My business week v. 22

This week's "business post" is already coming on Saturday instead of Sunday as usual. I have not had time to do so much blog material this week and will take it easy this weekend, so I thought I could publish it now right when I'm done :)

This week has been both up and down I must say.

I can very rarely take power naps because I do not fall asleep so easily, but the first thing I did when I got home last Friday was to lie down on the couch and then I woke up 2 hours later. It sums up my week pretty well haha.

You have to take a few setbacks sometimes
Now comes some boring points but then the rest of the post will be fun again! :) I rarely write negatively in these job posts for problems that arise are often very concrete and things you "just have to solve" and then it is not so hard, but I also want to be honest in these posts even when not everything feels like a dance on roses. This week has lasted unusually tough for me actually on several levels:

Fever - The first reason is that I had a fever all week and mixed both Ipren and Alvedon (mixed with coffee and Celsius haha) to be able to do things. I woke up around 4 in the morning and took the headache tablets so that they have time to work before I step up. The fever has also made me extra sensitive and I have had a lot of feelings of hopelessness all week. I have doubted myself and my big dreams and it is not at all common for me. "Everything is useless and the reason it feels that way is because for once I am realistic" something like that has sounded in my head when the thoughts flew away. Not at all like me! I, who am usually pretty sure that everything I decide on will be a success! But not now.

Unexpected stress - I have really struggled before our summer event that we had last Thursday and had such good planning that I started with several months before to catch up with everything without stress. I have been unusually good at asking for help and delegating tasks on time as well. But we have been so fully booked (which of course is great!) And it is difficult to delegate tasks to people who do not have time either. So suddenly I had unexpectedly a lot to do and more customers than planned, so every day when I got home I felt that I was miles behind in the planning and on Wednesday I could not even sleep all night.

Planning the number of guests - I will write more about our wonderful summer event further down, wow what a job we have done and all the guests were so happy! But I was actually a little low afterwards because only half of everyone who had sniffed came. Above all, I felt that it was my fault, not because I had done anything wrong but because I had been the most driving and for the event and that all responsibility was on me. So whatever went wrong had been my fault - in my opinion. You always expect a dropout but not as much as 50% right? We had a limited number of seats and could have pushed so much more for the event, but when we got the maximum number that fits and a little more, we could not push it out more, I thought. You must also be able to handle it IF almost everyone comes.

The event was really successful anyway but I would have liked so many more to have enjoyed it now that we put in so much work and everything else was so good :)

The most important thing when you are stressed do you know what it is? Support! That's my friend Frida told me this week :) Here my cat Viktoria supports me when I was so exhausted after the work day haha.

But you learn the most when things do not go as they should! Now I have got this out of me and the rest of the post will highlight all the positive things that have been this week !! :)

Sometimes you're lucky!
Last week I told you that my computer is being repaired. It has had problems with the screen and just submitting it for troubleshooting costs SEK 600. It is probably the graphics card that is disturbing, said the staff. When I asked what it will cost to fix, I got the answer "yes it costs a penny!".

Now I finally got to pick up my baby again and
1. they did not find the error and then you apparently do not have to pay that troubleshooting fee.
2. but it was apparently something else wrong with some reflex protection (?) On the screen (I did not even know about this, I thought the screen was dirty and have tried to wash it off) and if the computer is less than 4 years old then you get a new screen completely free. So not only the glass but I got the whole screen replaced.
3. After I took it out, the screen has worked flawlessly, so the problem solved itself only they changed the screen.

So fixing my computer did not cost me a single penny, and I had not even bought it at the place I handed it in. They were so nice and good too! This week's rose goes to Digital Inn in Uppsala :) So now they get free marketing as payment instead;)

I sat out in the sun this morning and did a little work before breakfast, it had absolutely not worked with my old screen! Then I would not have seen a smack!

Spanish and happy music at the salon!
Do not forget to really enjoy the nice sun we have been pampered with now :) Everything that does not have to be done indoors I take care to do out in the sun.

Last Sunday I made a new playlist for the salon out in the sun, partly for the event, but we also planned to have it rolling all summer. I listen a lot to Spanish music, no special artist but random songs that make me happy! "Breathe in my cabeza" is my favorite, I heard it in Mexico and then found it using a music app. Tip! :)

Surely you can search on other people's playlists on Spotify? "Spanish & happy á la Helena" is my best Spanish playlist in such cases if you want 1.5 hours of Spanish music for morning coffee!

Anyway, that was not what I was going to talk about - but the funny thing is that the music is really appreciated by both customers and colleagues at work, so fun! Music and atmosphere do so much more than you think :)

Event preparations
This has been the most well-crafted event we have held! We really went all in with artificial grass, palm trees and hanging plants, balloons with our logo and the text "beauty is wellness" on, photo wall with balloons and flowers, partners who came there, sponsors of goodie bags and prizes (among other things we competed in a luxury cruise with Birca Cruises!) And basically the entire makeup studio, we emptied all the furniture to make room for all the guests.

Our nice balloons! I have literally sores on my fingers after all the balloon-tying haha! We inflated a lot of regular ones but also bought helium which we filled many with and had here and there throughout the room :)

We are not angry in the picture just sickly concentrated when we count bags haha! Frida was so cute and helped me with all the goodiebags, they were really generous and well stocked! It was a bit mixed content but everyone had a mascara from Wet n Wild, tweezers and eyebrow knife and then a bit mixed with nice lipsticks, eye shadows, blush, body lotion, face mask and we also put in a piece of chocolate in each :)

This is where Miska and I work and fix after closing. We now have artificial grass in the entire waiting room, in this staircase where we then held the presentations, at the photo wall and in our entrance! It really became the icing on the cake for the whole summer feeling!

our waiting room! Fint va? :) We had Art Clinic and a girl who exhibited swimwear and bridal-inspired lingerie in honor of the day as well as you see on the pages. But after the event, the waiting room is just a cozy summer oasis.

I made several summery product signs that are scattered here and there in the store, a lot of flowers, stones and shells :) Do you know what happened then? In the middle of it all, when I was putting in the products, a spider crawled up among the rocks! How sick ?! I he so phobia so… The bag with the stones was completely unopened so I do not understand how it ended up there, do you understand the shock ??

Got this picture on snapchat by Miska who tested our photo props haha :)

We focused on making the room as photo-friendly as possible so that people would like to post nice pictures from the event :) Among other things, we made a great photo wall, and since all guests are private individuals (I am otherwise used to influencers at events such as are used to taking pictures of themselves) so I thought that everyone might not be very comfortable with taking regular "nice pictures" so we made some fun photo props that you could use to spice things up a bit instead :)

In the picture above you see Miska with lips and eyebrows as Olga has done! So much fun! :) We had also presented large flowers and palm leaves that you can joke about.

The photo wall that I made all by myself! Will never inflate so many balloons again haha!

And our entrance had Annika decorated so nicely ♥

We also had small hashtag signs around the photo wall so that everyone who published photos could have the same hashtag :) In the background you can see the stairs where we held the presentation later!

Another product creation that I made for the store :)

Time for a summer event!
When the last customer had left, we had 30 minutes to fix the last thing together and it was in the second that we were finished before the first guests started to drop in!

Best Miska was responsible for drinks and snacks ♥

We served chips, sweets, popcorn and salty sticks!

Simple and very appreciated :)

Luckily we have ICA right next to the salon, Miska could run and buy ice cream just before the event started because we have no freezer at work :)

Here we are ready to receive all guests! Everyone who came got a wreath around their necks :)

Sarita with swimwear and underwear :)

Keep Training who have personal training in Uppsala (both Annika and Miska train there) were on site and also mingled :) We usually get to be part of their event too!

Here, guests have started dripping in and mingling around the store before we started the presentation.

I held a make-up demo on the presentation stairs :)

As a makeup artist, what do you think I think is the most important thing in makeup? It is absolute not rules like "do not mix red and pink" and such stupid things that I do not follow at all myself. No, the most important thing is that it should be fun! And I talked about that in my presentation. The most common answer I get when I ask people if they think it's fun with makeup, it is “yes I really think it's great fun, but I'm so bad at it that I almost never do more than foundation, eyebrows and mascara ”.

It's so boring I think! 1. Make-up should be fun, many become insecure and afraid to make mistakes but there are no right or wrong! 2. Makeup need nor be so heavenly difficult! I referred to my and my make-up model's make-up (I had started to make-up her before the event) where I only had yellow in the corner of my eye and coral-colored lipstick, and she only had a gold shadow on her eyelid and turquoise in the corner of her eye. Easy and fast!

Then I also showed a quick summer bass with glo Tinted Primer Spf 30 on only half the face so that everyone could see the difference, and it became very poppis! :)

And best Annika gave a presentation that beauty is wellness. We have really learned in this industry that it is so incredibly little about vanity, but more about taking care of oneself and thriving in one's own skin. It becomes extra clear when you help people who are going through difficult moments in life, e.g. chemotherapy, she said "I can not cure cancer, but I can at least make it a little nicer to see myself in the mirror".

Or as the simple reference to face painting children - that smile when they see themselves in the mirror is completely priceless! When they get to see all the glitter and color and take a shot of joy from there later :)

We ended the evening by presenting the winners at our great prizes! There were 9 wins in total, everything from product kits, make-up brushes, gift cards worth SEK 1,000 at Art Clinic, panties and lingerie accessories and last but not least a luxury cruise with Birca Cruises! Woop, woop! :) In the picture above you see when I handed out one of the prizes to a lucky winner.

Everything went so well and above all I loved that there were so many who had a lot of makeup questions! I can talk makeup with people for exactly any length of time, I never get tired!

So happy with the evening and want to send out a big thank you to everyone who came ♥

Friday & new month
When Friday came, the day after the event, it was suddenly a new month - salaries must be received, reports must be printed, invoices must be sent, campaign images must be replaced! In addition, I had postponed things that were not prio before the event and suddenly what my to do list a mile long again. So it was just to roll up my sleeves again :)

And I also had a fun make-up consultation, you can see before and after pictures of her next week!

June will be a successful month!
It is with great anticipation that I look forward to June! Two of our makeup artists go up during working hours - it's high pressure and the bookings roll in! :)

The company's financial year ends last June, so now we are running the final sprint for a good result! Then we can finally tick off all points on our target image, compile all metrics and then set new goals.

And then Annika and I are going to Milan for a permanent makeup fair as well, just one such thing!

So now I leave this stressful fever week behind me and welcome a new month with open arms! ♥ Next week a lot of stuff happens too so now I'll just be raw about myself the rest of the weekend :)

Hugs are!