The last Sunday in July is today! Isn't it completely crazy as time goes on?

Free Helena loves summer and enjoys every bright moment! Entrepreneur-Helena, however, is starting to look forward to autumn, which always feels like New Year to me, then you avoid all I-am-on-holiday-auto-replies to emails and all routines are back to normal.

At the time of writing, I have just worked a 6-day week at the salon and now the rain is pouring down while I drink my morning coffee in the kitchen. I just took a shower and looked at the flashes outside the bathroom window, so cozy! :)

Presentation to producers
I have promised that I will keep you updated throughout our "make-your-own-makeup brand journey" :) This week I have started to put together a presentation that we can email to producers and then also to investors! I will start doing it in Swedish and we will do another in English later.

We have a concept that does not go under the "standard template" and what is possible to do in manufacturing, we have no idea. So it becomes a vicious circle: we must have the whole plan as ready as possible for the producer to want to cooperate with us - while we can not finish the whole plan until we have talked to the producer about what is possible haha.

But I do research as a little detective and try to think as smart as possible!

I am also doing a "swot analysis" where you list all our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It is not finished yet but it is mostly points below strengths actually, and that is good;)

Then there are a lot of details that can put sticks in the wheel as well as I list under weaknesses and threats - as long as you are aware of them, they are not necessarily deal breakers but they are even more important to think about!

A sneak peek at what our brand should be called, you see here;) Although it is mostly a "working name" or whatever you say, we have bought the domain name in case that but it is not carved in stone that it will be just that name.

So much fun to finally get started with this for real!

The heat wave continues
As I wrote in the last business week post, we have sauna heating in the salon, then I jump into a hot car without AC and then it is super hot at home in the house as well. Pjuh, you get really tired of not getting a break from the heat!

So one day when I had a lot of work to catch up on when I got home, I half filled the bathtub with cool water, put the computer on a chair next to the bathtub edge and worked in the cool bath haha.

I got so sore in the ass in the end and had to sit on a towel in the water haha.

We also fixed blinds in the kitchen as heat protection when the sun shines in (best!) And on the floor it blew nicely when you opened the window, so it was my second working place in the house.

Not quite comfortable there either, after a while I had to stock up with some pillows. Poor little asshole :)

Glitter, glitter, glitter!
You who read my blog regularly may not have missed our news Mood Wood Natural Glitter as I have been bombarding you with lately!

This week I have published it in the webshop, photographed all the shades, photographed the tutorial, made beauty guides on the website, posted on social media and photographed and filmed for insta story.

You know how it feels after doing glitter? You have glitter just about everywhere! I was injured at work in the end so even the days I just fixed with the pictures and did not even touch the glitter, I had the feeling of "glitter fingers" haha.

Why do I feel good?
This week, one person said to me, “You can't really know anything about what stress is if you do not have children ”. I did not say anything about it then but I have thought a bit about that .. My first thought was of course "try starting a company with employees you too so you should look at stress" haha.

I'm fully aware that I do not know what it's like to have children so I say nothing about it :) That was not what I was going to talk about. But what happened was that it made me start thinking why I feel good. Is it because I do not have children or do not live a stressful life? No, the reason I feel good is not because I was lucky or because my life has slipped on a prawn sandwich. I feel good because I do jobs to feel good!

I nurture my relationships that mean something and put no energy on those who do not deserve it, negativity and drama create such inner stress for me! I can forget my cell phone out in the car for 2 hours when I get home without even noticing it. If we were to compare my personal finances with everyone I know, I would be the one who had it the worst in the last 6 years - but thanks to the fact that I am good at saving and living on some money, I have still escaped the enormous internal stress that financial problems can give. And above all, I get to grips with things right away if I'm not happy with the situation. Postponing things is really a source of inner stress!

In the last 2 years, my company has grown to 7 employees and a staff cost of over 2 million per year. My mother passed away in a terrible way for us and in return I lost contact with two family members. At the same time as we just made our biggest staff investment, the number of bookings really dipped (not even Annika had had such a low autumn since she started with permanent makeup) and we really calculated how many months it could continue at that level before everything goes to the forest completely. In the midst of all this, I sat in conversation with estate records and struggled with my last strength to be able to keep our childhood home.

It is not because of luck that I stayed above the water surface, so to speak.

I'm not saying that it's easy to feel good, but regardless from where your stress comes, I think you have to work on feeling good and what that "job" consists of is different for different people. So in such cases it becomes the first thing to analyze: what would you need more / less of to feel better? Everything from small things that spice up life to bigger things like changing your life situation to get more free time, finances, security, well-being, etc. And get to grips with all those things!

I do not know about something I just wrote make sense hehe or if it was even a bit inspiring? :) I sit with my cat Viktoria in my arms, the first cup of coffee has just kicked in and the rain is pounding on the windows = a Helena in a writing mood! It clatters as much on the keyboard as on the windows;)

Mys Sunday ♥ The painting is painted by Miska! He also sells paintings if any of you are hungry - check out his instagram @miskaisoniemi if you want to peek :)

Surprise bride & hair styling!
During the summer, I work more Saturdays than usual (because the other makeup artists have a holiday) and yesterday I had an unusual bridal make-up at the salon. Surprise weddings have been witnessed (eg that the guests think they are going to a baptism) but that the wedding was only a surprise for the bride (!) I have never been to before haha!

Imagine getting the courtship in the morning and getting married the same day, what a fun idea! Note they had been together for 34 years so he was pretty sure she would say yes;)

I did her bridal make-up and usually I do not take any hair styling but made an exception for this because something simple and "sloppily fixed" was to be done so I could give in to it.

Here you see the hair:

The before and after pictures of the make-up will be in a separate post shortly :)

What has happened more this week?

I have had 9 customers, of which a "regular" that I have from Skåne who usually stays in Uppsala when she travels around the country, so fun :) Last Thursday I made her up for a trip to Tallinn! You will also see pictures of it.

I am already preparing blog material for our trip to Spain so that the blog does not have to be empty then. I do a plan and material cost calculation for our new microneedling treatment that will come this autumn and have completed Mia's autumn schedule (she who just trained for microneedling). It's a little calmer at the salon because more people are on holiday now so I have been able to go home several days before as well, which is really nice - so you can e.g. work naked in a cool bathtub instead;)

So it's been a good week! All weeks are not as interesting to tell about, but I keep the tradition with the business week posts on Sundays when I often hear that they are appreciated. Cool!

Now I will enjoy a day off :) Hugs to you ♥