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
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