Why are young men obsessed by their appearance?

In the last few months there has been an explosion of TV programmes about the male body and the male obsession with perfection.

We have seen Tattoo Fixers on E4, Tattoo Disasters on Five, My Tattoo Addiction on Channel 4, Ink Master Revenge on Spike and then there was Dying for a Six Pack on BBC Three with the excellent Reggie Yates.

With the unstoppable rise of Social Media and the ease with which teens can take selfies on their phones, they have to be the most body-obsessed generation ever. And yet withdrawing from Facebook, Twitter etc leaves people happier and less worried about how they look to their followers.

They epilate (wax), thread their eyebrows, go to the gym every day, moisturise, get their hair cut every 2 weeks, have botox, fillers and facials. Admittedly TV only features the most extreme cases, so why do so few men go to beauty salons?

Anyone for a Snail Facial?

As a Beauty Therapist I offer facials. But a Japanese beauty salon is offering facials with a difference: they use snails! The snails are placed on the cheeks of the customer and are then allowed to move freely around the face. 

Tokyo-based beauty salon says that the slime left by snails has an anti-ageing effect on skin. It helps remove old cells, heal the skin after sunburn and moisturises it. The hours treatment – costing 160 pounds - leaves you with 100% pure snail essence on your skin. 

The treatment is followed by massages and masks using creams containing snail mucus. Sayaka Ito, who has already had the treatment, said: "You can feel the snails moving on your face. At first, it is surprising, but it's actually rather nice. "My skin really does feel smooth and moist." 

I don't fancy it myself, maybe you do? 

Laser Lipo Home Salon disrupted in Woking Surrey

So after returning relaxed and very tired from a ten-day break in Greece (much needed as I work seven days a week and often until gone 9 o'clock at night) I come home to an empty house. And no dead plants for a change. This time a friend had popped over a couple of times to look after them and keep an eye on the place.

Then I went into my Laser Lipo therapy room; all seemed fine. Until I noticed a little water on my massage table. And then underfoot on my persian rug. Then I looked up! The ceiling looked like it was about to cave in.

Thankfully it wasn't too late to get a plumber round: he was here within the hour and at least stopped the leak, and then later repaired the burst pipe.

Then the hell with the insurance company started. As I had separate business insurance with another company I hadn't hold the household insurance company that I worked from home. That was a nervous moment - thinking they would refuse to pay out at all. Thankfully they saw sense and did.

So fast forward three weeks and my male waxing therapy room has a new ceiling and the room smells of fresh paint. Again. Thankfully we had been able to temporarily work from my office upstairs while the work was being done. But it's nice to be back in my massage therapy room again.
    
Daniel
www.danielbeauty.co.uk

Inch loss by Laser Lipo begins in Surrey

You may have read my blog a couple of weeks ago about how I am now ready to offer inch loss and body sculpting by Laser Lipo from my home in Surrey.

So how's it going I hear you ask.

It's going very well so far. The Google Ad words -along side my regular newsletter with the latest news about Laser Lipo, Massage, Male Waxing, Threading and Facials -appears to be working.

I have had a fair few enquiries, several clients beginning their weight loss programmes already and I am confident more people will sign up shortly.

Don't forget that lipolysis is a completely natural process which you body does all the time and the laser lipolysis treatment just encourages your body to use up the fat in a particular area - an area which you want to be slimmer (whether its your moobs (man boobs), stomach or thighs etc)

Oh and I now have the "beware Laser in use" sign for the Therapy door. Now I all I need to do is get round to putting it up...

Daniel
http://www.danielbeauty.co.uk/ 

How to keep your skin looking good

How do you keep your skin looking beautiful and young-looking?

As you get older it gets increasingly difficult to keep that youthful appearance of firm, clear skin. Having a good facial in Surrey is a good start but what else can you do?

Well you can do a lot for yourself. Here are a few ideas:

You can make sure you have a healthy diet with lots of fruit, vegetables and greens. What you eat shows in your skin especially your face.

Make sure you drink plenty of water every day. Not tea or coffee or coca-cola. Just water. This keeps your skin hydrated and plumped up (thereby reducing fine lines on your skin.) Tea and coffee are diuretics and the liquid just goes in one end and out the other.

Don't smoke.  Do I need to say any more? Smokers tend to look older than they actually are.

Don't drink excessively. We can all recognise a heavy drinker by the broken capillaries which show on their nose and cheeks can't we?

Don't use tanning booths and limit the time that you spend in the sun and always use sun cream when you do. Sun damage is the single most important cause of premature aging. Remember to put sun cream your chest and the back of your hands and neck. They're often the first place to show your age.

Rather than using soap on your face, make sure you use good quality cleansers that are right for your skin.

And make sure you get a professional facial to deep cleanse your skin - ideally every four to six weeks - but at least four times a year, as the seasons change.

Find out how facial treatments can help you keep a youthful skin by visiting my website.

A great recommendation for a Massage Therapist

Massages are great for relieving stress. And just like everyone else I get stressed - either from working too hard or too many hours or any of life's other little problems. So I try to receive a massage every week or so myself.


As I work alone - and at home between West Byfleet and Woking in Surrey - I am always happy to meet other massage therapists to do a massage exchange (or a male waxing exhange for that matter). It keeps me up to date with what is happening in the beauty therapy industry as well as picking up new massage movements. We also use this time to swap hints, tips and ideas for running our own businesses. I think it's called networking but on a much less formal and forced basis!

One of my massage exchange buddies - until recently - was another Surrey-based massage therapist called Murray Mills who has met his ideal partner and moved to Spain to enjoy life and take it easy for a while.

As a consequence of this Murray has - very kindly - referred all his male waxing, male beauty and massage clients to me. For which I am extremely grateful and honoured. Murray Mills: I thank you!

New photos and videos for my massage and male waxing website

Last Sunday we had a good laugh having some new photos of me taken for my new male waxing, massage and beauty therapist website. Taking a few photographs - both inside and outside - on a lovely sunny day didn’t take too long. But filming for massage videos always takes much longer than you think doesn't it?

My eternal thanks go to Richard from Lion Television who filmed and photographed both me and my young male model Sebastian; he was extremely patient in coping with to the demands of the photographer - but then he did get a free male waxing out of it!

We did manage to film a video of Sebastian having a back wax and a few lovely photographs of him having a facial treatment. Hopefully - when Richard has edited the videos - we will be able to put them onto my website.

Coming Soon: a new beauty therapy website

Today I am very excited. After many months of thinking about doing it and then months of discussing it with my business partner, I am very excited to say that very soon I will have a brand new website.


As the number of massage and beauty therapies that I have become qualified in has grown, I have – until now – had a website for each one. So for my male massage therapies I first had http://www.danielmassage.co.uk/ for my Shiatsu massage and Indian head massage (for which I was qualified when I came to live in the UK – and specifically Surrey).

Later on I qualified as an ITEC Swedish massage therapist followed a year later by a VTCT qualification in Sports Massage. So that’s the massage side of my business sorted.

Then I had a brain wave – an idea that I had been putting off for too long as I was always busy – it’s a skill which complements massage nicely as my clients often request both during the same visit: male waxing – hair removal from the back, chest abdomen etc. This was so successful that I qualified in intimate male waxing techniques shortly afterwards. So now I offer back, sac and crack, Brazilian, the so-called ”Boyzillian” and Hollywood waxes.

But my skills don’t stop there. I am now qualified in hair removal by threading and shortly in facials. Manicure and pedicure will follow shortly. And even more exciting therapies in the longer term!

Anyway, you will soon be able to find out more about all these treatments in one place – on http://www.danielbeauty.co.uk/. Coming soon to the interweb near you!

Should a Massage Therapist advertise on Facebook?

Today I got not one but two calls from one of those God-awful sales people.


You know the type: they sound like they are - or want to be – your best friend, use your name in every sentence and are just a little bit too excited on the phone, except you can hear their colleagues shouting at their potentially hot leads in the background too. Oh how I pity those poor souls working in call centres. It must be very depressing for them.

Anyway, if you have read this massage and male waxing blog before you will know how annoyed I got by endless sales calls from morons thinking they could ”manage” my Google Ad Words campaign and charge me a fortune for doing something I am quite capable of doing myself.

Today I got a call from a guy who had a space – and only one space mind you – for a massage therapist in my area (Woking Surrey) to advertise on Facebook. Now I had been discussing whether you can advertise locally on Facebook with some friends recently and they told me that it is possible, so I had been considering the possibility anyway.

I let this over-excited over-friendly desperate-for-commission salesman go through his irritating patter and asked – what can their company do for me and my massage business on Facebook that I can’t do myself? Apparently Facebook encourages you to spend £300 a week and they can do it for half that. Why? Bulk buying I suggest. A suggestion that Mr Over-Excited leaps upon as correct: Oh you are smart Daniel!

A quick look at Facebook – and five minutes filling in a form to create an advert – reveals this to be complete rubbish.

If I decide to advertise my male massage business on Facebook – rather than Google Ad Words, I shall be doing it myself and spending as little or as much as I decide. Much like Google’s Ad Words really.

The only question in my mind is: Which is better – Ad Words or Facebook?

There’s only one way to find out…… Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!

The downside of being a Self-Employed Massage Therapist

Often I tell friends and family that I love not only being self-employed but working from home: setting my own hours, the oh so long commute from upstairs to my  massage therapy room downstairs (also used for male waxing and facials by the way), deciding to take a day off if I want to or have a lazy summer's afternoon if the whim takes me.

However more often than not it's quite the opposite..you end up working 7 days a week and long hours to boot. But when it comes to the middle of December, and people's minds turn to other matters...like partying hard and visiting family far away from my massage practise in Surrey..well then, dear reader, the business just dies. For two whole weeks at least.

Add in a tiny little bit of snow and well, I might as well go on holiday myself...

Thankfully it is now February and business is picking up again nicely. Phew!