Understanding Your Undertone

Do you find it difficult to find your makeup, nail polish, or hair colors that suit you perfectly? The key to finding the perfect shades lies in understanding your undertones.

Undertones are an often misunderstood factor that can make or break how different colors reflect against you.

In this guide, we will explore how to determine your undertones and make better choices when it comes to what colors are best for you.

1. Understanding Your Undertones: Before you dive into the world of colors, it is crucial to identify your personal undertones. Undertones are classified into three categories: cool, warm, and neutral, and they come through your skin from underneath the surface, and has nothing to do with with how light or dark your skin is.

Vein Test: To start, examine the veins on the inside of your hands or wrists. If they appear blue or purple, you likely have cool undertones. If you see a greenish hue in your veins this indicates that you have warm undertones. If you are unsure or see a little of both you can consider yourself a neutral!

Sun Test: This test is as easy as it gets. Pay attention to how your skin reacts to the sun. If you tan easily and develop an olive-skinned glow after a day at the beach, you probably have warm undertones. On the other hand, if you burn and turn red quickly in the sun, you likely have cool undertones. If both scenarios apply to you, you are a neutral.

Eye Test: Your eye color can also provide clues about your undertones. Stylists often use eye color to gauge undertones. If you have amber or golden flecks in your iris, you most likely have warm undertones, making warm-toned hair colors a great choice for you. If your eyes are blue, green, or gray, you lean more toward cool undertones, and ashier hair colors may suit you better. Hazel-eyed individuals often fall into the neutral category.

2. Choosing the Right Cosmetics and Hair Colors: Now that you have identified your undertones, let's explore how they can guide your choices for cosmetics and hair color. As a general rule it is best to match your undertones to the colors you select for yourself. Each color can have a different undertone so this does not mean you are restricted to a specific color family. Lets use a fall favorite, Red Hair, as an example for how you can use undertones to choose the shade of red that’s right for you.

Cool Undertones: If you have cool undertones, you can still rock a beautiful shade of red by opting for those with a blue base. Merlot red-violets and auburns are excellent choices for cool undertones.

Warm Undertones: Warm undertones are complemented by hair colors with warm bases. Mahogany reds and golden coppers are fantastic options for those with warm undertones.

Neutral Undertones: Having neutral undertones offers flexibility, allowing you to experiment with both cool and warm colors. A blend of both can bring out the best in your complexion. Neutral Undertones work best with a multidimensional look of highlights, lowlights, cool tones, and warm tones. They will compliment each other.

3. Putting it All Together: Now that you have determined your undertones and learned how to select the right colors, you are can make color choices that enhance your natural beauty. When browsing for inspiration online, be sure to include keywords related to your undertones to find the perfect shades that will complement your unique features. Understanding your undertones is the key to finding the perfect shade of every color for you.

Love Your Formal Look This Spring

We’ve all been there, in tears, in our prom dress, and we hate our hair or makeup.  And then again in our bridesmaid dress, or even worse our wedding dress, looking in the mirror and wishing we had said something. What an awful feeling!! Heres some tips and tricks to skipping the tears and getting right to the smiling selfies.

Our number 1 tip, COMMUNICATION. Make sure that you come prepared with photos of your dress, photos of hair and makeup you like, and some kind of direction for the artist to follow.  Make sure you listen to their suggestions on what is possible for your hair, your skin, the weather, all the factors they have taken into account to consult you on for your look for the evening. Having a clear plan at the start helps to make sure your appointment is fun, positive, and the final look makes you feel amazing! Here’s a list of tips for makeup and hair to give you you a successful appointment with your artist.

Tips for Makeup

Who doesn’t want to look their best glam self for any formal event, especially prom!

Here’s some tips to help you get the look you want from your makeup appointment

Prep

Any skin prep you do for your big event should be done with enough time for your skin to recover and be its best self! Here’s a few services you should consider and the timing the should be done to get your best results

• make sure you do any waxing, facials, or skin treatments a week before the event to give skin time to recover

• Spray tans should be done 2-3 days before an event to show best results

• Come to your appointment the day of with a clean face with only moisturizer applied

Inspiration

when selecting Inspiration pictures for your makeup look its important to consider:

• pictures that have the eyes closed will always look a lot different when your eyes are open

• most close up photos of makeup are filtered, so don’t worry about trying to find the perfect tone or color being used, instead focus on finding the right liner shape, false lash look, and overall shape and contour that you like, color can always be customized at your appointment with your artist!

Tips for Hair

Preparing your hair for your appointment can be just as important as the appointment itself! Properly prepped hair can give your style longevity, smoothness, and the shape and texture you want.

Prep

• Come with your hair clean and blown out to smooth any fly aways or unwanted texture. It is a myth that dirty hair is best for updos, you can always get the grit and texture you want by using product, having clean dry hair gives you your best chance for style success.

• Schedule any coloring to be done about a week before your event. Yes, you definitely  want your hair to be as fresh as possible, but leave at least a little time in between for your hair to be its best or to allow for any tweaking.

• wear a zip up or easy on easy off shirt to your appointment so you do not have to figure out how to remove your top without messing up your hair.

Inspiration

Trying to pick your formal hair can make you feel lost like you don’t know where to begin!! Here are some tips to picking out a look that’s best for your hair type and your event.

• Formal looks can feel unnatural because it is outside of the norm of how you style your hair day to day.  A good way to feel the most like yourself is to consider if you usually wear bangs or hair around your face, where you part your hair, if you usually have volume or not. Choosing a style that looks related to your everyday style and incorporates aspects of it will help you to feel most comfortable.

• consider the neckline of your dress, what you might like to cover or not. A great way to do this is to pay attention to how the model wearing your dress online is styled, it might inspire you to do something similar!

• bring anything fun or sparkly with you to finish off your look. Accessories can elevate any look especially a night like Prom.   Our favorite ?? Glueing gems and pearls into your hair, it looks so fun!

• Our best tip?? Look for photos of formal styles in the hair color you have!! Most updos online are presented on light blonde hair because it shows the most detail. When searching online be sure to add your hair color to the search words “Brunette updos” you’ll be surprised how helpful this is for what to expect from your salon appointment.

So remember to communicate with your artist about your look, listen to suggestions, do the necessary skin and hair prep before your appointment, choose something that best suits you, and above all have fun! These moments are special once in a lifetime events, smile and enjoy them!

4 ways to enhance your natural lashes and brows

With new services and buzz words popping up all the time its hard to keep up and know what they mean.

Im gonna break down the most popular ways to enhance your brows and lashes and what results you can expect.

As always, the best way to know what services are good for you is to book a consultation with your favorite LJ girl to ask questions and get a personal plan for what suits you best before booking your appointment.

Brow Lamination

This hour long salon service gives you 6-8 weeks of redirected and smoothed out brows. By changing the direction and texture of your natural brow hair you can fill in and accent that brow shape that you thought could never bounce back from the over-tweezed 90s!

Brow Lamination can be used to open up your eyes, direct new brow growth, or help provide a better road map for your pencil and brow gel making your morning routine easier.

This service ends with a tint and wax to shape and pick up the new shape achieved.

Lash Lift

This service is a favorite! Lash Lifts make your eyes appear more open and you wake up ready to go.a

Lashes are separated and placed onto a curved rod and a solution is applied so that for 6-8 weeks they are separated and curled giving the illusion of length and density that you didn’t have before. Lashes can be enhanced with your favorite mascara for a more dramatic look.

Lash extensions

There is no denying that a fresh set of beautiful lashes always make you feel a little extra glamorous.

Lash extensions just like any other service are customizable they can range from mega volume lashes to flirty natural.

Your lash tech will separate your lashes one at a time and attach an extension lash to create the desired shape and density you want. It is meticulous and detailed work that has beautiful results. Your lash tech will give you some aftercare tips and see you in about 2-3 weeks for a refill.

This service can be a little more time consuming and require some extra attention at home but the results are much more dynamic.

Brow and Lash Serums

These products can be used to promote growth, strength, and length. Using the right serum can give your brows and lashes more length and density to get a better result for your lamination or lift. It can also help strengthen your lashes so extensions have a better base to attach to.

In 6 weeks you can see noticeable results of growth.

When choosing which service or product is best for you, you have to consider your starting point, your desired look, and how often you’d like to maintain your look.

Your LJ Lash and Brow Professional can help you decide and provide you with a simple, straight forward after care program too.

Your best brows and lashes are only an appointment away!

Grey Blending : a new option for haircolor you’ll see everywhere this year. How to know if its right for you!

Hair trends for 2023 are all about embracing YOU. Natural curls, movement, and tones are in and not going anywhere.

At the center of these trends? Grey Blending.

Grey Blending is hair color that combines highlights/lowlights and other techniques such as balayage or baby lights to mimic your natural grey patterns for a seamless grow out.

This can be used to transition from professional hair color to natural grey.  Grey blending can also continue with the use of a demi-perment touchup or root tap to camouflage the intensity of your grey regrowth between salon visits. The point of grey blending hair color is to weave your natural hair color into your desired hair color for the best balance of longer maintenance schedules, healthier hair strands, and a more textured and lived in look.

First lets talk about your options so you know what method for dealing with your grey hair is right for you

1 You can cover it. If you want 100% opaque grey coverage then you definitely still want a color touch up every 4-6 weeks to keep those grays away.  You are also in this category if you want your hair color to be lighter or brighter than your natural hair color. With an easy pre-booked maintenance schedule and the use of new 10 minute hair color lines, this can be a quick solution to keep your hair looking fresh, shiny, and just the way you like it!

2 You can blend it. If you are looking for your natural level hair color or darker, and are ok with seeing some parts of your grey hair, blending could be for you. This option does give you the freedom of longer maintenance schedules (closer to 8-10 weeks) and a blurred line of regrowth, but it is a step towards embracing your grey hair and you have to be ready to do that.

3 You can rock it.  Grey hair comes in all different shades and patterns and we are seeing more and more people rockin their grey hair! Some unexpected maintenance with your new grey hair might be conditioning treatments for moisture and tinted treatments to keep it sparkly and silver but that can be maintained on an as needed basis for tone correction and softness.

Just starting to see those grays? Been battling them for years? There are options!! Choose which maintenance schedule, desired hair color, and vibe match your lifestyle. If you don’t know what method for dealing with your greys is best for you, ask your stylist! They will know what products, techniques, and tones will work best for your hair based on your percentage grey, hair texture, and personality!

All we know for sure is : the more trends are embracing the individual and their natural beauty we are here for it! Our job is to enhance what you love about yourself and make you feel your best. So whether you are rockin your grey, weaving it in next to highlights and lowlights to blend, or coloring it to match the most perfect shade from your heyday - there’s a method for you.

3 at home habits that could be keeping you from your best hair

Having your dream hair may feel like that, just a dream. These 3 habits could be stopping you from your dream hair and you don’t even know it. Read on to see if these small changes could help.

1. You aren’t using the concentrator for your blow dryer

When you took your blow dryer out of its box there was a round plastic piece you probably didn’t know what to do with and potentially threw away, with any luck its still under your sink!

Blow dryers can get really hot and the coils you see exposed at the top is where all the heat comes from, this is where your concentrator goes!

A concentrator not only directs the air flow from your blow dryer exactly where you want it, it also creates some space from the high heated coils to protect your hair.

Heat damage can alter your hair color, create weak spots and breakage, and quite literally fry your hair while styling.

If you are noticing short pieces around your face, at the crown of your head, or your ends seem hard to tame and dryer than usual - check your concentrator first!

If your concentrator is long gone don’t worry, you can order this piece easily online and most blowdryers are a universal size.

2. You aren’t really cleansing your scalp

Believe it or not, the health of your hair starts before it even sees the light of day. The skin that covers your head has to be treated just like the skin on your body. All hair must grow out of the scalp and if these follicles are blocked, weak, or overrun with oil, dirt and product build up they cannot grow beautiful, healthy hair. They can even become so blocked the hair that grows out of them can be thinner, weaker, or possibly so blocked they stop growing all together.

Best practices for scalp health

Pay attention to the symptoms.

If your hair is dry or brittle you need a shampoo that has moisture.

If your scalp is itchy and red you need something calming and soothing.

If you go days in between washes and use dry shampoo you need a clarifying shampoo.

Great tip for hair washing that most people don’t know is you might need to wash more than once. If you don’t wash daily, you should shampoo once (or twice!) to loosen up product or oil in order to clearly reach your scalp to cleanse it. You are looking for a good lather, if you don’t get it the first time keep going!

So if your scalp is feeling greasy, dry, or irritated its time to find the right cleansing system for your hair so that it can be its best, healthy, and beautiful self!

3. You aren’t protecting your investment

Imagine you walk into the salon and you totally vibe with your stylist, she gives you the beautiful color from your Inspiration picture, a haircut that lays just right, with a killer blowout that has tons of volume and you turn around and you are GLOWING.

You wear your killer blowout for a few days tossing around your new hair and when its time to wash it, it’s just not the same.

A few weeks go by and your beautiful color has changed, your haircut is no longer laying just right, and your blowout has no volume.

What happened??

You didn’t protect your investment!!

You spend time and money (and effort!) getting the hair you want, we want to help you keep it!

Investing in the right at home haircare, using the right tools, and planning out a maintenance schedule by rebooking your appointment ensures that you like your hair all the days in between until your next appointment with us at the salon.

So throw out or donate all those products you bought on a whim and have never really worked for you and start a new collection based on learning what’s right for you.

Share with your stylist the challenges you have at home.  They will ask you questions about the tools you use, the products you have, and what you wish was different about your in-between appointment hair. What you do out of the salon is just as important as what we do in the salon.

Our time is coming, but not yet...

These are certainly unprecedented times. Who thought the world could stop like this? At our
March 14th staff meeting where we voted to go on a 2 weeks leave before we were mandated to do so we thought we were perhaps overreacting, but decided to take a stand and slow the spread of the virus. It was in line with our core values and it felt like the right thing to do.  

If you told me then we’d be looking at 4 wks, 6wks, or more like 10 wks of this I would
have told you, you’re crazy.  How could everything just stop for that long. How could I not go to target, the park, see my friends, GO TO WORK for that long? But alas, here we are.

There’s a lot of discontent happening now, questions about our future, and frustration of staying home – is it even working? We can’t live our lives in fear. We have the right to work.

Believe me, I understand the sentiment.

I watched countless webinars, read anything I could get my hands on (yes including those petitions to consider hair stylists essential workers so we could get back to work). I made lists and outlines and imagined what our process could be to re-open.

Then last night I laid down with my 2 girls at bedtime and it dawned on me – how could I feel comfortable with this after being at work all day. No matter how many sanitation and safety protocols I put into place, are they enough to make me confident I’m not bringing this virus back to my home, my children. I have parents over 60, a pregnant sister, I don’t even know for sure how my body would react to this virus. Could I make that decision for OTHER people.

I hear the arguments of not living afraid, that we are a business who’s entire state board is based on sanitation and safety, that safe practices exist and we have a right to make a living. I HEAR you.

I however do not AGREE with you.

I don’t have a clear idea of what we’re waiting for or what numbers we need to see. Do we need access to testing? Do we need a vaccine? I honestly don’t know what re-entry looks like, I just know its not yet.

There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, we are lessening the strain on our hospitals, the spread is slowing, we are even discussing and imagining re-entry plans. But sorry folks, we’re not there yet.

Our original decision was made with our friends, family, and team members BEST interests at heart.  While some refuse to live in fear of the virus-  I refuse to live in fear of not returning to normal. If we allow pressure and panic to guide our decisions to how quickly we return to our lives, it will be a short lived victory.

The world has stopped, it looks different now, re-entry will look different too. If we don’t take the time and care needed to create our new future we simply will not have one. What an opportunity to reinvent, evolve, and become BETTER.

We will be there because we have built it. We will be there because we are doing the RIGHT thing for us. We will be there with a safe, calm, comfortable LJ way of getting us all back to our lives, and our clients who we miss SO much.  

We are imagining our future, and it looks BRIGHT, and we will get there soon, just not yet...

Being a Hair Salon in quarantine

This has been a crazy week and information changes daily, sometimes hourly, but I want to acknowledge my industry right now. No judgement on what you, or your salon has decided over the past week but I am now reading by 8 pm tonight Gov Murphy has ordered the closure of all personal care businesses that cannot comply with social distancing including barbershops, hair salons, spas, nail salons, tattoo parlors, and social clubs.

All I have to say is THANK GOODNESS.

As a salon owner I am not only responsible for the financial and physical health of my business but of the 12 individual lives who work inside it. On Saturday we took a vote after work, it had to be our choice together. With growing concern over the rapid spread of the virus and the nature of our business we felt our duty to close and take the personal and financial sacrifice to do the right thing by social distancing. Everyone has to choose what is right for them, this is what was right for us. We shared our concerns, we cried, we came up with some ideas to stay connected and we walked out of LJ not knowing when we’d return.

Its impossible to effectively stop the spread of COVID-19 by just “continuing our high standard of sanitation” as I see posted everywhere. We breathe the same air as our clients, we touch them and others all day.

Some facts :

Sneeze particles travel up to 20 ft

People with flu symptoms can spread to people up to 6 ft away

You can be carrying the virus for up to 14 days before symptoms appear

Cold viruses can survive on hard surfaces for up to 7 days

Flu viruses can survive on hard surfaces for 24 hours

How is it even possible to sanitize everyone and everything in between each new client or person who walks into the salon. The answer is : its not. We could already be exposed and spreading it and wouldn’t even know, and none of the sanitizing would matter.

I’m watching other salons make the brave decision to close and embrace the unknown for the greater good. Individual stylists going against their salon’s decision to stay open, taking the hit and staying home knowing their clients are going into other’s books. We can’t work remotely we are in a unique industry of service, touch, and artistry.

I applaud you all, its not easy.👏🏻👏🏻

I have received so much support and information from our distributor Art of Business, our Eufora contacts, the small business association and CBAC who we are clients of. Quick responses, helpful ideas, and open communication, it has been amazing to watch the people we do business with jump into action to help each us.

This also includes you – our LJ FAM. Leaving reviews, buying gift cards, participating in our giveaways THANK YOU. We will see you all soon.

Do the right thing and stay home, send help and support to those who need you, and stay positive – there are some really beautiful ways people are helping and connecting to each other in this crazy time.

COVID-19 UPDATE

Hey LJ fam,

First of all we want to THANK YOU for the messages of love and support as we make this difficult decision.

We are positive and resourceful and will get through this! Everyday we are thinking of new ways to connect to you and deliver a version of the LJ treatment at home.

This has been a trying and confusing week for all.

Here are some things we DO know.

• Social distancing is the best way to prevent the spread of COVID-19

• We have chosen on Saturday to close our doors for at least 2 weeks and will reassess what to do past March 31st with the new information available.

• While this is devastating to us as a small business and the 12 lives of the LJ girls inside we unanimously voted on this decision - with all decisions we make them together, with our hearts, and our core values in mind.

• We will reschedule all appointments in the order they were canceled, and adjust our day/work times to accommodate everyone once this storm has passed.

That’s the bad news.... here’s the good news !!

Here’s some things we can do while in quarantine!

• We will be posting tutorials and live videos to stay in touch over quarantine - interact with us!

• We will be emailing and texting out promos and info as we get them make sure you are signed up for updates!

• Buy gift cards to use for future appointments and look out for promos and contests we will be dropping while we are closed. Purchase on our website!

• Write a review sharing the LJ love on Facebook, google, etc

• Tell your friends and family to follow us! Introduce us to someone new!

• Have a digital consultation - message us some pictures of your current hair and inspiration pictures of the hair you want and we can consult on what you need and plan for the future!

• We are developing a new app this week while we are closed so look for that announcement later this week!

We are all in this together! We are here listening to your concerns and as always trying to find solutions big or small.