oeastre, the Goddess of fertility, who was often depicted carrying a basket of eggs, symbolizing fecundity. In time, egg shaped candy has replaced eggs, and the holiday has become a commercial extravaganza for confectioners. The symbology of the rabbit denotes fertility, as rabbits reproduce in just 30 days.
The tradition of consuming the ham on Easter comes from the habit of eating the last of the cured meats that were prepared and stored during the winter from slaughtered domesticated animals that could not survive the winter. The vernal equinox: the equal length of days and nights marked the seasonal change, gave them reason to celebrate, which usually coincided with the end of their winter meat supplies.
As is quite often the case, the differences between Religious, spiritual, pagan and secular holidays seem blurred, and the principles underlying their meaning come through, as a possible symbol of the oneness of consciousness, and possibly a way to heal our differences. May this information bring you reasons to open your hearts to others during this season of hope.

May I wish you all a most happy and unifying Easter.

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Time to choose the winner!





I have been playing with the eyebrow/styling wax for a week. I am having a blast!

Here is What it Does Best:

Humectant
It will attract humidity to the hair.

Styling Aid
The wax allows greater finesse to those that like to create interesting sculptural effects

Lightly coats Eyebrows, Moustache, Fringe areas of short hair styles to impart control or interesting shapes

So, I'm assuming all of you who posted are still interested! Pick a number between 11 and 99. Whoever comes closest will receive my little funsy wax.

Kisses and mucho love this FABULOUS April day. Gail
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Monday, March 30, 2009

Contest: Beeswax Jasmine and Ambergris hair and eyebrow wax



I have become increasingly dissatisfied with all the styling waxes out in the Universe.

I want to sculpt my very recalcitrant hair without feeling like I'm covered in sticky mess.

I want to be able to sleep one night with a styling wax and wake up able to mist my hair with one of my organic hydrosols, place my mohawk, and be done for the day.

I want to smell fabulous. Not like a melon, orange, or disgusting perfume.

So....
I made my own using primarily raw beeswax, a bit of Jasmine Sambac wax and, just because...A tiny droplet of Ambergris infused jojoba.

Want some?

If so...just comment on this post. I will hold some kind of lottery thingy and provide some of this hair/eyebrow styling wax to one lucky reader.

Obtaining anything with real Ambergris in it for free is really really really reallllly hard!

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Green Girls and HarmonyArt


These dresses are Obama campaign paraphanalia.

Anonymity is the new fame


I wonder how many people came up with this phrase at the same time as I.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Now THIS is Customer Service!


March has been an exciting time to be an esthetician/waxer.

I personally found out about the NJ proposed Brazilian Waxing Ban last year when I schlepped to New York for further certification in this genital hair removal technique.
Brazilian ban
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29797548/

The issue became more pressing this March when all the NJ News Media picked up the story. After the story became widespread, thousands of individual waxers, spa owners and clients protested against the Cosmetology board’s ban on this profitable service. Loosely organized groups spoke out and offered printable forms to send in to Trenton insisting this service remain legal.
Response on Ban
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3ho5e1zsDM

In truth, Brazilians, chest or back waxing has never been approved despite widespread service on these body parts.


The ban was rescinded with, I imagine stronger guidelines and regulations to come.
Ban scrapped
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/custom/fashion/chi-talk-bikiniwax-0321mar21,0,7981868.story

I have been researching hair removal waxes in earnest since last year my search has led me to question a variety of personal issues.

As a long time waxer, my biggest complaint against the common wax brands has been my observation that the commonly used (read, lowest priced) are thin and runny and more prone to abrading or even lifting off the top dermal layer causing scabbing. As an independent company, I pride myself on purchasing only the highest quality of products for my services. Ultimately, I was led to a new class of waxes that are manufactured to create a ‘shrink wrap’ technology whereby the wax adheres tightly to the body or facial hair without sticking to the skin.

“Wonderful!” I thought. That is, until it occurred to me that this very technology that allowed a superior level of adherence and depilatorization might also be toxic to the environment. Not a happy thought. I contacted 4 suppliers to ask them about this question. One supplier sent me a catalog 2 weeks after promised. Another never bothered responding to me at all. One major waxing manufacturer/distributor’s customer service rep told me “I’m sure it’s not toxic.” When I asked her about studies or msds sheets, she was unwilling to supply me with any real data.

Today I both called and emailed Ceripil’s main US headquarters with my question regarding environmental toxicity and received both a call as well as several emails from two different customer service reps. Both women assured me that they would continue to pursue a satisfactory answer to my questions.

I reach out to skin care manufacturers constantly. It is the most fun part of my business. I love to learn about the chemistry of my materials as well as connect with people who I usually assume have the same excitement and passion for the Esthetics of skin and body care.

Most of the time unfortunately, I am dismayed to find abysmal customer service. I have learned to not take this personally and move quickly on. It still surprises me however.

With delight and excitement, I am copying the courteous and professional responses I have received from Cirepil.

“Dear Gail

Thank you very much for your use and interest in our Perron Rigot Cirepil
line of wax. I have read your e-mail and found your questions of interest.

I want to be up front however in letting you know, I am unable to provide
answers at this time. I have however forwarded your questions on to our
Manufacture and laboratory and am awaiting a response.

As soon as I have been informed of any information regarding the product and
its affect on the environment, I will be happy to get back to you!

I understood that if you took the time to submit a question to our office - it was of importance to you! I am happy to work towards an answer and will reply once I have substantial information.

Congratulations on owning your own business - no matter what the size - owning one’s one is an accomplishment in itself!”


These are customer service communications that I consider to be benchmarks of personal customer care.

If you’re interested, keep checking back for updates on my hair removal services.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Shelter Tales #2- Katrina


I noticed two things as I entered the pound.

A gorgeous and deeply sad German Shepherd crying in run 6

And that Katrina’s cage was empty.

I briefly welcomed the Shepherd with a little kiss thru the wire netting and headed into the main office

“Who’s the Shepherd?” I ask John.

“GAIL! Sit down, let me get you up to date.” I cozy into a chair.

The German Shepherd is Dolly. John had been sent on a domestic abuse case where Dolly was canine collateral damage. She had been loved by her family until something went very awry. She is well fed, beautifully behaved and gorgeous. Her eyes burn with loss. She sits, wailing. A new inmate pristine in her cage. She has not soiled any area of her space. She needs to go out.

“I don’t know what the status of Dolly is going to be yet.” says John. “But we will find her a home”

I know he will do everything in his power to find one for her. However, I am always a pessimist to his optimism. But moving on I inquire:

“Where is Katrina girl?”

Katrina is an 8 year old hound like dog. Easily 100 pounds, she’s been torn from her only home in a foreclosure. John and Amy have tried to make her as comfy as possible: She lies on a fluffy, sparkling clean bed at all times and Amy gave her a little stuffed ducky that Katrina cuddles and carries with her in heart aching tenderness.

Every family or person who comes by looking for a pet is introduced to Katrina. She has lovely manners, tremendous gentleness and devotion. However, her size and age always conspire against her.

As I’m sitting down, John crows:

“Katrina got adopted!

A family came in and said they wanted to adopt a difficult to place dog. They said they had lots of love and wanted to share it with a dog that really needed it.

They didn’t care how old the dog was or what size. I introduced them to Katrina, they put her on a leash, walked her around a bit and said that they would be honored to take her into their family.”

Then he continued,
And you know what,Gail? It was so adorable... When all the paperwork was done, and they were walking her back to their car, she broke free and ran back to say good by to me! She sat down in front of me and wouldn’t leave until I kissed and hugged her good by”

We sat silently grinning back and forth.

I envisioned Katrina sitting in front of John with her saucer eyes glowing umber, silently thanking him before she left for her new life.

Today even I, the cynical misanthrope was silenced and soothed by a perfectly happy ending