Our Town: Tahoe business owner helps women gain 'BeautiControl'

Nancy Oliver Hayden
Tahoe Tribune


Linda LaFavor-Coyle's world revolves around image, self-esteem and helping women feel good about themselves. She does this as a consultant, executive director and senior trainer with BeautiControl, a skin care, spa and image company. The Minneapolis, Minn., native, who says she is 50ish, has been a resident of South Lake Tahoe since 1985. She came to visit friends, and as so many people do, fell in love with Tahoe and moved here.

She was working as a clerk at the post office in 1988 when she saw an advertisement for BeautiControl in the Tahoe Daily Tribune. The company was looking for people to be beauty consultants in the area, and she became the first one at Tahoe. It was a perfect fit, since LaFavor-Coyle has a background as a make-up artist. She started attending cosmetology school while she was still in high school. Upon graduation at age 18, she received her cosmetology license and worked as a hair stylist in a neighborhood beauty salon for 10 years.

She went to Hollywood in 1979, where she attended the Joe Blasco Make-up School and was a make-up artist for TV and film for a few years. She then returned to Minneapolis and worked for Target as a make-up artist for the company's TV commercials for several more years.

LaFavor-Coyle started her business at Tahoe by inviting friends to a party and teaching them about skin care, the importance of sunscreen and how to "do" their make-up in five minutes. She is now a manager and leads a team of 480 women all over the U.S. She travels to meetings and training sessions to motivate and support them and stays in touch via e-mail, telephone and personal contact. Her business has grown to include a mobile spa program, where she goes to clients' homes and offices. She provides mini-spa treatments and teaches women to relax and pamper themselves.

Another facet of LaFavor-Coyle's business is "Tahoe Weddings A Go Go," where she provides in-room hair and make-up service for brides. She said this is the easiest, most fun thing she does - and it's all girl time.

Her success with BeautiControl has earned her several trips. She was one of 100 consultants out of 150,000 in the company who earned a seven-day trip to Monte Carlo in 2006. And because of her company car allowance, she hasn't made a car payment in 15 years.

She and her husband of 10 years, John Coyle, enjoy riding road bikes and competing in century road rides. They have two furry, feline "children," Lucky and Smoky, who are 15 years old. LaFavor-Coyle is a member of Soroptimist International of South Lake Tahoe and Barton Memorial Hospital Auxiliary. She is also certified for the American Cancer Society "Look Good, Feel Good" program for women with cancer. She teaches them how to take care of their skin and hair, including tips on applying make-up and using wigs.

Here are LaFavor-Coyle's answers to the Tribune's questions:

1. HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE REMEMBERED WHEN YOU DIE?
"As a woman who helped other women build their self-esteem on the inside and out. I love to be their cheerleader and say 'yes, you can do it.'"


2. WHAT IS SOUTH LAKE TAHOE'S MOST PRESSING ISSUE TODAY?
"I would say the housing market. When I see a for sale sign, I want to say, 'Don't leave Tahoe. Do whatever it takes to stay in this beautiful place.'"


3. IF YOU COULD CHOOSE ANY AMERICAN CITIZEN TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, WHO WOULD IT BE?
"My world revolves around supporting and encouraging women, so maybe it's time for a woman president?"


4. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT?
"John and I just bought a fifth-wheel travel trailer and enjoy traveling with friends and meeting new people. I intend to 'spa' the RV parks. We enjoy being outdoors, riding bikes and wine tasting. We plan to travel in the RV when we retire."


5. IF YOU COULD CHOOSE ONE THING TO DO OVER IN YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
"Oh, my gosh! I'm happy with my life. I feel like I've accomplished more than I ever dreamed I would, and there is nothing I would do over."


6. WHAT LIVING PERSON DO YOU MOST ADMIRE?
"My youngest sister, Brenda Montgomery. She has a gift of bringing out the best in people with her fabulous management and life skills and making everyone feel special. She is my mentor."


7. WHAT HISTORICAL FIGURE DO YOU MOST ADMIRE?
"I would say Mother Teresa. For her to be able to do something so important, especially as she advanced in age, is remarkable."


8. IF YOU COULD SPEND AN HOUR WITH ANYONE IN THE WORLD, WHO WOULD IT BE?
"That's easy, it would be Lance Armstrong. He could teach me everything he knows about road biking. I'd like to learn his discipline of how to just keep going on those hard hills."


9. WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE IF YOU HAD THE CHANCE: WIN AN INDIVIDUAL OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL OR A PULITZER PRIZE?
"I can't choose, so how about both. To be able to push yourself athletically as far as you can to win a gold medal would be such an adrenaline rush. And I'd love to be so talented with words and be able to share that with the world that I would win a Pulitzer Prize."


10. IF YOU COULD BE IN ANY PROFESSION OTHER THAN YOUR OWN, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
"Don't laugh, but at one time I thought of being a police officer. I think I would be good at handling situations and helping get the bad guys off the street."

Teachers team up for direct sales business

BeautiControl Skin Care Products

By KEITH ROYSDON, The Star Press

For three Muncie teachers, teamwork in the classroom has translated into teamwork in business. Kim Williams, Sara Fauquher and Jennifer Kile teach sixth grade at Wilson Middle School. The three make up a teaching team -- Kile teaches math, Fauquher teaches science and Williams teaches English.

Outside school hours, the three are independent direct sales people. Each sells a different product, but they also team up for in-home parties to reach potential customers. "It's an opportunity to have fun, fellowship with women and earn a little extra money on the side," Kile said. Kile sells Premier Designs jewelry, Fauquher sells BeautiControl home spa products and Williams sells Pampered Chef cookware.

Williams laughed when asked why she sells kitchenware. "Rachael Ray is my idol," she said, referring to the TV personality. "I like to cook, and I like to cook for others." Fauquher said at-home spa products appealed to her because "I like to see people relax and get rid of their stress. Lord knows we all have it."

Billion-dollar industry
The direct sales industry -- long symbolized by door-to-door cosmetics and vacuum cleaner sales people -- has changed in recent years. The Direct Selling Association reported sales of more than $32 billion in 2006. The industry group says as many as 15 million people work in direct sales. Although men make up 25 percent of the independent sales workforce, it is still an industry dominated by women. The gender of the sales force coincides in many ways with the products sold. Cosmetics, jewelry and skin care make up nearly 34 percent of the products sold by direct sales people, according to the DSA. Home products, like cookware, make up 26 percent. Weight loss products and vitamins account for another 20 percent. For many years, Longaberger baskets were among the top products for direct sales people. The upscale baskets -- like many direct sales products -- are sold in home-based parties that mix business and fun for sales people and potential customers.

Party teamwork
While Williams and Fauquher have been conducting in-home sales parties for a while, Kile has only recently joined the mix. The three have a game plan for their parties. Williams whips up some dishes using Pampered Chef cookware and utensils. While food is cooking, the group moves to the living room, where Fauquher demonstrates hand massages and neck wraps from BeautiControl. Kile then showcases Premier Designs jewelry offerings. "Then they can eat and fellowship and order products if they like," Fauquher said. "If someone wants to book just one of us, they can. But this is a way for us to 'team teach.' We're used to doing this in school and thought in our side business this is what we would be most comfortable doing."

Busy in breaks
While the school year can be busy for teachers, the three said they wanted something to keep them busy after hours and during breaks. "Almost every teacher I know does something else in the summer," Fauquher said. "I think most teachers have other jobs. It keeps them busy year-round." "Maybe my decision will change down the road, but right now I want to stick with teaching and doing this on the side," Williams said. Direct sales works for teachers, Kile said. "There's freedom to do things on your own schedule. I love teaching. I didn't want to quit teaching."

Here is the snooze

from Times Online, Susan d’Arcy reports

Spas are waking up to the fact that sleep, not a mango wrap, is the key to holistichappiness. Sleep has become the bottled water of the hospitality industry. It might be readily available for free, but hotels have been investing millions as they compete to provide guests with the dreamiest night’s rest ever.

You can now slip between cashmere sheets costing thousands of pounds at the Principe di Savoia, in Milan; or choose from a 20-strong pillow menu at Frégate Island, in the Seychelles (including an antiageing one infused with vitamin E, and an eco-friendly version made from buckwheat spelt). It’s possible to engage the services of a sleep concierge at the Benjamin, in New York, and snuggle up on a mattress costing £14,000 at Cotswold House, in Gloucestershire. You can even do a Victor Kiam: Westin sells its Heavenly Bed mattresses from £1,200; adding the linen, pillows and duvet cover with overstuffed polyester insert will cost from £2,200. A Sheraton Sweet Sleeper or a Sofitel MyBed will set you back similar sums.

iF the pillow fights have been intense up to now, sleep is about to move into a whole other league. Luxury SpaFinder magazine, recently declared sleep the new wellness frontier. And unlike some overhyped, must-try treatments, for which the only sensible course of action is to back slowly out of the room, smiling (the facial featuring nightingale droppings, the massage that slithers snakes across your back, having your toes read), this hot trend is actually sensible. Many scientific studies have linked lack of sleep to poor health, increased stress levels and obesity.

American spas were the first to identify that a good night’s sleep is one sure way to a spa-goer’s wallet; some of the best even employ directors of sleep. Canyon Ranch, one of the USA’s most influential wellness companies, was a pioneer. The sleep-enhancement programme at its Arizona base comes with reassuring amounts of medical paraphernalia. Guests can spend the night in a sleep lab, where qualified doctors attach monitors to the guinea pig for a polysomnography test that will reveal brainwave patterns and establish possible causes for poor sleep. Based on these findings, the guest has consultations with behavioural therapists, exercise physiologists and nutritionists – surely enough to make even a committed insomniac ready for bed. The Pritikin Longevity Center and Spa, in Florida, also offers clinical diagnosis based on sophisticated monitoring, although it admits one of the main predictors of sleep apnoea, a common complaint, isn’t rocket science – you’re likely to suffer from it if your neck size is greater than 17½in. If you want the high-tech slumber number with five-star frills, the upmarket hotelier Four Seasons has teamed up with the California WellBeing Institute at its Westlake Village property, near Los Angeles.

Other spas take a more holistic, chimes’n’chants approach. The award-winning Red Mountain Spa, in Utah, holds regular sellout Sweet Art of Sleep Seduction workshops, which involve “fun and experiential” discussions on various ways to create the correct environment for sleep, such as prebed stretches, organic “zzzzzmersion” massages and a zMusic CD (“the gold standard of sleep music”, apparently). A professor from the University of Arizona works with the Miraval Resort, in Tucson: his “body, mind, spirit” perspective covers everything from eating habits to how you decorate your bedroom. The Mayflower, in Connecticut, advocates hypnotherapy and acupuncture. And, before you knock new-age methods, bear in mind that the World Health Organisation has approved acupuncture as a treatment for insomnia.

While New York might revel in its reputation as the city that never sleeps, some of its residents really wouldn’t mind a bit more shuteye. Yelo and MetroNaps both offer a refuge for a quick snooze, selling 20-to 40-minute slots in a “nod pod”, where customers are tucked in with cashmere blankets, a soporific soundtrack and a side order of reflexology.

Europe's been caught napping, but things are changing. The glitzy Fortina Spa Resort, on Malta, where Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe and the health secretary, Alan Johnson, have holidayed, is an early European innovator. It has just launched the first of 47 Wellness Rejuvenation Rooms, each fitted with £4,500 worth of sleep-inducing equipment, including a magnetic mattress, pillows and duvet. “They magnetise your entire body, relieving it of all aches, pains and stress,” the hotel says. “The proven benefits cover everything from encouraging deep-healing sleep to aiding the lymphatic system to release toxins.” The rooms also feature far-infrared technology that “detoxifies” the body, as well as an air purifier to recreate fresh mountain air.

The dynamic new six-star Capella Hotels company, created by Horst Schulze, who is widely regarded as one of the canniest hoteliers in the world, is also in the vanguard. Schulze is convinced that sleep education will play an important role at spas in the future, so Capella’s new flagship property, Schloss Velden, in Austria, will run a Sleep Health-Life Balance programme from September to March each year. Guests will be evaluated by professional trainers, nutritional coaches and medical experts, then given a customised week-long schedule, including spa treatments based on the moon’s phases, lectures, yoga classes and autogenic training – a relaxation technique designed to get you snoozing. They will also use pillows and duvets filled with Swiss stone pine strands, which, according to research by the University of Graz, induce better sleep.

In the UK, we’re way behind – although the Sanctuary day spa, in London, can claim a world first. Its spa director, Debi Green, spent more than a year and £90,000 developing the first low-frequency-sound-wave therapy beds for its new sleep retreat. The theory is that sound waves penetrate the muscles more gently and effectively than massage, releasing pain and tension, and lulling the user into a tranquil state. Most guests nod off quickly. One woman even reported having flashbacks to childhood memories – happy ones, fortunately. “We’re always a bit slower on spa innovations than the Americans,” Green says. “But sleep is so important to general health that I’m sure we’ll see lots of UK spas developing sleep programmes in future.”

Until then, a cup of cocoa and a DVD of Heaven’s Gate is probably still your best bet for nodding off – although the latter could also cause nightmares.

Spa Treatments May Help Fight Some Diseases

from NBC4.com

SAN DIEGO -- A trip to the spa usually feels relaxing, and new research shows that getting rid of all that stress can also help fight some diseases. Integrative medical specialist Dr. Mimi Guarneri said lowering your stress level has real medical benefits. Spas now offer treatments that target medical problems. One type of facial is said help get rid of toxins in the lymph nodes.

Susan Furioli, a grandmother, said she skips the antacid when her stomach hurts. Instead, she opts for reflexology foot massage, which is said to help digestive problems. Similar to ancient acupressure, there's new evidence that pressure-point massage works. Guarneri warned about treatments that promise a quick fix. Some therapists say a heated body wrap not only increases the metabolism to help you burn calories but also is good for arthritis, fibromalgia and sore muscles, but Guarneri said she hasn't seen research that shows the wrap can help arthritis.

Manage stress with relaxing spa day

from RecordOnline - Times Herald-Record

A few Sundays ago was spa day at Maureen's. My girlfriend Maureen is a single parent and a very hardworking individual. She is raising two great children, Brittany, a high school junior, and Kevin, who recently entered Navy boot camp, and is my son Max's best friend. She manages a household, pays her bills and, like many of us, generally hustles from paycheck to paycheck. She is a physical therapist by profession, and a few years back decided to add "licensed massage therapist" to her credentials by toiling nights at SUNY Orange for her degree. She's my hero, and we will address theme of women as superheroes in another column.

Sounds like a busy, Type-A kind of gal, who must really manage her stress levels well. Perhaps, but guess what? Maureen has decided to enter into yet another career, as a BeautiControl consultant. This job not only allows a person to make extra cash, but is a fun way to help relieve stress.

Spa parties give the girls a chance to get together for a few hours either after work or on weekends, to eat, bond, and have a few laughs while the guys watch a game. Maureen recently held her first spa escape party, and this is what we did: First of all, we met new gals and spoke about hubbies, boyfriends, our children and jobs. Maureen's mentor guided us through the various types of treatments that the products offered.

We were whisked into the bathroom to wash our hands and be treated to some nice moisturizing hand creams. Felt great! Munched on veggies, dip, crackers, cheese and wine, and we all began to shelve our inhibitions. One of the treatments was a relaxation technique, which we all needed with our busy lives. First, we took off our shoes and socks, were given a warm washcloth then some great foot cream, with cute socks to seal in the cream while it began its invigorating action. We were then given a lip treatment and a warm, microwaved neck pillow while a relaxation meditation segment was conducted, which took us away to the warm ocean breezes of Hawaii in a hammock. Not a bad thing when it was about 25 degrees outside! After that, we were given product catalogs and order forms so we would purchase those luxurious indulgences and pamper ourselves whenever we wanted. We could even become a spa consultant, if we felt we needed to add yet another career to our already overextended lives.

Everyone needs a spa day! Give yourself a treat. There are also several men's products, so the guys are welcome, unless they prefer staying at home for the game.

Making your own spa cucumber water

from At Home with Kim Vallee

Since it is no more fashionable to serve bottled water, the trendy hostess needs to dish up the tab water. Last summer, I showed you how to serve a pitcher of water with fresh berries. The look was great but the taste of the water is not distinctively altered by the berries.

Cucumber water improves the taste of tap water. Spa aficionados already experience the benefits of cucumber water for improving the look of your skin. On top of it, this drink is simple to make at home.

Cucumber Water Recipe
In order for the cucumber to fully release its juice, you need to prepare it the day before your event.

Ingredients:

1 cucumber, sliced and unpeeled + 6-7 cucumber slices for decoration
1 ½ to 2 liters of water
3 mint sprigs + 2 mint sprigs for decoration
Half a lemon, sliced and unpeeled
Ice cubes
In a pitcher, mix the water, cucumber, 3 mint sprigs and lemon. Let it rest on the fridge for 24 hours. If you prepare the water at the last minute, cut the first cucumber in three or four pieces. Then, squeeze the cucumber pieces to release all the juice.

Before serving remove the cucumber slices used to flavor the water. Then stir with a wooden spoon, add some ice cubes, 6 or 7 fresh cucumber slices and the remaining 2 mint sprigs. Enjoy this refreshing drink.

All about beauty

Shop Online for BeautiControl Products at the best prices ever!

from icWales, Alan Pan, Western Mail

We all suffer from stress from time to time, with its most apparent signs on the face. If we do not look after our skin, this can cause some longer term damage. Firstly, it is important to know what factors cause stress on the skin. The most obvious is one we all know about. Smoking uses up valuable supplies of vitamin C in the skin so you should ideally stop smoking or reduce your nicotine intake. Other more obvious factors that can have an effect are pollution and UVA and UVB rays. Therefore you should always use a protective moisturiser packed with antioxidants and a crucial SPF.

A not-so-obvious factor is cleansing, which can be a very harsh process. The removal of excess cells through cleansing can lead to stressed skin, and as a result our skin is not able to handle repair treatments. Milder cleansers remove only what needs to be removed, leaving the skin prepared for repair products. I can’t stress how important mild cleansing is – harsher is not necessarily better and after cleansing, skin should feel soft. Try to also avoid mental stress because it negatively impacts skin ageing.

A stressed face often appears dull and grey: however this can be changed with products that even out skin tone, improve clarity and colour. A serum is beneficial for all skin types, especially skin that has been subjected to a lot of stress and shows severe signs of ageing. The repair benefits provided by the various technologies introduced in a serum allow for faster repair of any damage that has incurred. Another good product to recommend on stressed skin is Stress Relief Eye Masks which can calm and soothe the eye area, improving the condition of the skin around the eyes and giving a comfort boost to the psyche.

Some women mistakenly refer to their skin as “sensitive” because you can easily mix up the meaning of sensitive with feminine and delicate. It is important to know if your skin is truly sensitive or stressed as a result of other factors.