Salon News Bits and a New iPhone App

To start off the new year, some interesting news bits from the salon scene.

This January, those infernally ungainly flip-flops that you have to wear at the nail salon in Georgia or New York are getting the boot (about time, too). Bootie Pies (introduced in 2007), suede and leather boots that look like Uggs but with front flaps, are making the scene again to keep your toes toasty while waiting for your toenails to dry. Good buy at $68 to $88—and good news for those with a Georgia nail technician license or a Georgia a cosmetology license.

In California, meanwhile, a plastic surgeon has integrated blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery) and browpexy (brow lift) into an all-in-one eyelid-and-brow lift that he claims is more cost effective and less invasive than separate procedures and also than many similar procedures. The innovative lift’s two internal stitches require 30 minutes to finish and five days to recover from. For all that the procedure sets the client back $4,500.  Visit the practice of Tancredi F. D’Amore, in Corte Madera, Calif.

In Midtown Manhattan, Dr. Robert M. Bernstein, of the Bernstein Medical Center for Hair Restoration, has earned the distinction of being probably the first doctor on the East Coast to press into hair-transplant service a robot. The robotic wonder, the Artas System for Hair Restoration, was designed, developed, and released to the world by a company called Restoration Robotics. It’s really high-tech—it employs digital mapping and tracking to painstakingly extract and harvest individual hairs (“follicular units” in techspeak)—and really expensive ($12,000 to $15,000). But if you have a deep pocket and the patience to endure four to eight hours of hair-pulling, it’s worth every hair root.

Finally, pretty eyebrows meet pretty iPhone in HairPro Tracker, a newly released iPhone-iPad app developed for salon professionals (including those finishing their cosmetology CE as a requirement for renewing their cosmetology license) who are looking to have a cool iPhone bling that actually does serious things, including help the user manage his or her practice. Enthused founder and salon professional Tara O’Connell, “It’s innovative and highly intuitive, and this app tracks and analyzes earnings, goals, most profitable services and more. The goal is to help you work smarter, not harder!”

HairPro Tracker, for instance, can track the following:

·         Most profitable services

·         Most profitable clients

·         Which add-on services make the most money

·         Average money earned per client purchase

·         Average hourly rate

·         Services performed

·         Services that fall below the average hourly rate

·         Past paycheck bar graph

·         Daily, weekly and monthly reports

·         Percent to goal

·         Net income at the end of each day

HairPro Tracker is available for download at www.hairprotracker.com

Cosmetologycampus.com, the cosmetology portal of top e-learning hub 360training.com, offers an excellent online cosmetology CE program (if you’re in Texas it’s called the Texas cosmetology CE; if you’re in Ohio, it’s called the Ohio cosmetology CE), a requirement by many states for renewing a cosmetology license.