Thanet hairdresser Jennifer Louise fly’s out to South Africa to build houses for orphans.
This will be the 12th house the ramsgate hairdressers have built out there for the charity Coco’s foundation.
Below Jennifer Louise shares what it’s like to go on such a trip.
WOW – what an experience one that will shape my life forever!
For those of you that watched my journey through social media channels you will know how incredibly emotional I found my time out in Africa. Getting my head round the fact that I had just been super lucky to be born in the UK was just the start of it; it made me question humanity and how such levels of poverty still existed, my westernised mind was causing me outbursts of sobs all over the show.
People tell you how lucky we are but actually until you have seen this with your own eyes and felt it with your own heart No we don’t know how lucky we are after all how could we??
Day 1 and I’m a broken woman, I’m walking down a hill and see 8 small children oldest only 10 youngest a baby not yet 1 sat playing not an adult in sight, Mum and dad are dead and Nan is off some four hours away looking for work. These kids have hardly any clothes on and not a scrap of food to be found anywhere, They live in this mud hut that stands before me half falling down and sleep on the floor in wee stained wet blankets. They are covered head to toe in sores all over there little body YET they greet me with huge goofy smiles. My heart broke in two and I found myself needing to make this okay for them. There stood before me was eight little baby’s I would soon fall in love with and feel weirdly connected to properly for the rest of my life.
Life for them was not okay and I had the absolute need to make it okay!
I shot a quick video of them and their living conditions and set about begging friends on my social media for their help to give this little family a new life forever. I even went to a local church and prayed so hard for god to help me do this. I have never prayed in church in my life, Its strange what you do when you are so desperate to achieve something.
In just 7 short days I found myself sobbing again on the floor a deep heart felt sob WE HAD DONE IT £4500 was raised and I was set to go and tell these children the good news. We were changing there lives, they were going to be okay.
I gathered the team and we went back to the house to dig the three foot footings by hand on the hottest day I’ve ever endured in my life but ever shovel was shovelled with love for everyone that had donated.
They have a house and a home, I personally gift them a food package every month so I know that they can eat, I have brought them school uniforms so they can get an education and also breakfast and lunch as Coco’s foundation sponsors the schools breakfast and after school clubs with food, this will in tern begin to not only fade the hunger but the sores will now begin to heal also. They have a safe place to rest their head’s and a door to lock away from nasty people and nasty snakes. They also have a huge water tank called a Jojo attached to the house’s guttering and will now always have access to water simple things we take for granted.
Thank you to everyone that helped this family we have called this house Love gratitude and hope, obsessions and friends
Africa has defiantly become part of my heart forever more.
Jen xxx
I think it’s safe to say this Thanet hairdresser had a heartfelt trip and achieved life changing memories for both herself and the children who now have a safe space to lay their heads at night. Breathtaking…
If you want to get involved with the foundation, sponser a breakfast club for £1 a month or sponser a family a food pacel £30 a month or maybe you fancy coming out to Africa to build a house with us you can find all the information you need at http://www.cocosfoundation.co.uk
As its the Month of LOVE I’d like to share with you some facts on hair colour its time to make some time for yourself and fall in love with your hair colour all over again…
Let us share with you some facts…
95% of woman don’t know what colour is being used on them in their salons.
50% of women are not happy with their hair colour.
40% of women have not yet found their ideal hair care range.
5.4 million women have stopped colouring their hair in salons.
1.3 of them women have stopped colouring their hair altogether.
Scary that there are so many unhappy women in the world of hair.
We want to start conversations and educate our guests on hair care and colouring giving you a better experience and more knowledge to make important decisions on making sure you got it right…
UNDERSTANDING TYPES OF HAIR COLOUR
There are 4 types of hair colour each type does a different job and you would choose which one to have by thinking carefully about the look you want to achieve. Here is a great way of understanding each one.
1) Permanent This has full coverage (even those pesky grey’s) depth and tone and covers like a lipstick.
2) Semi-permanent gives great shine, depth and tone and covers like a lip gloss slightly more translucent.
3) Demi colour gives you depth and tone but will fade almost like when you pop a gloss over lipstick.
4) High lift tint lifts the hair making it feel lighter and younger.
There are lots of other factors that go into choosing the right colour for you and we will walk you through these so there will be no more nervous waiting as the colour develops.
* These factors include what technique will help you achieve the overall look you are after.
* Are you warm or cool skin tone.
* What placement is needed around your face to bring out your best features.
* What type of fabric is your hair.
By assessing all the above your stylist will be able to give you a truly bespoke colour just for you. Get it just right and your eyes will literally pop from your profile.
It is really important to stress that we do NOT colour anyone’s hair without first doing a skin sensitivity test 48 hours before any colour service. We are a professional salon and our guest care is our most important priority. Even if you have had a test in another salon unless we carry out another one we will not carry out any colour service….
A new year is a fresh start and a new opportunity to break bad habits moving easily from where you are to where you want to be!
This year let’s focus all our attention on repairing the damage caused by all the parties we attended over the Christmas season.The last few months have had us using too much heat styling, piling on the products and generally giving our hair poor treatment! Now it’s time to look at Clarifying shampoos, Scalp exfoliators, Nourishing oils and Strengthening treatments after all it’s not just our liver that deserves a well earned detox.
Shiny, manageable, healthy hair is the way forward in 2018 and can be your’s with a little love and attention. Discover the obsessions salon New beginnings, everlasting happiness and forever beautiful hair program, It’s not a fad new year resolution its a change in lifestyle to get you achieving the hair you’ve always dreamed off.
1) Use a clarifying shampoo such as Shampoo Two® from Paul Mitchell® helps minimize oil and add the perfect amount of body to flat, lifeless hair. The color-safe formula cleanses oily hair and the scalp, leaving hair feeling fresh and looking shiny. Deep cleansers wash away build-up without stripping out much-needed moisture while minimizing oil production in the scalp for the perfect balance. or Remove product build-up, chlorine and minerals from hair with Shampoo Three® from Paul Mitchell®. This deep-cleansing shampoo washes away impurities while keeping strands strong. Use as needed for bouncy, soft hair.
2) Once a month use a a scalp exfoliator we love a homemade cucumber and mint sugar scrub which is full of antioxidants, this will remove the buildup of dead skin cells and oil build up alike making sure your hair follicles are as healthy as they can be mimicking younger hair and boosting growth.
3) A deep conditioning treatment once a week will strengthen, detangle and help prevent split ends and heat damage adding moisture and or protein your stylist can advise you after a simple test what your hair is lacking and then personally prescribe the right treatment for you.
4) Regular cuts!!!!!!! This will remove the dry damaged ends and will promote growth, shiny and manageable hair we recommend shorter styles visit ever 4-6 weeks, Medium length every 6-8 weeks and for longer locks it’s 8-10 weeks.
To help recover from the partying this January we are giving all our guests a free cucumber and mint scalp exfoliation at the basin for every full price cut and style booked until the 31st January. Why not also add a conditioning treatment to your service starting at £10 and start the year off as you mean to go on!!
Your stylist can also pre book all your next cut and colours for up to the whole year so you are fully hair organised for 2018.
Change is in the air! For better or worse the world is always on the move – politically, economically and environmentally – but we can all do a lot more than we think we can to change it. We all have the power to make the world a different place and it begins with choosing the right brands!!
Obsessions is a forward thinking salon, holding making a difference at the forefront of our minds… From the brands we choose to work with ourselves to the charities we choose to support we do our very best every day to impact our world for the better… We dedicate what we do to giving back…
So just what do we do???
Firstly we cut our carbon footprint, save water and electricity by using eco towels. Scrummi eco towels are biodegradable so can go in with any biodegradable waste such as food, hair or brown card recycling. The towels will decompose within 3 months under ideal decomposable conditions. The towels can also be added to the normal rubbish for landfill where they will breakdown and leave no blight on the environment.
This means that we are not endlessly washing and drying normal towels wasting water and electricity or putting sope / chemical pollution down our drains.
We support CoCo’s foundation as our main charity. This is where we can make a real difference to orphans’ lives. Over the last two years coco’s have taken 136 volunteers out to south africa to build 22 houses for 155 orphans.
Helping child-headed families, Families where orphans are living on their own and without the love, guidance and support of parents.
In this region there are about 9,000 orphans. Many of their parents have died from AIDS or related illnesses, and the children live in groups for safety. It is not unusual for 20 children to be living in one house.
As a registered UK charity, Coco’s inspire UK teenagers and hairdressers so they can support and help orphaned children communities within the poorest areas in South Africa. Their aim is to deliver each child’s basic needs: food, water, shelter and professional emotional support.
We built our first obsessions house last April we we sent our first team member out to build it with her bare hands and our next team member gpo’s out this April to build house number two.
We are also a Paul Mitchell signature salon and we choose to use the Paul Mitchell products not just because they help us do great hair but because as a company their ethos fits with ours.
* They DO NOT TEST ON ANIMALS
* They impact the world as little as possiable
* They created 1,091,034 shelters for animals last year
* 750,000 trees will have been planted by the end of 2019 through Reforest’ action
* More than £20’000 has been pledged to coppafeel a uk breast cancer charity
* They are a proud supporter of Waterkeeper Alliance, an environmental movement that is dedicated to protecting communities, ecosystems and waterways for more than a decade.
* In just four years since Paul Mitchell founded Grow Appalachia they have helped 4,370 families grow and produce 2.7 million pounds of organic food.
When it comes to how obsessions is making a difference, the above speaks for itself. Isn’t it time you were part of a culture helping to change the world?
No, your eyes and ears aren’t playing tricks on you—the contouring phenomenon has officially branched out into hair color, using highlights, at that, to achieve a more defined face shape.
Colour is concentrated near cheekbones, then around the corners of eyes, which creates a lifted appearance. Your features will pop by simply placing the right amount of consistency within the highlights, following the cheekbones and the eyes. “When contouring the hair, you must follow the movement of the natural hair flow. You can’t have the highlights too close to each other because you need depth to make the color pop, so you must have a very delicate approach when focusing around the hairline.” Through using a balayage-esque painting technique, you use a much lighter hand and allows the natural hair color to penetrate through the highlighted portion.
Rather than your foil highlights, your only painting the surface of the hair. It’s a natural-looking finish, and since there aren’t noticeable lines of demarcation, it’s a low-maintenance look. The technique works on every hair color and texture out there, so both hair color virgins and heavily-processed tresses alike can get in on the fun. You can ask your hairstylist to emphasize areas near your cheekbones and eyes to make them pop, or better yet, bring in a picture and have them tailor the color to fit your natural tone. Just like with babylights, the contrast is barely-there.
Get in on the act and book your hair contouring appointment today.
95% of women don’t know what colour is being used on them in their salons.
50% of women are not happy with their hair colour.
40% of women have not yet found their ideal hair care range.
5.4 million women have stopped colouring their hair in salons.
1.3 of them women have stopped colouring their hair all together.
Scary that there are so many unhappy women in the world of hair.
We want to start conversations and educate our guests on hair care and colouring giving you a better experience and more knowledge to make important decisions on making sure you got it right…
UNDERSTANDING TYPES OF HAIR COLOUR
There are 4 types of hair colour each type dose a different job and you would choose which one to have by thinking carefully about the look you want to achieve. Here is a great way of understanding each one.
1) Permanent This has full coverage (even those pesky grays) depth and tone and covers like a lipstick.
2) Semi permanent gives great shine, depth and tone and covers like a lip gloss slightly more translucent.
3) Demi colour gives you depth and tone but will fade almost like when you pop a gloss over lipstick.
4) High lift tint lifts the hair making it feel lighter and younger.
There are lots of other factors that go’s into choosing the right colour for you and we will walk you through these so there will be no more nervous waiting as the colour develops.
* These factors include what technique will help you achieve the over all look you are after.
* Are you warm or cool skin tone.
* What placement is needed around your face to bring out your best features.
* What type of fabric is your hair.
By assessing all the above your stylist will be able to give you a truly bespoke colour just for you. Get it just right and your eyes will literally pop from your profile.
It is really important to stress that we do NOT colour anyone’s hair with out first doing a skin sensitivity test 48 hours before any colour service. We are a professional salon and our guest care is our most important priority. Even if you have had a test in another salon unless we carry out another one we will not carry out any colour service….
