Play Me a Mood

You’ve just thought of an awesome new signature service you want to add to your spa menu. You have all the products and ingredients selected with specific scents to accentuate a certain theme, like coconut for island pedis or pumpkin spiced lotions for holiday specials, and you even have little decorations to ornament the service area. You’ve gone all the way to make this service an absolute delight for your customers. So why not go that little extra mile and make a nice music playlist to go along with it? You can play it over your sound system if you’re a smaller salon, or offer your client an iPod with the select playlist ready to go.

The Tutti Frutti Pedicure

By Madelyn Johnson, New Again Nail Spa and Boutique, Houston, Texas

Service Time: 60 Minutes

Cost: $55

Place a few slices of oranges, lemons, and limes in the warm water for the soak.

Use a fruit-scented scrub like Cuccio Naturale’s Pomegranate and Fig Sea Salt exfoliant.

Follow up with a similar fruit-scented massage lotion and knead deeply into the feet and calves.

Tutti Frutti Playlist

Tutti Frutti — Little Richard

Red Red Wine — UB40

I Can See Clearly — Johnny Nash

Fool In the Rain — Led Zeppelin

You Can Call Me Al — Paul Simon

Coconut — Harry Nilsson

Escape (The Pina Colada Song) — Rupert Holmes

Tropicalia — Beck

Send Me On My Way — Rusted Root

Rudi, A Message to You — The Specials

Paradise — Sade

Bad Fish — Sublime

 

The True Blood Mani

By Holly Schippers, Bussey, Iowa

Service Time: 75 Minutes

Cost: $75

Begin with a refreshing warm hand wash using CND Scentsations Black Cherry and Nutmeg Wash. A blood red candle, cherries, and red stones add a nice visual touch.

Scoop CND Almond Moisture Scrub onto the hand to gently exfoliate the skin. Use long effleurage strokes followed by brisk circular motions.

Warm enough Almond Hydrating Lotion mixed with Scentsations Black Cherry and Nutmeg Lotion between your palms to thoroughly massage the hands and arms up to the elbow.

Finish with a blood-red Shellac color, like two coats of Wildfire French tipped with one coat of Red Baroness.

True Blood Soundtrack

Bad Things — Jace Everett

Bleed 2 Feed — CC Adcock

Lake Charles — Lucinda Williams

Give It Up — Allen Toussaint

Swampblood — JD Wilkes

Play with Fire — Nanker Phelge

Just Like Heaven — Gallup

Christine’s Tune

[Aka DeVil in Disguise]

— Chris Hillman

Two — Ryan Adams

Strange Love — James Moore

From a Whisper to a Scream —

Allen Toussaint

I Don’t Wanna Know — John Martyn

The Golden State — John Nommensen

Bones — Karen Fairchild

 

The Autumn Mani/Pedi

By Mina Kim, Tess Martino, Ricky Doung, Tricia Griffis, and Carla Cepede, Henries School of Hair Design, Fitchburg, Mass.

Service Time: 105 Minutes

Cost: $55

Advertise festive nail art by gluing decorated nail tips to a pumpkin.

Use Star Nail Aqualeaves, which are scented soaps in the shape of fall leaves in the foot soak.

Exfoliate and massage using a scrub and lotion, respectively. Cuccio Naturale’s Tuscan Citrus and Herb is an excellent scent for this theme.

Autumn Playlist

California Dreaming — The Mamas & The Papas

Harvest — Neil Young

November Blue — The Avett Brothers

October — Earth Wind and Fire

Scarborough Fair — Simon & Garfunkel

Forever Autumn — The Moody Blues

Autumn Leaves — Nat King Cole

Shine On Harvest Moon — Leon Redbone

It Was a Very Good Year — Frank Sinatra

Sunset Soon Forgotten — Iron & Wine

The Sounds of Silence — Simon & Garfunkel

November Rain — Guns N’ Roses

 

Tango Toes

By Monica Leiper, Salon Voltaire, San Diego

Service Time: 30 Minutes

Cost $45

Create a display of unique and Latin-themed additions.

Soak feet, adding expresso (you’ll know when its right), softening salts, and a few squirts of foaming wash. Use a salt scrub with red chili flakes, but ONLY on the bottoms of the feet. Work quickly and move on.

Follow with a gentle scrub with oils, anise extract, cumin, and a little red food gel colorant. Then do a foot and calf massage with lotion laced with a little melted chocolate. Finish with bright red polish.

Tango Toes Playlist

Queremos Paz — Gotan Project

Por Una Cabeza — Carlos Gardel

Pa’ Bailar (Siempre Quiero Más) — Bajofondo  Tango Club

Objection (Tango) — Shakira

El Choclo — Angel Villoldo

Tropilla de la Zurda — Carlos Libedinsky

La Cumparsita — Julio Iglesias

Tango Jalousie — Jacob Gade

Here Live No Fish — Tango No. 9

Milonga Sentimental — Carlos Gardel

Triptico — Gotan Project

Santa Marinella — Gogol Bordello

 

Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend Pedi

By Norma Sproles, The Signature Salon, Henderson, N.C.

Service Time: 40 Minutes

Cost: $40

A plate like this begs for a diamond-themed service. Accentuate with a warm foot soak in bowl with iridescent stones and Austrian crystals.

Apply a sugar scrub infused with iridescent sugar glitter to exfoliate feet.

Polish toes in a French, then carefully decorate the smile line with rhinestones.

Diamonds Playlist

Material Girl — Madonna

Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend — Marilyn Monroe

Diamonds — Herb Alpert ft. Janet Jackson

Diamonds Are Forever — Shirley Bassey

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds — The Beatles

Money — Pink Floyd

Girls Just Want To Have Fun — Cyndi Lauper

Money (That’s What I Want) — Barrett Strong

Notorious — Duran Duran

Palladio — Karl Jenkins

(*classical song from DeBeers commercial)

Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes — Paul Simon

She Works Hard for the Money — Donna Summer