At the time of writing, I am sitting in the car on the way home from our friend Jonny, with whom I slept yesterday. I borrowed his bathtub! IF I feel like a new person today !? :) I kind of AM a new person! Type 2 kilos lighter, 1kg mentally and 1kg dead skin cells that I scrubbed away haha.

I packed with me a whole ICA box of beauty products and have scrubbed all over me, done all sorts of peels and wraps and even manicures ♥ At the same time I had the computer next to the bathtub and watched romantic movies. MYS!

Best end to a pretty intense week and best start for the next!

Effect makeup on the artist Kiddo!
I felt good on Tuesday, not good because I worked hard (I did that in itself too) but do you know when I think I / others are the most good? When you go outside your comfort zone and do it well! It's such a nice feeling afterwards!

As you know, I can do effect make-up in terms of knowledge, but I do it 1. very rarely and 2. only on myself. In addition, I basically never do freelance work anymore (except for Disruptive Materials) but sometimes I get the feeling to say yes, then I set a high price and if they approve it, it's worth the circumstances haha. It is so fun to pack all a thousand products and shades and with travel time etc. it is rarely worth the effort.

Now you can probably guess what I did last Tuesday;) a freelance job and effect makeup at the same time!

The artist Kiddo (check out Spotify, awesome songs!) Releases a new song in October and her album cover is an animated picture of her where parts of her face are skeletons. Now they would do promotional photography and films for the song release and she would then be made up as on the album cover.

So since I had a clear picture of exactly how they wanted it and the skeleton is not a super high degree of difficulty either, I said yes and went to Sony Music in Stockholm!

I would never say yes to a job that I can not do well, it would not only have been shameful but also incredibly disrespectful, but since there were skeletal parts down my neck and hands as well, I should not stick under the chair that I was outside my comfort zone.

But I tested myself at home first and got approval from Miska and Annika that it looked good haha so I did not have to be nervous on the way there anyway :)

Here you see a sneak peek! As I said, I did exactly as in the picture on the album cover so the idea or design is not something I had my hands free with.

But I really want to strike a blow to go outside your comfort zone every now and then, you get a high return afterwards when you have succeeded and if you always only do things that feel "safe", it is difficult to develop - and you want to ju :)

Freelance at Disruptive Materials
This week it was a freelance job two days in a row! The other freelance day, however, was 100% in my comfort zone because I did makeup at Disruptive Materials where I am quite often and help with makeup for photography.

They do portrait photography of all new employees to the about-us page on their website and Disruptive Materials is growing so fast, before I "felt" everyone there but now there are always lots of new faces when I get there! Great fun!

So it is the company that works with the material Upsalite that is now starting to become an ingredient in the cosmetics industry :) Also had a small mini-meeting before a larger meeting before more contemporary collaborations around Upsalite, exciting!

Here I am doing make-up on a conveyor belt and talking to all the good people who work there! Always just as nice!

Lots of customers!
I have not only had my own customers this week but also babysit Mileya (who is now 8 months old) while Annika had customers. You might think it's not a job to look after a baby, but for me it's a bit like that - because if I look after Mileya, Annika can take customers and because her treatments draw in type 500% more money than mine (note not counted, but you take haha) so it's more worthwhile for the company that I take care of Mileya.

This week I have been to the salon more than usual because Annika has had three working days and then I multitask with work and childcare in the meantime. But even though you are tired after having customers for several hours in a row, it is nothing if you compare with how tired you are after taking care of a baby! Mileya has started to stand up to things now so you really have to keep track and she is 98% of the time.

Last Monday I took care of Mileya alone for an hour, Annika tattooed in the room next door and I had the worst poop-everywhere disaster and was so stressed when I cleaned everything from the floor, sink, pot, Mileya herself and changed her clothes at the same time she screamed hysterically and I just thought "Annika and the customer must not come out now, they must not come out now !!”. I had just had time to clean up all the evidence (almost) when they came out to a happy baby, a sweaty Helena and a smelly room that I tried to ventilate. What a press!

Last Friday, it was me who had many customer bookings instead. Two make-up consultations in a row (3 hours of make-up talk in a row) and immediately after that several fringe and brow customers for a few more hours. But I was still a thousand times more alert after that whole day than after an hour of poop chaos haha!

And on Wednesday I received this message on Instagram:

Gets so warm in the heart !!! :)

Kickoff planning is complete!
Thursday was the only day when I did not have to go into town but could work undisturbed at home, which was extremely much needed!

I have written before that I, Miska and Annika had meetings about goal picture etc. before our kickoff but nothing has been written clean and the numbers have not been 100% counted on. And since the kickoff is next week, I needed to finish the presentation and all the other preparations, which requires that you can sit down in peace and quiet without being interrupted, which I then finally had time to do on Thursday. Nice!

When it was finally done, I had the rest of the to-do list to deal with things I had not had time to do when I flung around the rest of the week, but everything went quickly and smoothly so I was really light in body and mind in the evening sen :) Wonderful!

You feel a little dizzy after a day like this! Sat and compared numbers with previous years, renewed report templates and had me.

But still more alert than when I took care of Mileya this Monday;) haha!

In the middle of all this, we also took care of our sick hen Guldlock, she had a wound on her foot which even though we tried to take care of it with disinfection, bandages, etc., it still became infected :( Nothing was visible without us noticed that she got tired, but the vet said that she had a chance and cleaned her foot properly and got ointments and stuff, so we did not have to kill but even though we fed persistently with vitamin water and etc., she fell asleep this morning ♥

I have such a bad conscience that we did not kill her immediately. The same thing was with my cat Carl-Philip before, you kept the hope to the last and did everything you could but with the result in hand you wish you had killed immediately instead so that they did not suffer for several days .. I feel me just shitty now! :(

Miska, Mileya and Guldlock before the situation became critical ♥

Now I'm going out into the woods and picking mushrooms! It's good to be in nature when you feel a little fragile, should walk away my bad conscience for Guldlock.

A 3-hour bath and a forest walk is probably the best way for me to end this week :) Then there will be a fire in the stove and homemade puree, vegetarian meatballs and hopefully chanterelle sauce for dinner if I'm lucky in the forest!

Have a great Sunday everyone! :)

Hug!!

Long since I wrote a Sunday post now due to vacation and a lot of work to catch up, FUN to be back on track again! :)

At the time of writing, I am sitting with a cup of coffee and slippers as it is unusually cold today and the rain is pounding on the windows, cozy! I have some work stuff to fix even though it's Sunday but still wanted to take the time to write here again in between.

The holiday of the holidays

I have posted a lot of pictures on my Instagram Story during our road trip with a rental car in Spain and I guess you who have been interested have peeked there? :) So I did not intend to blog about the trip itself - but if you thought it looked great in my pictures, I can tell you that it was even better (!) In reality!

You can also make a disaster holiday look perfect on social media, but we had it so good that it was not even possible to show. The seats, the atmosphere, all the laughter !! ♥

Oh what I want to live in that country, up in the mountains with a view down over the olive fields… I shudder!

What was nice this year was that it did not feel hard to come home! Last year I had a lump of tears in my throat when we waited at the luggage straps at Arlanda, oh what I had wanted to hug that Helena!

But now I came home rested and with a great dose of inspiration and motivation to put my teeth into all the work again! :) In addition, we were welcomed by wonderful baby-Mileya who missed us, just such a thing ♥

Imagine being able to drink your morning coffee to a great view every day, talk about goals!

Upsalite is now available in the makeup market

I kicked off after the holiday by going to an event with Palina in Stockholm!

It is 2 years ago that I started doing consulting work for the material Upsalite and the company Disruptive Materials. Our collaboration continues, but I have been 0% involved in the project with Palina, so it was very exciting when I was at the press event last week for the first make-up product on the market with Upsalite in it - Palina Prowder! :)

I have tested the powder properly and in short my review is that it evens out the pores very nicely and is a very good powder, however I am used to working a little more hardcore "for oily skin" with Upsalite and Palina's powder is also moisturizing to suit all skin types . So for the oiliness, it is not quite as effective as an Upsalite powder can be but it is still a super good powder that I think many will like!

Maria Strömme (left) is a professor of nanotechnology and one of the researchers who developed the material Upsalite. Upsalite was made mainly for the pharmaceutical industry but an unimaginable property was extreme absorbency of moisture, oil and even odor! The particle has lots of small pores and therefore becomes almost like a sponge.

Åsa Frank (center) is Product Development Manager at Disruptive Materials and thus works with the product development of cosmetic products with the ingredient Upsalite.

Lina Ivarsson (right) is a makeup artist and the founder of the makeup brand Palina, which is now the first brand to launch Upsalite makeup!

It is always just as interesting to listen to Maria! She talked about summer a few years ago, I recommend you listen to it - link.

My contact with Maria shows why it is important as an entrepreneur to talk to people you have no idea who they are, not only at events but with ordinary private individuals as well - it can lead to unexpected collaborations! That's how Maria and I got our eyes on each other and that's how my collaboration with Disruptive Materials and Upsalite began!

In the presentation with Disruptive Materials, they showed one of my test pictures I did with Upsalite! The result is not made with Palina's powder but a mineral mixture with 90% Upsalite if I remember correctly. I have matte make-up for normal skin on one side and Upsalite make-up on the other side, then the picture is taken after 9 hours.

Disruptive Materials does a lot of testing on the material and showed some results. They have their own equipment for their own lab tests but I was also there once when we were in the middle of in vivo tests on the staff, so tests on live skin on people :) Everyone walked around with tape on their face and went and tested themselves in labbet regularly haha.

It was an extra fun event to go to because I knew many of the guests and those who held the event :) And that I was a little involved in the presentation and have an insight into the company before! Great fun!

Autumn feelings and kickstart

I heard in a podcast a while ago "I say like the cliché - autumn is more New Year's than New Year's Eve for meAnd was completely shocked, cliché? I really thought I came up with that expression myself hahaha. Of course I do not have that then proven :)

I want to live in a warmer country but I do not like the summer in Sweden very much precisely because it is such a short period that you live in some kind of "exceptional case". People have holidays, the shares fall to the bottom, everything goes at half speed .. Surely it's a little nice when it's over? Or is it just because I'm an entrepreneur that I feel that way?

We have late vacations at the salon so we actually have a week left before everyone is back from vacation, then everything is finally as usual! GREAT!

The first thought when I sat down was "where do I even start?" because I had so many different loose threads to grab. Pjuh! But I've got a lot done since we got home and really enjoy it.

First I worked from home so I just had to make a big cup of tea! Making the surroundings cozy when you work can certainly for many make you become too relaxed and go at half speed, but for me it is quite the opposite - then I get great focus and can work several hours in a row and lose the perception of time completely!

My plan with the future Spain plans is that I will build a career where I can always work remotely. Many would probably think "but how can you have the self-discipline to work at home when you live alone in the mountains?" but I think the opposite. That calm and the harmonious atmosphere will increase my performance enormously! I really believe that I would be so efficient that if I would reduce the working days by 2 hours and still get the same amount of work done haha.

I have also had some time in the makeup studio, which I never get tired of! Here I sit a late night and go through the pictures :)

Bryn education

Last December, Stina started having a long-term internship with us, she is training to be a makeup artist and we quickly realized that she was a keeper :) We have had as many interns as possible at the salon and some have extremely much to work on but sometimes there are gold nuggets that are natural talents and have the artistic eye in their blood - we noticed that with Stina!

So we started teaching her on treatments and now this summer she was fully trained for lash lift and has started working extra with us. We do not need another permanent makeup artist, but on the other hand, it is worth its weight in gold with someone who can work on Saturdays and skip certain times.

She has also done eyebrow picking and coloring on many trainees and models and feels ready to receive such clients now, so did my colleagues but myself who is not as much at the salon anymore felt that I wanted a training day with Stina first, partly as a teacher and partly to see her work in real life. I trust the staff's judgment but you know how it is with the control;)

So we arranged a bunch of brow models! First I did the whole treatments myself while she listened and watched, then she had to do it herself as well.

It was as I thought, no problems at all and now she is bookable even for brow pick and color!

Plan kickoff and determine goal image

This week Annika arranged a babysitter and we had a planning day!

It was partly a financial meeting because now after the holidays we have to plan expenses and income on the smallest krona. No salary for me and Miska this month if we say so: P

But partly we also planned our kickoff in 2 weeks! The fun thing about having your own company is that no matter how depressing periods you have with finances or other problems that arise (which you always have from time to time, nothing new) you have the opportunity to influence! What can we do? What are our options? What ska we do?

I do not think that problems are very difficult as long as I feel that I can roll up my sleeves and do something about it :)

Here we sit and make a current picture, then we write in all the problems and opportunities we have right now. Then we rank the most important points, which gives a summary of what we should do first. Otherwise it will be easy to want to do everything at once and then it will be pancake - you have to prioritize so that you do the right things first :)

My customers are the best!

Working with people is really so rewarding ♥ Last Thursday I came to work with a slew of financial stress, packed to-do list and for various reasons a little emotional imbalance. Nothing serious like that but you know how you can feel sometimes just!

And then I had booked regular customers in the afternoon and did treatments on the conveyor belt until 19.00 and was refueled with positive energy and forgot everything else!

A customer told me "it's always fun before you come here, fun while you're here and fun when you get home!”Hahaha, so go! :)

When I finished my job shift, I had received this email:

You melt! ♥ I am so grateful for all the nice people who want to book me regularly and often it feels more like friends than customers! Love it!

Now I will continue to work :) Hugs to you!