Below 2: Back wall with fireplace (to be encased in
blackened steel) and palate of flooring material (in plastic shrink wrap). 
ABOVE: Bill, our electrician. It's hard to get him to smile, but we've done it! (Not captured well here, of course).
LEFT: Here's the plumbing for our high temperature sanitizer (for footbaths, bowls, and anything too big to sterilize in our autoclave).
I am really going to miss Tom, Mitch, Kirk, and Bill when we're done with this buildout. My friend and graphic designer, Shari, confessed to me that she missed her bathroom remodelers a little once they had finally cleared out (leaving a gorgeous bathroom).
It's just another excuse to start looking for the next parlor location . . .
This week, I'm really excited that Karri has arranged to interview all of our vernisseur candidates in the Purple Room at the Silver Cloud Inn across the street from Julep all day next Monday and Tuesday.
Tonight she swung by to pick up the color template for our toluene, formaldehyde and dibutyl pthalate free nail polish line. We've got over thirty great colors, which we're naming after some of our favorite style icons:
- Dark burgundy/black: The "Lindsay" (after my friend "Lindsay SMITH", of course)
- Soft, translucent pink: The "Reese" (after my friend "Reese SMITH", of course)
- Fire engine red: The "Marilyn" (after my friend "Marilyn SMITH", of course)
- Mauvy purple: The "Halle" (after my friend "Halle SMITH", of course)
- etc. etc.
But since I wanted soft pinks, dark reds, burgundies, bright corals, etc. in both warm and cool tones (so people of every skin tone, including darker skinned people like me, can have access to more options), the color choices were pretty tricky. Our sample sheet has:
- blue circles (colors Karri's clients liked)
- pink highlighter (top selling colors)
- red stars (hot runway colors this season)
- blue stars (cross referenced colors from MAC and Bobbi Brown, the color experts in cosmetics)
- red circles - my final recommendations
Now we'll have to incorporate Karri's final input and then our final final choices.
And hopefully our bottles are already silk screened and ready to fill with our color choices!
I also met with Kari (Moe Straley) and Jen (Porter) with Marketing Alchemist today to plot our marketing and PR strategy. It was so great working together with such smart, creative women about creative ways to get the word out. Even better (from my perspective, anyway!) that these plans will be implemented in the next few weeks, instead of months or years, as I've been used to in my work with larger companies. The immediacy of this work is addictive.
