Brazilian Wax Ban Craziness Part II

As I said in last post, we were freaking out when on 2/14 the NJ Board of Cosmetology told us we would need to take down our sign that read Brazilian Wax withing 30 days and that Brazilian Waxing was ILLEGAL in NJ. When Rosemary Weiner called me back, she explained what had happened. The NJ Board of Cosmetology has the right to interpret the rules and regulations and when the issue came up in regards to genital area waxing, they looked at the rules and regulations which stated waxing of arms, legs, abdomen and face only. So Brazilian Waxing was excluded and thus illegal. Rosemary introduce me to the ASSP, the Association of Salon and Spa Professionals and invited me to be present at their meeting on March 2 and that they would vote on a position to send to the NJ Board of Cosmetology. At the time I was taking a class on explosive P.R marketing with Maria Simone- http://passion2prosperity.com ( business coach) and Sherry Butler, a publicist from Butler Communications (www.slbcom.com ). I was learning how to write Press Release and how to pitch to the media but we knew that this would need a bigger team since we would be waking up the lion and did not know what could happen to our business. After many calls, hours and talks with Sherry, Rosemary and myself, I talked with my mother owner of Jaira' Salon and said you have to options- you either hide or your fight head on. And oh what a hard decision it was, we were so frightened but one thing helped me was my mom's reaction to this adversity. Her first reaction was not one of panicking but she turned to me and said, All things work in favor of those who serve God and as a God fearing woman, her words had power. And Sherry and I felt a whole lot better after we spoke with Rosemary who then confirmed that the ASSP supported the Brazilian Waxing and they voted to send a position paper to the NJ Board for their next meeting which would be held on March 10th, 2009. For that meeting the ASSP put together a wonderful position paper with justifications to permit the service and socio-economic impact of the loss of revenue as well as definitions of the service actually consisted of. We both felt there was an adverse perception of the Brazilian Wax and the proposal paper explained it so well. In a closed session to our sup rise the NJ board of cosmetology voted NO to the inclusion of the Brazilian Wax and agreed to uphold their current language which excluded it. Oh oh again. We than began an bilingual international grass roots campaign on twitter, Face book as well as sent Press Releases to the local American papers, Brazilian press, as well as Latino Radio Station and T.V stations. I do not think Sherry knew what she was in for. With a three hour time differance, as well as Portuguese speaking press, we started a ride that would be talked about world wide. Stay tuned for Part III of how I helped ban and helping legalize Brazilian Waxing in NJ.