Just Another Day at the Office

The joys of working from home. I'm way more productive at tackling my To-Do List, I don't have to sit in traffic, there's plenty of peace and quiet and I can raid the fridge whenever I want.

It's OK to Take the Day Off

Sunday Funday

In my new job, I'm lucky that I can do my work from anywhere. I'm not tied to the office, which means I get to work from home a couple of days out of the week. This is especially awesome because I get to skip sitting in traffic for four hours out of the week. On the flip side, I find that when I work from home, I work way more than if I were only working in an office. I find that I can get started on something and then will easily work all the way through the night.

This weekend, I'm really proud to say that I took the actual weekend off. Life-work balance is something I always seem to struggle with. This is why taking a weekend off is a huge feat for me. Sure, I kept checking my emails and was doing little things here and there, but for the most part, I was unplugged. You HAVE to grant yourself downtime every now and then. Days off allow you to rest, recharge and stay motivated.

So how did I celebrate my weekend? I spent some of it poolside. I took my brand new sunscreen for a spin and was pleasantly surprised. I know a lot of you have asked me for recommendations on a good all-over-body sunscreen. For years, I've used a sporty version by Coppertone whenever I knew I would be doing any sort of water activity. This time around, I decided to try something different: Target's own brand, up&up's sport sunscreen broad spectrum SPF 50 lotion.

My new favorite all-over-body sunscreen

Up&up's sport sunscreen broad spectrum SPF 50 lotion. Broad spectrum means that it's going to protect the skin from both UVA and UVB rays. It's also a chemical sunscreen that's loaded with active sunscreen ingredients such as avobenzone, octisalate and oxybenzone. These active ingredients are designed to absorb UVA and UVB rays, which is what makes this product a chemical sunscreen. Fun Fact: Chemical sunscreens are designed to absorb UVA and UVB rays instead of blocking them. Physical sunscreens block UVA and UVB rays. If you want to shop for a chemical sunscreen, be sure to look for avobenzone, octisalate and oxybenzone in the active ingredients section on the product label.

I loved that this sunscreen was really moisturizing and blended in easily like a lotion. It didn't feel greasy on my skin and it's fragrance free. It's also water resistant up to 80 minutes. With any sunscreen, you MUST reapply every two hours for it to be effective. The skin gets extra protection with this formula because it's designed to withstand "active" situations such as sweating or water activity.

The best part about this sunscreen is that the stuff was just under six bucks. It was easily the cheapest stuff on the shelf. A lot of people don't realize that in order for a sunscreen to be effective, you HAVE to wear enough of it. The Skin Cancer Foundation recommends wearing an entire shot glass (one ounce) of sunscreen for a proper, full body application. Plus, when you factor in a full body reapplication once every two hours whenever you're in direct sunlight, head-to-toe, that's a lot of sunscreen! I got the 10.4 fl oz bottle which equals 10, full, body applications of sunscreen for just under $6.00. Pretty cost effective if you ask me.

How funny. Even though I took the weekend off from work, I still managed to come up with a product review for my blog. That was completely unintentional! Being a skincare blogger, it's hard to not want to share products I really love with my readers whenever I discover them. You know how that popular saying goes, "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." Well, there's a whole lot of truth in that saying. Sometimes it's hard for me to believe that I get to do what I do for a living. I love it so much, I want to keep doing what I do on my days off.

It's Time to Rebalance The Way I Eat

I've always struggled with learning how to eat healthy my whole life. I'm a pushover for chocolate almonds and ice cream. It's really hard for me to say no to sweets, fried anything or fast food. Somehow I've managed to maintain a normal, healthy weight for my height throughout my adult years, but I've never been able to reach the target weight I've secretly always wished I could get to. I've been active throughout my adult years with things I love such as snowboarding, wakeboarding, Bikram Yoga, pole dancing classes, running, spinning classes and years of walking throughout the streets of San Francisco because didn't own a car. I've got the active part down. I just don't quite get the making healthy food choices part.

Recently, I've realized that I've been living in denial, thinking that all of the exercise I do somehow makes me exempt from all of my poor eating choices. Now that I'm more than half way through my 30's, my body is starting to shift and things are changing. I'm afraid if I don't change my poor eating habits quickly, I'll never stand a chance to ever reach that target weight I've always secretly wished I could get to.

InBody

Luckily for me, I have an amazing job with a fabulous company that does fantastic things. Part of my job as an Assistant Marketing Manager is to experience all of the services we offer at SkinSpirit Skincare Clinic and Spa so that I can write about them on our blog, talk about them on social media and craft up email campaigns and newsletters for our loyal clients to read each week. One of the amazing services we offer in all three of our locations is the REBALANCE Metabolic Weight Loss Program. REBALANCE is a medically supervised weight loss program that was designed by SkinSpirit's Medical Director and Founder, Dr. M. Dean Vistnes to help clients safely and effectively lose 2 to 5 pounds each week.

To kick start off my REBALANCE experience, I was scheduled for a Metabolic Assessment with Carli, a medical assistant and REBALANCE program expert. I spent 60-minutes, one-on-one with Carli going through my medical history along with discussing my current lifestyle, as well as eating and activity habits. The first part of the assessment was the InBody composition scan. This machine weighed me, measured my body mass, body fat mass, read my body water balance, calculated my BMI and did a segmental lean analysis on both my arms, legs and trunk. It then took all of this information and figured out what my Basal Metabolic Rate was. The Basal Metabolic Rate is the number of calories your body can burn per day at rest. This number would also help determine how many calories I could eat in a day if I wanted to lose weight.

Here are some interesting things I learned about my body during my assessment with Carli:

• I weighed 10 pounds less than I thought I did. Score! 
• Eighty-three pounds of my body weight is water. I was surprised to learn that even though I haven't been jugging down water throughout the day like I normally do, my body is still well hydrated. 
• In order for me to lose 1 to 3 pounds a week as the REBALANCE program suggests, I have to maintain a daily diet of no more than 1200 calories. On the days that I run, I can bump up my calorie intake by 100 or 200 calories. 
• Even though my BMI was in the normal, healthy range, it was still a little higher than I had hoped. I guess that's what happens when you live on a diet of breakfast sandwiches and fast food dinners. I need to get my butt into the grocery store and start packing my breakfast and lunch for work again. 
• In the Segmental Lean Analysis, I learned that my right arm weighs more than my left arm. No surprise there because I'm right handed. 
• My arms and legs all contain plenty of lean muscle mass. My core was lacking, just a few percentages shy from the normal rate. Time to get my butt back into the Bikram Yoga studio and training for that marathon I'm suppose to run this summer. It sounds like it wouldn't hurt me to throw in a Pilates class here and there either.

After my body assessment, Carli went over the entire REBALANCE program with me. She made it very clear that the program is not a diet. It's a way of life that helps teach clients how to change their eating habits by making healthy food choices in real-life, everyday challenging situations such as a dinner dates, company picnics, holiday parties or late nights in the office.

I received a REBALANCE packet that contained a program overview, a food journal and Week One's 1200 Calorie Plan. I also received a number of tools including a Guide to Buying Organic Food, a Quick Snack Picks Guide, shopping lists for Safeway, Trader Joes's and Whole Foods, a Stock My Pantry List and an extensive list of online tools available to me that will help me along the program, including a few iPhone apps to download. To help give my metabolism a boost, Carli also gave me a Vitamin B12 shot at the end of our one-on-one session. I even felt my energy start to rise from the shot before the appointment was over!

I think my biggest challenge is going to be watching my portion sizes and resisting the temptation to stop at one of the many fast food restaurants I pass by on my way home from work because I didn't have time to go to the grocery store earlier in the week, am too tired to cook myself a healthy meal or forgot to pack lunch and snacks for work that day. Carli assured me that our weekly one-on-one meetings throughout my time in the program are designed for us to work through those challenges and help me come up with healthier options and make better choices. Before I left, she also showed me where the guidelines on how to judge portion sizes were located in the program overview. Thanks Carli!

So now it's official, I'm in Phase I of the program: The Acute Weight Loss Phase.

The amount of weight a client wants to lose will determine the amount of time they spend on Phase 1. At losing 1 to 3 pounds a week, I'm looking at 15 weeks.

Wish me luck. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

To learn more about the Rebalance Metabolic Weight Loss Program and to schedule a complimentary consultation at any three of our locations in Palo Alto, Walnut Creek or Mill Valley, be sure to check out the Rebalance Metabolic Weight Loss Program website. There's a ton more information about the program and lots of Before and After pictures.

Dermatologists Answer Your Questions About Sunscreen

It's that time of year again. Summer is right around the corner. As the weather gets warmer, people typically start spending more time outdoors, with less clothes on. The more time people spend outdoors, the more their skin will be exposed to the sun, which means an increase in sunscreen usage-hopefully!

May is National Skin Cancer Awareness Month. All month long, you've probably read an article or two from news sources like WebMD, Skin Cancer Foundation, any number of skincare product lines or even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In case you haven't already noticed, skin cancer is a BIG deal - with one in five Americans developing skin cancer in the course of a lifetime. Skin cancer is the most common for of cancer in the United States. More than 3.5 million skin cancers in over two million people are diagnosed annually.

Tanning beds and lounging by the pool in baby oil are out. Wearing sunscreen and reapplying every two hours is in.

Over the last couple of years, you've probably also heard about new FDA regulations being mandated for all over-the-counter sunscreens. These new regulations are designed to help consumers make informed decisions when shopping for sunscreen.

Do you remember the last time you went shopping for sunscreen? Out of a sea of various brands and types, how did you choose which sunscreen was going to be the most effective for your skin type, level of outdoor activity AND was within your price range? Even as a licensed esthetician, I still have a hard time myself shopping for sunscreen. Not only can sunscreen be located in multiple parts of the store, but some of those labels are downright confusing. If a professional like me is confused, imagine how a consumer must feel.

To help clear up some of this confusion and set the record straight on all of the new sunscreen FDA regulations over the last couple of years, Skin Inc Magazine has reached out to dermatologists asking them some of the most common questions consumers have about sunscreen. Are sunscreens safe? Is using a higher SPF better? Want to know what kind of sunscreen is best for use on an infant or child? What kind of sunscreen should you use? Are spray sunscreens effective?

BEFORE you go shopping for sunscreen, be sure to get all of these questions answered and more by reading Skin Inc Magazine's. "Dermatologists Answer Burning Questions About Sunscreen."

Resume 101 For Graduates and Newly Licensed Estheticians

No previous job experience? No sweat!

Completed your 600 undergraduate hours? Check. Passed State Board? Check. Have a solid resume to land you the job of your dreams in a spa or salon? Err, not quite.

One question that I get asked all the time by my blog readers is: "How in the heck am I suppose to put together a resume if I'm a newly licensed esthetician without any professional, industry experience?"

This is a great question! One I even asked myself towards the end of my own Esthetics program back in 2010. I've always had a current, professional resume and have updated it depending on the current job I was applying for. When I left the world of bartending behind and decided to take a leap into the beauty industry, I had to give my resume as I knew it and give it a complete overhaul. I now had the challenge of taking all of my professional experience over the last eight years as a bartender and organizing it into a resume that would convince a potential employer within the beauty industry to hire a newbie like me. Where do you start when creating a resume for a job you don't have any professional industry experience in yet?

Just go back to basics and highlight what you DO have. For this post, I pulled up all three of my resumes that I've had over the last three years, starting with the first resume I created when I first graduated from beauty school. This was the same resume that started it all for me and helped me land the job at Sephora as a Beauty Advisor. For what I lacked in professional industry experience, I made up for it with a clean, well-organized resume that highlighted the skills I already had along with the new skills I picked up in beauty school.

When it comes down to it, all resumes have four main sections: contact information, an objective, previous employment experience and education information. Resumes can be formatted in an infinite amount of ways. Do a Google search on "resumes" and you'll get thousands of different resume variations. Resumes can also have additional sections for things such as skills or references. I suggest keeping it simple for your first resume. As you build up your work experience within the industry, you can go back and tailor your resume to fit all of your newfound skills and experience. For now, you just want to get your foot in the door.

#1: Contact Information
Your contact information should always include your first and last name, your current mailing address, phone number and an email address. This information should always be at the top of your resume. Up top, front and center. It might even be a good idea to increase your first and last name slightly and make them bold. You want your name to stand out on your resume so that it's easy for potential employers to identify who you are from all of the other information you choose to include on your resume.

Word to the wise with the email address: keep it professional! SexyBaby69@aol.com might have worked while you're in high school, but employers wont take you seriously unless you have a professional email address. If you don't already, now is a great time to sign up for a free email service such as yahoo, gmail or hotmail. It's always a good idea to pick something close to your name. Try to  incorporate your first and last name into your email address. If using your first and last name isn't an available option with that provider, try using the first letter of your first name and last name or first name, middle initial and last name. You want to make it easy for a potential employer to contact you for an interview. You also want to come across as being professional in the process.

#2: Objective
Some people are firm believers in always having an objective on their resume. I can go either way. On my first resume, I choose to include an objective because I was making a career change from eight years as a bartender to working in the beauty industry. I wanted to state clearly on my resume what type of position I was seeking out because none of my previous work experience had ever been in the beauty industry.  If you are applying for a specific position, make sure that your objective states the position you're applying for and why you want to apply for the position or what you're looking to gain from that position. Keep it clear, concise and to the point. Your objective shouldn't be longer than a sentence.

For Example:
Objective - To join the Sephora Field Support Center as a Beauty Advisor where I can offer my strong work ethic and customer service skills while further advancing my cosmetic artistry knowledge.

#3: Education
If you are a new beauty school graduate or newly licensed esthetician, you'll want to highlight your information in the Education section. This section is going to contain all of your most recent, relevant professional experience within the beauty industry. You'll want to first start by having the full name of your school, the time span that you were in school (could be month/year or just the year you were in school), specify the program you were in (Cosmetology or Esthetics) and list bullet points that highlight all of your major achievements and any additional training you received while in school.

For Example:
Completed 600-Hour Esthetics Program, Graduated 2010

For the bullet points, you'll want to include things such as any awards you earned, additional classes you took that weren't part of the normal curriculum, clubs or organizations you participated in at school and any externships you took part of before graduating. If you had an impeccable attendance record, you'll want to make that a bullet point as well. If you were a retailing superstar on the salon floor while you were in school, you'll want to include what your average sales tickets were for the services you performed and the retail your clients took home. If you were a visionary and did anything above and beyond the typical curriculum in beauty school, you'll want to make sure these activities are also reflected on your resume.

If you attended any other education in addition to beauty school such as college or high school, you'll want to include that information in the Education section of your resume. Simply state the name of the school you attended, the city and state it's located in, your area of study and your graduation date, as long as you graduated. Note - Only add either high school or college to the Education section. You don't need to add both to your resume.

#4: Employment Experience 
When it comes to deciding on the order of sections on your resume, choose the section you have the most recent, relevant experience in first. If you just graduated from beauty school and have never worked in the beauty industry, you'll want to put the Education section higher up on your resume and your Employment Experience underneath. Later on down the road as you gain relevant, professional experience within the industry, you'll want to switch the order of these two sections.

For Employment Experience, list your last three jobs, in order from the most recent job to the the last. Each job should include the company's full name, the city and state in which the company is located in, your position at that company, the timespan of when you worked for the company and 5 to 8 bullet points describing what you did in that position. Be sure to use words such as "administers", "responsible for", "managed", "executes", "develops" and/or "facilitates" when describing the different tasks you completed while working in that position.

Hopefully once you've included all of the above information, you'll have a one-page resume. Your resume should not be any longer than one page and should only be one-sided. Choose one font. Always proofread your resume. Don't rely on spellcheck. Re-read your resume out loud to double-check for spelling and grammatical errors. Once you've checked your resume, give it to two other people and ask to have them proofread it for you. There's nothing worse than handing your resume to a hiring manager only to find that you've misspelled something on your resume. Remember, you only have one chance to make a good, first impression.

If you have any questions about putting together your first resume as a licensed esthetician or need help or suggestions on what to include on your resume, please leave a comment below.

Good luck and happy job hunting!

Attention Bay Area Readers, You're Invited!

Have you ever been to a medi-spa before? Are you curious about learning what the differences between a medi-spa and day spa are? Maybe you've wanted to check out a medi-spa without having to schedule an actual service? Or perhaps you just want to see a medi-spa like SkinSpirit Skincare Clinic and Spa in-action and meet me in-person? 

As many of you know, I recently started working at SkinSpirit Skincare Clinic and Spa as the Assistant Marketing Manager. SkinSpirit is a medi-spa here in the Bay Area that offers such as Botox, IPL/Photofacials, laser hair removal, fillers, Thermage, laser resurfacing, microdermabrasion, facials, massage, VelaShape, medical grade skincare and even offers their very own medical weight loss program, REBALANCE.

Each quarter, SkinSpirit opens its doors at each location, hosting an Open House to both new and returning clients along with anyone else interested in learning more about all of the services SkinSpirit offers.

I want to personally invite all of my readers to SkinSpirit's next Open House: SkinSpirit's Summer Body Event and Party in Walnut Creek this Thursday, May 23rd from 6 to 8pm. Here's your chance to come see SkinSpirit in-action and meet me in-person.

Here's what is on the agenda for the Summer Body Event and Party tomorrow night in Walnut Creek:

• Our practitioners will feature live demonstrations of our body contouring treatments: VelaShape, Thermage Body and laser hair removal. 
• A lecture and Q&A with Dr. M. Dean Vistnes who will be talking about all things body. Representatives from mybody and SkinCeuticals will be in the house answering all of your skincare product questions. 
• Complimentary InBody Scans during the event
• If you're in the shopping mood, there will be gifts with purchases from mybody and SkinCeuticals along with special discounts on services that will only be offered during the event.
• Plenty of drinks and snacks

If you live in the East Bay or Walnut Creek area and are interested in coming to the event tomorrow night, save yourself a spot by calling 925-952-9200. Mention that you heard about this event from my blog when you RSVP. 

Event Details:

Who: SkinSpirit Walnut Creek

Where: The Mercer, 1647 North California Blvd.

When: Thursday, May 23rd, 6 to 8pm

How: RSVP: 925-952-9200

Have You Told Your Mother How Much You Love Her?

I wanted to take the time to wish all of the Moms out there a very Happy Mother's Day. In my opinion, we should celebrate our moms every day. Just to show how extra special they are, moms get their own official day of celebration every year. Moms, you deserve to be showered with all of the cards, gifts and champagne brunches your kids are hopefully taking you out to today.

Just incase you were curious, this is how Wikipedia defines Mother's Day: Mother's Day is a celebration honoring mothers and motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. It is celebrated on various days in many parts of the world, most commonly in March or May. It complements Father's Day, a similar celebration honoring fathers.

We would be nothing without our moms! If you live near your Mom, be sure to give her extra hugs and kisses today. If you don't live close, pick up the phone and remind her how much you love her.