Missy's Place Real One

Renovations and our own Overhaul

2010-11-28T22:19:00.000+11:00

This year we are a changing!

About 4 months ago and after having my new baby "Indi" I thought what better way than to come back to Missy's Place than with a bang. Give it an Overhaul (just like our most popular facial name), freshen up all of the rooms & garden and while I am at it why not have??:

A new website, new brochures, new blog, a new treatment room, a new product range with brand new treatments but the one thing I haven't changed.....is my staff. (love them all and our new addition Coleen (celebrity facialist to the stars) & Tomomi (fantastic amazing remedial massage therapist)

Anyway I thought I would share some new photos of Missy's Place and hope that you will stop by and see for yourself.

Nothing like a Mani, a Vogue and a nice cup of tea at Missy's

Missy's Place: a bit coastal, french, traditional mmm........ or perhaps beachy & cottage style.
Maybe a bit of everything.

Our beautiful Red Room is now a double for couples or girlfriends coming together!

Our new "green" room

Our beachy "blue" room

Christmas at Missy's Place

2010-11-28T16:03:00.003+11:00

There is a certain feel around the month of December at Missy's Place. Maybe it is those summer nights starting to set in, a vague buzz of people wanting those last minute things like waxing or a pedicure for something special they have on or even that we can open the door to the manicure pedi area and let the garden sunshine in which sunlights the room. There is something about it.

(Lucy is back for those who might want to know!)

I love putting the decorations up. I always have done ever since I was a child. We were allowed 3 new decorations each to buy. I used to get so excited and choose very carefully. I still do the same with Missy's and have bought a few new ones each year. I thouroughly recommend Shack, Bed Bath n Table and Papaya.

Love my reindeer (he has been with me since the beginning!)

Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas xx

Life and Work Life Balance!

2010-11-28T15:26:00.001+11:00

I thought this photo was especially true at the moment for me and so many of you will relate I am sure!

My beautiful Indi the ultimate in work life balance!

Missy's Place & Me

2010-10-19T23:54:00.106+11:00

My Story

I never intended to be a “beauty therapist” I was a “flitter.”

Never staying in one place, state, country or in fact any job very long either. I got bored and restless so easily. I was perhaps either working behind a bar on Kings Road, Chelsea in London, busy owning a sandwich bar in Notting Hill Gate, perhaps asking people if they wanted a tea or coffee in a café on the beach on KoTao island in Thailand, travelling as a cocktail waitress on a P&O cruise ship (ok maybe it was just for one cruise) or working as a PA, EA and many other A’s for many different companies and at places that I thought I would enjoy. See I definitely was a “flitter”

I actually wanted to study Natural Therapies but the Natural Beauty Therapy course at ACNT in Sydney offered everything I was interested in. (and in one year also) Bach Flowers, Aromatherapy, Reflexology, Remedial Massage, Nutrition, the list went on. The fact that I received a Diploma in Beauty Therapy didn’t matter to me at all because clearly I was never going to be a beauty therapist.

What I didn’t count on was the passion and the love I had for it.

I loved the chance to make someone feel so much better than when they came to you. To make something perfect like eyebrows, a pedicure or doing some reiki in a massage. I just loved that feeling of doing something well and people really appreciating it. (and let’s face it not such a good idea to be horrible to your beauty therapist! Bad bad idea)

See clients had to be nice…I had found it, my passion.

I have always loved people. Loved sharing. Finding out a story and sharing mine. To have a client come for a treatment and because of a conversation you have had, you both leave each other laughing or crying (sometimes both). You can’t buy that. It is rare. People have told me things in confidence that they haven’t told a soul and vice versa. I might write a book one day and call it “Tales from a dark room!”

I think that when you touch someone it is easy to open up to each other. Especially these days as everyone is so busy and we have lost connection with each other. We are so busy texting, emailing and hellooo bloging that part of me thinks we are reaching out to feel that connection to each other but in the wrong way because quite often that person is right next to you. In saying that I think the art of being an amazing therapist is to know when to talk and when not to!

I have had throughout my career the rare privilege of making a difference. For many years one on one as a therapist and on a bigger scale with the creation of Missy’s Place. It has nothing to do with the perfect nail paint or leaving someones skin glowing with an amazing facial. (these things are always a given to me) It is the stories, the caring, the exchange that fills me up. I love it, I love what I do and how I spend my day.

Missy's Place Feel

My other passion (other than shopping) is interiors. I guess in a way for the same reason as I love beauty therapy. Creating something beautiful. I love making a space work that is not only practical and comfortable but makes you feel a certain way. Lifts you up and makes you feel that bit special just being there. I hope that is how people feel when they come to us at Missy’s.

My Beautiful Girls

If I am going to spend my time anywhere doing anything I want to be surrounded by people who not only do an amazing job but are the most kind, caring and fantastic people. People who share my same beliefs and values and love what they do.

I am not saying I have not made mistakes, I have. Starting any business is a certainly a journey and I definitely have had people who worked for me that have shocked the hell out of me. Life and people certainly don’t surprise me anymore. It is always a learning curve. Fortunately for me many of those mistakes have” left the building” so to speak and I am so truly fortunate that the girls I spend the day with now are amongst some of the people I care about most and have the highest regard for. Those are the ones that are at Missy’s right now. I have worked with therapists in spas all over Australia and the world and can honestly say I know no better than these girls.

So Missy’s Place is all of these things. I try my best, honestly I do. The girls try their best to make it not only a beautiful place to come but to give exceptional treatments. I hope you like my blog and that you find it interesting, informative, heartwarming and most of all fun.

Missy x

Mandarin Oriental – The Shanghai Pedicure

2010-10-19T00:28:00.009+11:00

So I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Last year Jeff (aka my husband) had mentioned to me that his friends (fab spa writer) wife had told him all about the famous Shanghai Pedicure. I had been a bit blasé at the time because to be quite frank I’ve always thought our pedicures at Missy’s were the best.

You see I have been doing pedicures for years and in my day had gained a reputation as a bit of a "Pedi Queen” (Still till this day I think it is only Jenna Holly Chrystal from Missy's that can out paint me with a red....anyway back to the story)

So what was this famous pedi all about and why so special?? Well after just returning from Hong Kong with Jeff on a bit of a 4 day whirlwind trip and funnily enough staying where this popular pedi lived (The Mandarin Oriental) I can now officially tell you all. It began a bit like this...

After a lovely massage in the spa I am ready. I enter the barber shop to be greeted my man Ben ( I call him my man because I am not really sure what to call him. He is not a podiatrist but certainly has much of a more serious air about him than any beauty therapist I have ever met) I shall just call him “Ben Shanghai Pedi specialist.” for the sake of my story. Anyway, I am taken to a small but very stylish room and immediately felt a little bit of love for my surrounds. It had a sofa seat like ours at Missy’s (but in leather) and a big butler sink built into the ground filled with soapy suds filled (all a bit posh and with my own TV and Foxtel to watch). I put my feet in the soaking water and feel relieved when I look over to see some OPI products and the quick dry that we use too. (Somehow this was reassuring to me as it felt at least a little bit familiar)

I then see the oddest thing…he starts pulling out these implements, a set of blades (yes like a steak knife set) not just one but a series of them and so many of them. If I looked surprised he really was so nice about it and then takes one of my feet in his hand and then it starts. "Ben Shanghai Pedi specialist" was truly a miracle worker and he did something I have never honestly had before. He thinly bladed the whole base of my feet. He took away every single bit of dry skin, bladed it all away with an implement thin chisel like I have never seen before. Literally like a carpenter with a chisel and my feet were the wood! It was a friggin miracle. I was in awe of Ben. When he has finished my heels, he then starts on my nails (no cuticle or nail clippers here.. just the blades) It goes on for about 40 minutes, until my feet were like babies. He polishes my toes with yet another blade before painting bright red and a very perfect polish. I truly was impressed that Ben had gone where no therapist had gone before. I was speechless.

My mind was ticking over. It was no more the Shanghai pedi because we were 100% moving it to Sydney!

I asked Ben if I could buy these implements. (ahh one little problem he didn’t speak English, just smiled at me alot) so of course I would do what any desperate person would do. I would find a translater because helllooo I needed those implements. How would I get them home? Were they illegal for the plane? How would I show Jenna Holly Chrystal how to use them? My mind was racing. If he wouldn’t share his secrets of getting those special tools to change Missy’s Pedis forever I would just have to get him to leave the room somehow and I’d pick them up and run of course. Did he have my room number? Would he recognise me? I wondered what a prison cell would look like in Hong Kong? Um probably not so great. Calm calm…Missy.

It was over. I touched my super soft feet and hugged Ben. I don’t think Hong Kong people are huggers. If he was going to pretend he didn’t know English I would find out from the reception all the info that Ben was keeping from me.

It is at this point I must report my sad news. They were Ben's. I could not buy them, no one can and he had gone to special school just to learn about those tools for a whole year. NO! There would be no Missy’s Shanghai Pedi and Ben Shanghai Pedi specialist would not be joining me on my plane back to Sydney anytime soon.

So there it is short and sweet:

It was an amazing incredible blading pedi experience that will leave not only yours but your husbands heels (yes he went too) super soft.

I loved my room, the experience and thought Ben was a true feet artist

Bless you Ben for teaching me “yes pedi queen blah blah” a thing or 2 about how we can make our pedis at Missy’s even better. (It must have worked as we have now officially launched our new "FEET TREAT PEDICURE!" with our own Missy's Glycolic Peel and Heel Treatment)

So if any of you ever make your way to the Mandarin Oriental Barber Shop to see Ben......just remember this......when he leaves the room take those implements and run.

I'll pay good money!

My Thoughts

Hong Kong is a funny city. It has an energy about it. I liked it a lot. You feel as though you could see the poorest person in an alley way and in the next minute turn to see Madonna coming out of LouisVitton. There is a sense of edginess in the air, it’s very glitzy glam and like an Asian New York that doesn’t end. It’s a city that is full of life and certainly full of people. When you hear that phrase “people are all the same the world over” I really don’t think that applies to Hong Kong. It’s sweeping growth means that living there I’d imagine you either get on board or go home. I can’t wait to go back….better start saving now.