Lash Stylist of the Month

The Lash Doctor is in. That’s what clients have taken to calling Lora Condon after receiving the benefit of her hands-on work. It’s an apt description for someone who possesses the technical skills to apply individual lash extensions with the precision of a skilled surgeon, her clients feel.

A licensed esthetician since 1998, Lora has been offering hands-on services in her New Jersey skin and body spa, Magic Hands, since opening the location in September 2007. With a long standing interest in the healing arts, Lora provides a blend of traditional esthetic services like facials and waxing, alongside more holistic ones such as Reiki and Reflexology, to improve both the inner and outer body of her clients. Xtreme Lashes were added to the spa menu a mere month after she opened at the request of numerous visiting clients.

“Being an Xtreme stylist can fit into whatever you’re doing,” says Lora. “It’s another great item in your tool kit and a really great segues way into doing other things for your clients.” Lora made the conscious choice to select Xtreme Lashes for her lash training and products due to the company’s reputation for quality. As a small business owner she admits her spa is not a destination spa. Her business success relies on regular and repeat clientele to survive so quality, in service and products, is of the utmost importance. “There is no room for error when you’re small. I have to be offering the best and that’s why I chose Xtreme.”

Two years later, Lora knows she made the right decision and feels that adding Xtreme Lashes to her menu was the key to making her business grow. “I love Xtreme Lashes! If I wasn’t doing eyelashes, I would have no business right now,” she tells us. “With the current economic issues, people may get facials once or twice a year, but once they have the lashes, they want to keep them up. My Xtreme Lashes services have become the draw that brings people in and keeps them coming back.”

Lora says approximately 50% of her clients are nurses from a nearby hospital, a location she strategically marketed her business to. “Nurses work a lot of crazy hours, earn a good income and don’t have a lot of maintenance time, making this an ideal service for them,” she explains. Lora paid for an advertisement to be printed on a discount card alongside other businesses that she distributed to the hospital’s personal. She says this targeted marketing effort led to a huge initial payoff and the referral of future business from hospital staffers.

“The best advertisements for my business are always my happy clients. I really try to go above and beyond to make sure they’re 100% satisfied. I’m not a lash miser – I’m generous with my lashes. If a client calls and is unhappy with a gap, I want to fix it for them.” This excellent customer service has paid off with the help of the referral program Lora initiated. She rewards referral sources with discounts on their refills and occasional complimentary gifts. Lora says one client even worked a referral in as she went under for surgery when the nurse complimented her lashes as she was putting on the anesthesia mask!

While she may be the Lash Doctor to her nurse clients, Lora also puts her healing hands to use on several clients of a different nature. Her love of animals led her to add certified horse and dog massage therapist to her list of titles. She has been featured by numerous media outlets, discussing the benefits of massage for horses, and performed charity work with police horses in her spare time.

Her lash work hasn’t been left out of the limelight, either. Lora’s Xtreme Lashes applications have graced clients on The View, Good Morning America, the 2009 Revival of the Broadway’s Tony award and on celebrities like Stacey Winkler, wife of actor/producer Henry Winkler. While some might assume that high profile clients like these are divas, Lora says it’s actually the complete opposite. “The majority of my clients are really low maintenance people who don’t even want to wear mascara. This is the perfect solution for them – to look great without a lot of fuss.”

With a busy schedule already, Lora says her goal is to become busier and busier still with each passing year. A former contributing writer for City Chick Mag’s beauty column, Lora currently writes for Womens Mafia, informing consumers about the latest beauty products and services. She says she would love to be “the Ralph Nadar of the beauty industry”, a consumer watch dog, of sorts, for beauty. “So many women don’t ask any questions and I see too many bad lash applications come in for corrective work because consumers didn’t know what to expect or, worse, had been deliberately misinformed.”

Thankfully, these victims of bad lashing have Lora Condon, The Lash Doctor, around to fix them up!

Here are a few comments from clients who have benefited from her touch: