Diamond Designs

As any beauty therapist or long-standing hairdresser knows, small talk is one of the tricks of the trade. Certain questions will ring in your head after the workday. “Are you going anywhere nice on holiday?” is almost a mantra at this stage!

But not everyone is keen on small talk. While Mary from up the road might be happy to tell you everything about her entire life, other clients won’t be so keen. Some salons are even introducing ‘quiet chairs’ for clients who’d rather browse a magazine than have a chat.

Regardless of the chattiness of your client, there are some conversations you just can’t have. You don’t want to inadvertently drop a clanger so bad that a client wants to make a bee-line for the door mid bikini wax – and it’s even worse if they’re a new customer and your choice of topic means they won’t be coming back.

You get to a point in your life where even the thought of having more than 20 minutes for yourself in the morning seems smug and unrealistic. God what you wouldn’t give for another ten minutes to snuggle your pillow!

So if you’re one of the lucky ones who has more time than that, enjoy it. But for the rest of us with kids to make breakfast for, traffic to dodge or a mountain of work on your desk to sort, you’re probably desperately in need of a quick and simple morning routine.