Vote for Chicago's Anti-Cruelty Society.

The Anti-Cruelty Society LOCAL CHARITY, Needs Area Support in Effort to Win $500,000 from Chase Community Giving.
Did you know that the Anti-Cruelty Society is Chicago’s oldest and largest private animal welfare organization and helps OVER 50,000 pets and people every year? I adopted my cat, Yvett MewMew, from them and it’s the one of the best facilities and has the best trained staff.
Today the Anti-Cruelty has the chance to receive a much needed grant from the Chase Community Giving program running on the Facebook platform. And they will be just 1 of over 100 other non-profits reaching out for some of the 5 million being given to non-profits across America. Anti-Cruelty needs this money to pay for the transportation of over 3000 animals out of abusive situations and prevent cruel animal deaths in our community.
Won’t you help them receive this money? It’s so easy. Just go to http://www.anticruelty.org/vote and follow the directions or go to the Chase Community Giving page and "Like" their page and then ON THE LEFT SIDE OF PAGE YOU WILL SEE CHASE GIVING: visit The Anti-Cruelty Society's Chase Community Giving voting page to place your vote! You can only vote once for a charity.
Voting begins on Thursday, May 19 at 12:01 a.m. and ends Wednesday May 25 at Midnight..

More Help for Fine or Weakened Hair

If you know me as a hairdresser, you also know that I am the go-to guy if you have fine or weak hair. You know, the kind of hair that doesn’t seem to grow past a certain length? It’s always fly-away. Never shiny. And it’s the kind of hair that is often mistaken for dry hair and yet, if you load it up with moisturizers, it goes limp and looks like you’ve used olive oil for a styling product.
You also might know that I have, for years, used a little known product (among others) called, Emergencee, by Nexxus to help me bond a polymer to weak hair shafts in an effort to increase diameter, strengthen, add body and allow my clients to have longer hair. Well now I’ve found my new favorite product(s). It’s made by Kérastase, a French brand that the salon, where I work, just partnered with. I’ve been aware of the line for years but I had never worked in a salon that used it. But now I’m very impressed Kérastase and pleased to tell you about its treatments for fine or weakened hair and that it’s now available at Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa.
The entire staff was being given the in-salon product knowledge class where we got to work with the products and see, first-hand, what the treatments lines can do for our clients. These types of classes are great for stylists because we get to use the products on ourselves to touch, feel, work with and experience them before we even apply them to our daily repertoire of hair remedies for clients.
Since I don’t have any hair no one picked me to be their partner for trying out our new Kérestase treatments.
But I got the last laugh because I had the opportunity to see everyone else’s results from the different treatments for varied hair problems each staff member was asked to address. All of the results were instantaneous and substantial, from dry or curly-rebellious, to mature hair.
But the fine weakened hair of my friend & co-worker, (& part-time gorgeous model—she’s on the cover of my book!) Eileen was definitely the most dramatic. Eileen has the kind of hair that looks fine yet straight when it is blown out and flattened with a heating tool. It is long and appears to have body due to the blond demensional highlights. But when it’s freshly shampooed, it feels dry and tangles easily and no amount of conditioner seems to make it feel nice until most of the water is blown out of it. This is the exact type of hair that I used to coat up with the polymers or weightless oils so that can be thicker and not flimsy once it’s styled.
The stylist who did Eileen’s treatment shampooed her hair with Kérastase Bain De Force shampoo. It’s made specifically for hair that is weak or damaged (highlights!) and hair that doesn’t have a lot of elasticity (think: stretchy = bad). A good fine-hair shampoo will not over-cleanse the outer layer of the hair shaft but should leave a top-coat of protection and this one does just that. If a person has dry and weakened hair you would use Bain Age Recharge and Eileen could easily also have used this one too. Both are available for home use.
The in-salon treatment that was used on Eileen was called Concentré Age Recharge. It would cost a client $35 in our salon to have it done and it’s worth every penny. The stylist applied the strengthening liquid on her hair and suddenly her hair was smooth, shiny, radiant, and it looked like younger and naturally colored hair. But the proof was in the blow dry. Her hair was easy to blow dry and the length had bounce and shine.
How long will it last? I tell my clients that their treatment lasts as long as they keep on supporting what I did in-salon at their very own homes. That means using the right shampoo, hair masques, and strengtheners vs. moisturizers and/or thermal protectors. Everyone is different and has different lifestyles. For Eileen, she’ll use either of the shampoos I mentioned and Care Volumactive, an at-home conditioner.
I hope that you check out the Kérastase line. I’m going to be blogging more about the results I get in the future and I want to hear from you too.
jon-david is a professional writer as well as a Master Stylist at Joseph Michael’s Salon & Spa.

If you are anti-Social you will probably poo-poo Social Media

My friends and people I know and don’t know tell me all the time, “I don’t get Foursquare,” or, “I won’t waste my time on Facebook.” And I know there are cavernous voids in many people’s brains about Twitter and LinkIn and more. Unless you are like me and have learned what they are about, people simply don’t know what they don’t know about all of these “social platforms.”
Think of these platforms like walking into a room. If you walk into the Facebook room you are going to “see and hear” the friends whom you have accepted. You will get invitations and see pictures of them riding their bikes along the lake and you can also share whatever you like with them, including what restaurants you’ve been to and the charities that you are associated with. Over time you will know what to expect from each friend and they will get to know what you like presenting to them and if you like responding to their information. Are you are a church person? Do you play online games and like to interact with other gamers?
Twitter is like walking into the conversation room. There is much dialogue and information being furiously passed across the room. And the room for business conversations & connections is LinkIn. But every single platform has one thing in common: they are all social.
It’s not the unknown part of using social media that makes people pause from becoming participants; it’s the social part that intimidates. I’ve given up training my friends in social media because I find that everyone wants to put out information to prospective clients over social media platforms—but they don’t want to receive any input, invitations, requests or information from others. The social media specialists, like me, who have been using Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, CitySearch etc. know thousands of people and have many connections. Who wouldn’t want to promote their restaurant, church, charity, political thoughts to thousands of people who might support their individual endeavors? The problem is that for you to put out your information into the room or conversation, you have to participate and “speak” as well as listen—people have to learn that you are here to stay and that you or you business has integrity--and you have to be willing to take the conversation offline as soon as possible.
The cardinal rule for any Social Media Specialist is to “take it offline” as soon as possible. Social is the first word and that’s exactly what we must try to do: We meet each other after our initial conversation in that room full of others, and it is offline where we learn how much we have in common and how much we can help each other. And, let me tell you, you will meet your new best friends whom you have the most things in common with. People may meet through a media platform by common interests and the relationships that are gained can nurture a business or a cause. Social Media is just a new way of taping into your community to mingle, prosper, help, create and change the world but it’s still about people. So, it’s really about connecting with people you’ve been trying to attract to you and that sounds personal and professional and very wise to me.
go to www.MafiaHairdresser.com to continue the “conversation.”