A professional pedicure is, for most women, a necessity during summer months. These tips from Schaeffer will make your $15 to $50 service more than worth it.
Tip 1: The same tips for extending the life of a manicure (see previous slide) apply to pedicures as well; its all about keeping your cuticles hydrated every day. Use a foot mask to really hydrate dry feet and cuticles. Try CND Creative Nail Design Raw Earth Foot Mask, $6.95 which will work to smooth cracked feet and soften calluses. Tip 2: Throw on socks when you are lounging around the house and avoid walking barefoot on sand or any similar rough surfaces. This will keep the protective layer of nail polish on your toes. Tip 3: Avoid wearing pointy-toed shoes or any tight-fitting heels, they will rub off your polish slowly, but surely.
Women who get their eyebrows professionally done usually get them shaped once every two to three weeks. Streicher (who charges her big-wig clients up to $200 a session) says you can extend the life of a shaping session by two weeks by following these tips:
Tip 1: Instead of getting your brows waxed, get them tweezed. It lasts longer. Tip 2: Between pro tweezing sessions, only pluck the darkest hairs that lie farthest away from your professionally sculpted brow shape (above the bridge of the nose, and stragglers under the brow bone). Always pull hairs out at the root, one at a time, and in the direction of hair growth. Pulling too many hairs will negate your salon tweezing and make you have to go more often in order to fix your mistakes. Over tweezing is a fast way and expensive ticket to what Streicher calls "Brow Rehab." Tip 3: When pulling necessary stragglers, use professional-grade tweezers. The one-time investment will save you money in the long run as they don't need to be sharpened. Streicher swears by Rubis Tweezers, $29.95 Tip 4: When your brows start to grow out, and lose a bit of their shape after your professional tweezing, use an eyebrow pencil to redefine them. Find a highly-rated eyebrow pencil or gel here. Filling them in and recreating the shape will take attention away from any random hairs outside of your sculpted shape, says Streicher.
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How to make your haircut last
Expert: Gavin Harwin, hair health expert
A haircut can cost anywhere from 20 bucks to $400 dollars. Either way, you're probably averaging about $70 a snip. Stylists recommend you have your haircut once every six to eight weeks, but with these tips from Harwin, you can stretch that time out to once every three to four months.
Tip 1: Keep your hair and ends hydrated. Harwin says a good leave-in conditioner can do wonders for the life of your cut. Readers and Harwin agree that Infusium Repair and Renew Leave-In Treatment, $8.99 is hard to beat when it comes to keeping your hair healthy and on a budget. Also, to keep your hair (most importantly your ends) moisturized, cut down on heat styling and excessive styling. Hot air from blow dryers, flat irons, and curlers dry out strands and cause split ends. Tip 2: Hair accessories are a great way to get more mileage out of your haircut, says Harwin. Not only can they help you deal with growing out fringe, they can hide hair that's in need of a cut. Try a trendy style that allows you to skip heat styling and hides your ends like a slicked back ballerina bun. Run a strong hold gel like Herbal Essences Set Me Up Max Hold Gel, $6.50 through wet hair, part down the middle with a fine toothed-comb, and brush hair back into a ponytail just underneath the crown of your head. Then, twist the pony into a chignon and pin. Finish by wrapping and pinning a pretty ribbon around your bun. Tip 3: When your hair starts to loose shape, trim your own bangs. It's not as tricky as you think. Watch this video tutorial for help.
Next: See Harwin's tips for extending the life of your salon blowout
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How to make your salon blow out last
Professional blowouts instantly make hair look refreshed and healthy, but an average salon blow out can cost up to $40 and last as little as one day. Follow these tips from Harwin so your blow out can continue to blow people away.
Tip 1: Find a salon that specializes in blow outs, they will put more time and effort into the process (after all, it's the only service you're paying for). Harwin warns not to be fooled by fancy salons -- they aren't always the ones that do the best job. Tip 2: If hair starts to get oily on day two, use a dry shampoo. Try Ojon Rub Out Dry Cleanser, $24. Use sparingly and brush though your strands well to make sure you can't see it. Tip 3: To keep hair at it's cleanest, use a boar bristle brush like Hana K. Diamond Wood Boar Bristle Oval Cushion Brush, $10.99 to comb through your hair before bed to remove dirt and debris collected from the day. Tip 4: Bring back the old-school bouffant trick by sleeping on a towel to keep your hair from flattening over night. Create your makeshift pillow by rolling up a thick towel into a tube and securing with safety pins. Then wrap it in a pillowcase and swap it for your regular pillow, making sure to place it under your neck as you sleep. If kinks still start to form, run a small flat iron just over your roots.
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How to make you hair color last
Expert: Beth Minardi, Celebrity Colorist
Women who have their hair professionally colored may have to visit the salon every three weeks, says Minardi. She advises that with the right color choice and care, women can extend the life of their color for to up to fourteen weeks. Here are her tips:
Tip 1: Enhancing the natural color of your hair and/or moderately highlighting your shade are the most durable types of color. So, to maximize the time between appointments, go with slight color tweaks to your natural shade of blonde, red or brown, says Minardi. The further away from the natural tone you go, the more frequently your color will have to be touched up. Tip 2: Sun, chlorine and highly-alkaline shampoos are hair color enemies. To protect your color from the sun, use a sunscreen on your hair like Redken UV Rescue Protective Oil, $15. If you swim in chlorine, Minardi advises to rinse hair immediately after exiting the pool. Tip 3: The hype is true, shampoos and conditioners developed specifically for color-treated hair really do work, so the short term investment in quality color protectors save you money in the long run (try Joico Color Endure Shampoo and Conditioner). Minardi recommends always shampooing only once (even if hair is oily) and rinsing the hair very, very well.
Let's kick off this budget beauty bonanza by admitting the obvious, shall we? Going to the salon for a haircut, color, blow out, manicure, pedicure, eyebrow shaping, waxing, etc. is expensive. Now let's crunch some beauty numbers. To find out just how much money you can save from prolonging the results of your many manicures and hours spent in the hairdresser's chair, we did some math -- albeit basic -- it's not our favorite subject. We added up the cost one reader spends on various treatments she gets in the Detroit, MI area (standard ones that are offered all over the country) over the course of one year, then we subtracted treatments she wouldn't need, if she knew how to make them last longer. Here are the facts about how much she could be saving on average. These numbers don't include tax or tip, but they'll give you a basic understanding of her savings if she knew these tricks:
Manicure ($12): About once every two weeks for a year = $288
With the following expert tips she could get one less manicure a month saving her $144 a year.
Haircut ($35): About once every three months for a year = $140
With the following expert tips she could get two less haircuts a year saving her $70
Coloring ($50): About 5 times a year = $250
With the following expert tips she could have one less coloring session a year saving her $50
Grand total of savings for just some of the treatments she gets in a year = $264
