 Good morning, guys. Welcome back to my channel. I literally just woke up a little while ago, so excuse my morning voice and morning face. I had asked you guys last week on my Instagram and here on my YouTube community tab to ask me questions for a Q&A, and I intended to record that video and post it last week, but I just never got around to it. So I thought today is my day off from the salon, but I have some things that I need to do. I don't know that I'm going to have time to just like do a regular sit down video and get everything all set up. So I thought let me bring you along throughout my day and vlog it and just answer the questions. As I'm doing the things that I need to do, I think it'll be a little bit more interesting for you to watch, too. So that's what we're doing in this video. But first things first, coffee. I went to the grocery store yesterday and I picked up a new coffee creamer that I've never tried before. So I'm going to give it a try today and hope that it's not too sweet. All right, let's go sit outside and answer our first question. First question, love seeing Benny in your videos. How has your experience been compared to what you expected being a dog mom? Ben, come here. This question's about you. Come. This is my dog, Benny, an angel. He's so cute. He is a seven-month-old puppy. I adopted him when he was two months old, which is so crazy to think about because now I just feel like I've always had him in my life. And it's weird to think that I've only had him for less than half a year. Like I don't remember life without him. But being a dog mom has been wonderful and to be totally honest, it hasn't been as difficult as I thought it would be in most ways. Not that it's not a lot of work because it really is and it completely changes your life. Like every decision that I have to make now, anywhere that I'm ever going to live in the future, I always have to take him into consideration. Any plans that I make, anytime I want to go anywhere, I can't just like get up and go on a vacation. I need to figure out what am I going to do with him? Can he come with me? Who can he stay with? Even if I want to go to an appointment, I'm not one of those people that's okay with just like throwing my dog in his crate and just leaving him in there all day while I'm out working and like getting stuff done. So I literally treat him like my child. So it really has been a huge life change, but I going into it already expected that. What was actually easier for me was just having a puppy in general and like dealing with him waking up in the middle of that. I think he was just like in general pretty easy as a puppy. So maybe that's why. He wasn't like super fussy and he's very smart. He listens very well. He was pretty easy to train and I think that's what surprised me too was I didn't know how I would be with dog training, but I just watched a lot of videos on YouTube and just did a lot of research before getting him and just continue to try to learn as much as I can. I think I'm doing a pretty good job. He's a pretty good boy, especially considering how young he still is. I love when I get in the car and my phone just plays like random songs from my library. I'm stuck behind a garbage truck, but I'm on like a windy road and there's so many blind spots. So I can't see to go around him and I don't want to just like go into oncoming traffic. And if I would have left like 30 seconds sooner, I would have been in front of them, but of course I go to get in the car and start it. Okay, I think I'm good. Yeah, I went to go start my car and it wasn't turning on. And I was like, oh, that's right because I don't have my purse with my car keys. So I am currently on my way to therapy. I started going last week. This is going to be my second session and I'm just so excited. It feels so good. I've talked before about how I deal with anxiety, depression, like a lot of people do. I actually learned that anxiety is like the most common mental health disorder, whatever you want to call it. But mine has just been really, really bad the last couple of months to the point where I literally have been having panic attacks at work. So yeah, she so far is amazing. I mean, like I said, it only mattered the one time, but we clicked really well. I feel really comfortable talking with her. I tried therapy once before when I was in college. I had a terrible experience. I felt just completely written off and like the therapist just made me feel stupid for being there. So I was nervous about that, but I also didn't necessarily want to go to somebody that was going to just like be really quick to just like write me a prescription for medication. Like I wanted someone that I could talk to and could, you know, help me figure out ways that I can cope more naturally. But yeah, okay, so let me answer another question. There were so many questions asking if I ever would want to move to a different state, different country, different city, move to a bigger city where I could make more money. So let me just kind of tackle that whole subject. Here's the thing, right? Where I live, and I'm in Northeastern Pennsylvania, by the way, if you didn't know, where I live is like beautiful this time of year. Like I love spring, summer, and fall where I live. It's gorgeous. I hate the winter. It gets me very, very depressed. And those are the times especially where I wish I lived somewhere else, wish I lived, you know, somewhere where it was warm. But then like the rest of the year, I really don't mind living here and I work in a really great salon. I know a lot of people think that I own the salon where I work. I don't. I'm an employee there, but it's amazing because I have a lot of freedom. I have a lot of control over my clientele and my work, which is great. I love my boss so much. I do not take that job for granted a single day of my life. Like I realize how lucky I am that I, you know, have all that freedom, but then at the same time, I don't have to have the responsibility of owning the salon. But yeah, so I love where I work so much and I think that if I were ever to move out of the area, I wouldn't want to just go work in a salon for somebody else because I know nowhere else that I would work would give me the same kind of freedom that I have now. So I would have to do my own thing, probably just like rent a studio space and just, you know, take clients just by myself. I would just do like me and just my clients and then I could like film there and all that kind of stuff. But I don't have a desire to do that anytime super soon because it is a big responsibility and it's a big financial responsibility especially. And like if I were to move to a bigger city, yeah, sure, I'm sure that I could charge more money. I could make more money, but I also would have to spend so much more on living expenses. So, and I'm just over like city life. I like just living in a small town, having like a nice, quiet, calm, simple life. As I'm getting older, like this is just more peaceful for me. I don't know. I don't love living in the same town where I went to high school, you know, like I sometimes, and maybe it's just because I'm comparing myself on social media too much. Like sometimes, and it's stupid because I don't know why I feel this way, but sometimes I do feel like I'm a failure for not moving far away. I don't know, like, and why? What is, because I'm doing well for myself, like I should be very proud of, you know, where I'm at. But I just don't know, like if I were to move somewhere, where would I go? There's no guarantees that if I were to move somewhere else, I'd like it any better. I'm not going to know anyone. Like here is where my immediate family is. My closest friends are still here, you know, within the general area. So yeah, very long descriptive way of saying maybe in the future I will move, but for now, for the most part, I'm content where I'm at. Just got out of my appointment. It just feels so good after I come out of there, like just being able to talk to someone that's like a third party that doesn't know me and I can just, I don't know, and they can give me like actual good professional advice because like it's always nice to be able to obviously just like vent to your friends or your family, but sometimes they don't always like know what to say. Took some notes, so some stuff that I need to work on. We talked about like work-life balance because that's something that I struggle with. All right, next question. Learning that you are a successful stylist in a small town, do you think it's easier and more difficult to build clientele as a new stylist in a small town? I have this fear that I'm going to mess up someone's hair and they'll tell the whole town and there goes my reputation. Working in a small town as a stylist has its pros and cons. Pros are that everybody kind of knows each other, so I feel like it can be a little bit easier to grow through word of mouth. Cons are that sometimes there's more competition in smaller towns and usually in smaller towns, you can't charge as much as you would if you were working in a big city, but I wouldn't worry about your reputation being affected because here's the thing, you're gonna mess up. Everybody does it and especially in the beginning when you're just starting out, like you're still learning and you're gonna mess up. It's all in the way that you handle it. I've messed up people's hair tons of times before, but you always just have to hold yourself accountable. You have to be honest and do the right thing. If you notice that you messed something up, don't just throw some curls in the hair and send the client on their way and hope that they don't notice it. Point it out and fix it and if you don't have time, like say your next client is already there waiting for you, ask them to come back. You know, let them know, hey, there's something that I want to fix up. This spot over here, it didn't, isn't blended as well as I would like for it to be. What's going to affect your reputation more is your personality and your honesty and how you make your clients feel more than if you have an occasional mistake and trust me, you will stand out that way as a stylist way more and people aren't coming to you just because you do beautiful hair. They're going to come to you because they like your personality, because you make them feel good, because they feel that they can trust you. So keep that in mind and I'm sure you will be very successful. Pretty random question, but how are your thyroid levels these days? Last I remember you had gone off the thyroid meds. Back in 2014, I had shared that I had some health stuff going on. What had happened was I had been taking birth control pills for a few years and I decided to get off of them because they would make me feel sick sometimes and I just wanted to like do detox my body and nothing else other than that had changed in my everyday routine, but all of a sudden my skin was breaking out horribly. I had gained a bunch of fat. I was feeling super depressed. I just had like a whole bunch of symptoms and I was not feeling like myself. So I went to the gynecologist for my yearly exam and I was like telling everything that was going on. She had me take a blood test and she diagnosed me with polycystic ovarian syndrome and hypothyroidism, meaning my thyroid was underproducing hormones. So she suggested that I get back on the birth control pills. She also recommended that I go see an endocrinologist for the thyroid issue. The endocrinologist told me that my thyroid levels were low, but they weren't dangerously low. They were in the range where getting on medication was optional. So I decided to try the medication just to see if it helped and it seems like it was, but it was hard to tell is it the thyroid medication that's helping or is it the fact that I'm back on birth control. So I eventually, I was moving at the time and I kept forgetting to take my thyroid pill. So I ended up like weaning myself unintentionally off of it. I had to go like every month to get blood work done to keep checking on my levels to see if there was any improvement and once everything was stable for like several months, my doctor just stopped ordering the blood work. So I have not gone for a blood test in a few years now. I don't know where my levels are at honestly, but I feel okay. And I think being back on birth control is what has like really helped the most, just like stabilizing everything because I feel like the thyroid issue kind of was like triggered by the PCOS. My goal eventually, I've been saying this for a long time now, but I do eventually want to get off birth control because I know that it's not good for my body and I know that it's like just artificially keeping everything level. I want my body to be able to harmonize itself and stabilize on its own just through like healthy diet and exercise and I feel like now that I'm working on all this stuff with my mental health, like it's all just like mind, body and soul. Like it's all connected, right? So I'm hoping that within the next year or so as I'm working more on myself, I can get to a point where I can like fully heal and treat myself naturally because I don't want to have to take a pill every day for the rest of my life. You have to live in a food court. What six food establishments do you want? I love that question. Number one, Taco Bell, of course. Taco Bell Chick-fil-A, some kind of sushi place, probably Starbucks, either like a Jimmy John's or Subway. I know that's super basic, but I do like just like a basic sub every so often. Maybe like some kind of smoothie place, like a Jamba juice or something or ice cream. Sorry that this lighting kind of sucks. We're in my bathroom now. I'm gonna get ready, just do a little bit of like really light makeup because I have to take a picture for Instagram. I have a sponsored post. So let's pull up another question. You seem so comfortable doing YouTube. What are some things you do to feel at ease while filming? And then I also got a similar one. I'm trying to start my YouTube up. I'm currently in cosmetology school. I watched your videos before I started school and it helped me be prepared for school and I want to do the same for others, but I have no clue on what to film, if I'm allowed to film at school and how to edit. Please help, LOL. I have been doing YouTube for a very long time. If you look back at all of the uploads on my page, I've been doing YouTube since I was in college, pretty much like 2013. And you know, I started doing it just kind of as a hobby and I was very inconsistent with it. And I really only started like consistently posting and doing the kind of content that I do now for like the last two or three years. But I think just because I've been doing it for so long, like I'm just very used to talking to a camera. Honestly, when I first started, I remember it was, it felt extremely awkward. It just takes time to get used to it and eventually it feels very natural. But I still get like a little awkward and shy if I'm like vlogging in front of other people. I don't really like vlogging in public, especially because where I live, like it's not a normal thing to see somebody like out filming what they're doing and talking to a camera. So I definitely still have like my awkward moments. And as far as like filming in school or filming at the salon, first I would just run it by your teachers if you're still in school or if you're working in a salon that you don't own, you know, just run it by your boss. Like, hey, I want to just record a little bit of my day of what I'm doing. I want to share it online to help grow my social media presence, help me get more clients. And then before you start recording any clients, you always want to get the okay with them first. Like there's nothing more awkward than just like setting up your camera without telling them what you're doing or asking if they're okay with you filming. So yeah, just let your client know. Like, are you comfortable if I just like film a time lapse of, you know, me doing your hair. And as far as like learning to edit and all that stuff, so many people have told me, oh my God, I love what you do on YouTube. I want to do that too. And so they'll start a channel and they'll post like one video and then that's it. They just give up on it because it takes a lot of work and you have to really enjoy it. Nobody taught me how to edit. Like I just taught myself because it was fun and I just spent a lot of time, you know, doing trial and error, just playing around, teaching myself, watching videos online. There's tons of free tutorials on YouTube where you can learn how to edit and how to film and, you know, how to use a camera and all that kind of stuff. But I would say if you're just starting out and you're just kind of playing around and you're not really sure what you're doing, I would just stick to recording with your phone. And maybe like if you already have Instagram and you're already posting on there, maybe start out like that. Like just start by vlogging your day on your Instagram stories or something like that. Like do an IGTV or whatever. Feel it out first. And that way you can kind of like ease into the whole vlogging thing and see if it's something that you actually enjoy doing and something that you have the time for. There we go. My super quick like five minute light makeup. If you guys would like a tutorial on this, I could share it in like the next vlog maybe. So let me know. But it's super easy. I literally just use a little bit of this Smashbox tint and moisturizer, a little under eye concealer, some cream bronzer, cream blush, a little highlight, fluffed up my brows and then did some lip liner and gloss and that's literally it. Super easy. Didn't do anything with the eyes. Now I'm gonna go change into what I need to wear and then figure out where I want to shoot it. I think I might just do the pictures in our bedroom. So I think I'm gonna take the picture over here so that I'll have like the plants and that like I like that little corner of my bedroom. I think that'd be cute in the background. I think that looks better. Make sure you're following my personal Instagram page because that's where these photos are gonna go. I think everything came out pretty good. The way that I've been doing it is rather than like taking a million pictures and setting the timer because that takes forever. I literally just record a video. So it looks pretty stupid because I'm just like posing. But then I can just go and take a screenshot of what I like. Let's do another question. Your new place is turning out so cute. What are the next furniture pieces? Slash items slash renovations you want to do to the cottage? Love your videos and you and Benny. Oh thank you so much. That's a good question. So at this point the house is pretty much done for the most part. I mean in an ideal world there's definitely things that I would love to do like some bigger projects to like really fix it up. But I think if like I owned this house and I knew that we were gonna live here for a really long time then it would be more worth it. But I don't. My boyfriend's parents technically own it and we're just living here temporarily. I don't really know how long we're gonna be here for so it just doesn't make sense to like put a lot of time and money into doing things. Like I'd rather just save that money and then eventually buy my own house and focus on making that exactly how I want it. But as far as smaller things um we need to replace the front door. So that's something that is still on the list that we definitely need to do. And there's little things. There's like a hole in the wall in the kitchen that needs to be patched up. So that's another thing. Oh I would like to paint maybe the outside of the house because if you noticed when I was sitting outside there's parts of the trim. His mom like started painting a different color but then didn't finish. So some parts of the trim are white. Some parts are like this weird pistachio green but it's like not even finished. So I would like to just go over all of the trim and just paint it white. Make it look nice and clean. Later this week I want to go out and get like a couple a little more decorative things. Like I would like a throw blanket to put on this bed. Maybe some more like throw pillows and little things like that. But for the most part it's basically done and I'm really excited to show you guys because it's just so cute and homey in here and it's such a huge difference from when we started. Really got in the car I want to start it and I forgot my freaking purse and the keys again. Are you kidding me? My god okay. We're back in the car again because I have a new appointment now. It's been over three weeks since the last time I got them done so they are real grown out. I need to cut them down. Do you think being a hairstylist will be your lifelong career? If not, what else? I don't know. To be totally honest, probably not. I don't know. It's hard to say because right now at this point in my life I love it so much but I'm open to, you know, we have ebbs and flows in our life and I don't feel like you need to pick one career and then stick to that for the rest of your life. You know you can always change at any point. So I don't know. I mean once I get tired of it then I'll just do whatever I feel like doing in that moment. How do you deal with clients with unrealistic expectations? And that question is from one of my best friends, Paige. Hey girl, thanks for the question. The best way to deal with clients with unrealistic expectations, I actually had one of those kinds of clients a couple weeks ago. You guys saw like two vlogs ago. I shared it, it was like, I titled it like one of the hardest days that I've had at the salon or something like that. The best thing that you can do is address it during your consultation before you actually begin the service. Like explain to them what they realistically can expect and keep their expectations low. Like if you feel, and that's something that I struggle with because I always like to be super optimistic and I like to get all excited but it's better to like keep the expectations lower and under promise and then over deliver and like totally blow their mind in the end than to hype them up over promise and then under deliver because then they're just gonna be disappointed and then they're gonna feel like you lied to them, you don't know what you're doing. So try to get a good feel like I really try to be as thorough as possible during my consultations and if you'd like I actually have an online course on this how I do my consultations what questions I ask what things I address so I'll link it down below I think it's $20 but it's like very in-depth and there's like a worksheet and everything that goes with it but um yeah like try to get to know them try to get to know their lifestyle how do they normally style their hair on a daily basis what are they like as far as upkeep goes do they only like to go to the salon once a year or are they the kind of person that's gonna be there every six weeks so that way you have an idea of like okay what's gonna work with them what's their hair history you know what I mean like get to really know them so that you know what's gonna be realistic and what's not and then explain that to them as best as you can you're gonna have some clients that are just like super difficult and they just don't understand and you can repeat the same thing over and over and over to them and it just like will not click and they're just gonna always want to blame you in that case there's nothing you can do about those kind of people like but for the most part for most people talking about expectations during the consultation will help you a lot that way you don't feel like you have to like be explaining yourself in the end and all that you know they'll they'll already know what to expect just got out of my appointment here's how my nails turned out I am obsessed so now I am heading home I cannot wait to wash this makeup off of my face especially now I had to wear a mask over it so I feel like everything is just like rubbing off and it just feels gross how did you balance doing hair and lash extensions and then also why did you stop doing lashes I started out just doing hair but I decided to go and get certified and learn how to do eyelash extensions because A I was just curious to learn how to do them because I had been getting my own done for so long and B I thought you know I'm a newer stylist I'm still working on growing my clientele I'm not as busy and I thought like why not just add some more services under my belt that I could do that especially in my area it's not as popular there's not many people when I first started doing it there wasn't really anybody doing them so I figured you know that'll be a great way for me to grow my clientele get my name out there set myself apart whatever I really liked it in the beginning and I I grew my clientele super fast with that like immediately when I first started doing them I was completely fully booked it was great but it was really difficult juggling lashes and doing hair at the same time and it got to a point where I was pretty much only ever doing lashes once in a while I would have like one hair client but my schedule was 99% lashes and I didn't mind that in the beginning so I was like well you know I'm staying busy I'm making decent money whatever but I did get to a point where I was really missing doing hair and I felt like I was getting kind of stuck I started cutting back my hours I stopped taking new lash clients and for a while I was like okay maybe just certain days of the week I'll do lashes only and then other days I'll only do hair but that was really hard to juggle I got to a point where I just wasn't enjoying doing lashes anymore it was very stressful for me so when we had to close down because of quarantine last year it kind of worked out perfectly because I was like right at the point where I was like just over it and then when we opened back up I was like there's no way that I'm going to be able to get all of my lash clients back in and get them back on their two to three week fill schedule and then also be able to get in all the people who want to get their hair color done so I was like you know what fuck it like I'm just not going to do lashes anymore so yeah that is the story with that home now just washed my face feels so much better let's answer one or two more questions how do you stay motivated during slow seasons in the salon anytime that you work in the beauty industry especially if you work in salon doing hair you are going to have your super busy seasons and then your slower seasons and you know it's kind of a little bit of a roller coaster I feel like with the past year that we've had it's like really thrown everything off but typically at least from my experience anyway the slow seasons are normally like right after the holidays which is much needed because around the holidays and like leading up to the holidays it's so busy that's like our busiest time so having it like slow down after is really nice it gives you like some time to recoup and then usually like summertime is pretty slow which isn't always a bad thing because it gives you an opportunity if you want to go on vacation or something like that but for me like slower seasons in the salon gives me more time to focus on like content creation and my youtube channel and doing things that will help me to continue growing my business and growing my clientele and that's also a great time for education watching some tutorials online going to in-person classes if you can trying out new techniques even just like trying something new on a mannequin or having a family member come in and practice something on them I think that you should always try to take advantage of your time as much as possible and I don't know I feel like when it slows down in the salon it gives me that opportunity because like when we're super busy you go to work you do what you have to do you kind of get in this routine of like go go go and I feel like I'm the most creative during the slow seasons okay last question what's your biggest insecurity as of now? it's worded kind of vaguely so I don't know if you're referring to specifically like work related or just my personal life work wise I can't really think of anything off the top of my head anywhere where I may be like slacking a little bit or not doing my best I try to like just keep growing and learning and you know so I don't really feel like insecure with anything as far as work goes I don't think but as far as in my personal life I would say in general I'm a pretty confident person but the one thing that has always made me feel kind of insecure and that I think I always struggle with even when I am feeling my most confident it's like always just they're kind of like poking at me in the back of my mind is my body image and that's something that I've been trying to work on I don't know I feel like it's just always going to be like a constant battle and something that I'm going to have to always work at all right I think I'm going to wrap up this vlog here I'm going to go have dinner enjoy the rest of my night edit this video at some point thank you so much everybody who sent in questions I got a lot so thank you I'm sorry that I wasn't able to answer all of them but I hope that you enjoyed this video and that you liked how I did this more vlog style let me know down below if you liked it give the video a thumbs up if you did thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in my next video bye