Hi again!

We just returned from the New York International Beauty Show.

Our staff was spraying tats like crazy. Mindy and Wolfe only had about one hour of training at the shop before their big debut at the show. Andrea and Nate are old pros at applying tats. Everyone did an awesome job. We smoked the Jocob Javits Center crowd with tats. We were slammed with people wanting tats every day.

The most popular stencil designs were, of course, #179 on the lower back. The other popular tats were #6 the stars, #236 the cross, #291 and #159 the fairies, #282 and 290 the tigers and all the Chinese symbols

We experimented with up selling. We used a piece of flesh colored paper and printed:

Crystal Accents

by

Swarovski

$1.00 ea.

We left room at the bottom of the sheet and sprayed three different tat designs on each sheet. We added crystals to the tats. We put the sheet in a plain black 8” x 10” picture frame (very inexpensive from Hobby Lobby) without the glass so the crystals would show off their “sparkle” and placed the frames so the customer could see it while they were getting their tats. While we were spraying the tat we asked it they wanted to get a crystal added to their tat for $1 per crystal. We were surprised at how many customers wanted a crystal.

We suggest adding a crystal before you powder the customer’s skin. Also place the crystal on the skin, not on the inked tattoo. If the crystal comes off it will pull the ink off with it. We used tweezers to place the crystal. Remember to press and hold the crystal to the skin for about ten seconds, the adhesive on the crystal is heat activated.

One of the designs in the display was #171. We had seven crystals between the stems of the rose. We had a guy ask for that tat and he wanted all the crystals just like it was on the display. His friend teased him and said it made him look gay. But he didn’t care he wanted it just like the display. I have to admit it was pretty.

Two other ideas that were a big hit with our staff were suggestions we got from you, our customers. One was the use of the blue Shop paper towels for cleaning stencils (available at Costco, Sam’s Club or Wal Mart in the auto dept.). They were so absorbent and they did not snag the stencils or leave any pieces of toweling stuck to the stencils.

The other suggestion we implemented was the use of two Rubbermaid dishes, with covers, at each work station for cleaning stencils. One dish was filled with TAT Off and the other was filled with rubbing alcohol. After spraying a tat, the stencil was placed in the TAT Off. We had several stencils soaking in the TAT Off, and when we had time we put the lid on the container and shook it a few times, then removed the lid, took the stencils out, transferred them to the other container of alcohol for a quick rinse, removed them from the alcohol and gave then a once over wipe with our Shop towels, then refilled them in the stencil organizer.

Thanks to you for the great time saving ideas.

Bonnie