Meet J'ai Lone

By Alexis Carra

I'm a gal who always saw getting facials as a balance between pleasure and pain.  It starts off pleasant-the cleansing, the mask, the head massage if you're lucky.  I love the smells of the products, the ambience of the spa rooms, and the feel of the cushy massage table under my body.  The whole experience is enjoyable until the extraction phase.  I brace myself when that fluorescent light swivels over and the aesthetician places two round cotton pads over my eyes so I don't go blind from the light. It feels more like an interrogation than a spa treatment.  Once I get past this mining phase, and after the tingling wears off, I'm ok again.  But somehow I always wait months to get another facial because of the torture of having to get the inside of my face squeezed out, and to be honest, I never really see a difference.  My skin feels soft in spots, minus the red bumps left as proof of my excavation.  I end up buying a slew of products that the aesthetician recommends, but never fully explains how to use, and by the time I walk out the door, I feel confused, concerned and guilty for spending too much money.

This dichotomy has always been my experience until I met and received a treatment from J'ai Lone.  J'ai, who adopted this name after a friend studying in Paris suggested it because of it's meaning, "I have", exudes a calm, open, healing energy.  From the moment I stepped into her all white studio, where she's been for the past 3 years, I felt I was in a place where more than just extracting pimples and applying creams happens.  J'ai has created a sanctuary of healing energy with its beaming natural light, small sitting area, and open space.

            She hasn't always had the intimacy of this personal studio.  J'ai, whose experience began at age 18 when she obtained her license in her birth city, Toronto, has been a part of huge beauty corporations and industry.  She began doing make up and trained with all the greats-Georgette Clinger, Christian Dior, Chanel-you name it, she did it.  She opened the very first MAC Cosmetics boutique before it was a global chain and developed the first day spa in Toronto.  Her extensive training led her to Los Angeles at the age of 27 where she immediately began working with huge celebrities-from Elizabeth Taylor, to Gene Kelly, to Henry Mancini.  After working with Jose Eber and garnering much success as a make-up artist, J'ai obtained a green card and opened her own studio in Beverly Hills.  She remained at this studio for 18 years.  Her work focused mainly on make-up artistry with these legends of film and television.  She learned all the secrets of solid skincare and make up.  As her own skin care studio developed she maintained a connection to the make up industry, traveling with Ed McMahon for Star Search, doing celebrity weddings all over the world, and also became a celebrity guest artist for the famous Canyon Ranch.  At the age of 40, J'ai began to burn out. And although she loved make up design and working with the greats, she discovered a deepening desire to explore beauty from the inside out.  She was moving away from the "facade" of her work and into the more healing aspects of her it: "Makeup is great, but it's a façade.  It creates an illusion. Turning into my 40's I had done enough illusion."

            And thus her journey led her to scale down and focus on what she really loved to do-to heal, to understand and connect with people from the inside out.  She had always done facials; as her work developed she began working with the top physicians, dermatologists, and plastic surgeons in the country and what she realized is that "everyone's body is an electrical frequency, it's a charge. We are energy. "  When she said this my eyes lit up, and I thought, after all, the skin is the largest organ on our body, and it never lies to me.  "See you and I are resonating at specific frequencies," she exclaims seeing that I "resonate" and understand what she's getting at.  "When we connect we are on the same wavelength, matching each other's frequencies." 

            Working with technology and reading professional facial treatment machines, J'ai realized that the body resonates at 68-76 megahertz-we are vibrating.  As the body goes through different stages, our frequencies change; for example, a cold reads at 58, death at 25, lavender at 150. A rose, which is the highest-level frequency on earth, vibrates at 320.  This translates to disease and how our body reacts to foreign invasion and cancer.

            As she assimilated all of this into her work with skincare she started exploring more with how the skin responds to temperature-hot, cold, and neutral-and how it responds to water. For example, when you have a breakout, whether it's a one pimple, or acne, the skin is too hot.  A pimple is bacteria build up in the pore.  It is a sign the body is out of balance, and J'ai has found it generally means the stomach is too hot.  As the body tries to achieve internal balance, the skin responds-it inflames, and breakouts occur.  With these types of clients, she began to move away from the conventional approach of drying out the skin with harsh acidic products, and instead used products to cool the skin.  She recommended her clients ice the skin, never putting direct ice on the skin as that involved exposing the skin to too much water.  Remember your body is an electrical frequency.  If you throw water on an electrical appliance you will get sparks and upset, and this is exactly what happens to the body.  Water dehydrates the skin; too much water on a skin that is irritated causes further irritation, and therefore too much water upsets acneic skin.  The same is true for skin that is dry-water tends to dry out the skin more.  Along with icing inflamed skin, J'ai suggests a healthy, strong pro-biotic, or eating yogurt for the calcium/magnesium, and yeast to draw out and impurities.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, aging skin, which tends to look duller, is vibrating at a lower frequency.  So, J'ai wants to raise the vibration of the skin and increase its kinetic energy.

            As we discussed her transformation into focusing on skincare, I could feel my own vibration raising-the balancing process had already begun before she even touched my skin.  By this point in her career, J'ai's exploration of the relationship between frequency and the skin led to developing her own product line.  With these principals in mind, she has created a new break-through skin care system designed to restore balance in the skin.  J'ai designed each product one at a time and categorizes them with different colored labels representing different functions for the skin.

             Her "Green" line is the most neutral and can be used by almost anyone.   Her "Burgundy" line is cooling and can also be used my almost anyone.  Her "Blue" label is also on cooling, but focuses on very inflamed skin, while her "Red" line is stimulating and geared towards aging skin or skin that does not have inflammation.

            What makes J'ai's products unique is their interchangeability.  Her line is designed to compliment any other line.  Because she has trained extensively in so many lines, J'ai can customize each facial to best suit the client.  J'ai uses products from Darphine, Kinerase, La Roche-Posay, Neocutis,  and many more, high quality lines in addition to her own. She advocates each client learning and understanding what works best individually, and once he or she figures that out-don't stray from it.  I find her work is akin to a really great recipe.  We make it that first time and it tastes exquisite, so we decide to make it for a dinner party-and then we change it.  We start to "spice it up"-add a little more of this and that-and suddenly it's not the same recipe and doesn't taste quite as good. 

            Similarly, J'ai leans towards simplicity and balance rather than overloading the skin with multiple products.  As she works with the frequencies in the body she can figure out which products will achieve the balance one needs and then how to maintain that balance.  The maintenance is the key.

            There are a few essential products in her line that can help a various range of skin combinations. She refers to them consistently and notices results almost immediately.

            The easiest products to add into one's current skin care regiment are J'ai's extremely healing, versatile treatment pads.  There are four types of pads that cover the full range of skin types.   The Anti-oxidant pads tone the skin adding moisture to skin that feels dry; the skin enhancing treatment pads add heat to the skin, increasing its vibrating frequency.  It creates an almost instantaneous glow as if you've just had a professional peel.  The skin enhancing pluspads add even further vibration energy and should only be used once a week.  Lastly the correction pads are for upset, irritated skin.  These pads contain both glycolic acid and salicylic acid that help to cool inflamed skin and treat bacteria.  All of these pads are ideal for those nights we are just too tired to wash our faces.  Even J'ai has those nights-so use two pads, one to wipe off the excess dirt, and the second to tone or treat.  And then crawl into bed!  Sleep is just as important as products she reminds me. 

            Along with the correction pads from her Blue label, which is for inflamed skin, J'ai loves the Balancing Serum.  This is wonderful for people who have acne as it kills surface bacteria.  This product contains an element called oxygen plasma, which is like a synthetic blood.  It actually creates oxygen in the skin and thus kills the bacterium that is building up in the pores. 

            Her Burgundy label features one of her most popular items, the Balancing Scrub.  All skin types can use it. This product contains precision diamond crystals, which essentially provide the skin with an extremely gentle microdermabrasion.  It removes dead skin cells without irritation and stimulates faster collagen production, removes sun spots, diminishes fine lines and wrinkles, reduces acne scarring, and helps correct uneven skin tone.  Balancing scrub can compliment any line you are already using as a gentle exfoliator.  A celebrity client leaving J'ai's studio as I came in specially mentioned this product before I even had an inkling as to what J'ai and her line do. 

            Oxygen Cream, another "can't do without" product, is from her stimulating, anti-aging Red label.  This product is a moisturizer that can be used on all types of skins as long as it is treated properly with the appropriate pad or serum beforehand.

            The best parts of her line mirror what is so unique about J'ai herself.  She is patient, open, and gentle about how she approaches treating each client. There is no pressure to make changes rapidly.  In fact, J'ai believes in making changes to your skin slowly.  She does not advocate a client to completely revamp their products and skin care all at once. Less is more, and it gives her time to work with people on what other aspects of their lives, mainly diet, exercise, stress, etc can contribute to what is going on with the skin.  Her approach is holistic in the most literal sense of the word.  "Your body has to acclimate, you need to be gentle."  These words resonate in my ear as I lay down on the table for my treatment because I know this time I am under the hands of a healer. 

            J'ai is not afraid to arm her clients with at home remedies either. For the strapped lady who is looking for a great anti-aging at home treatment follow this recipe:

            Use a low fat yogurt and buy a really good clay mask.  She recommends either Bentonite clay from Whole Foods or online (I found it for $6 online), or the mask from her own line ($35). Then, buy some nutritional yeast from your local health food store.  Mix a teaspoon of yeast, teaspoon of yogurt, add a little bit of aloe vera if you have that as well, and let that sit on the skin.  DO NOT LET THE MASK DRY.  She repeats "Do not let the mask dry!".  Maximum time is about 15 minutes.  Then, remove with a damp cloth baby diaper, which you can find at Target (a 6 pack is $12).

            After my treatment, I truly felt lighter and cooler.  I went in with a string of breakouts that seemed to just keep getting worse.  She not only soothed my mind and calmed me down-stress adds to these breakouts-but she reminded me that making small changes now add up in the end.  So, I walked out only buying two of her core products from her line (her gentle cleanser and correction treatment pads), and with a few samples to try out.  I was relieved and shocked-within a week my skin improved and I no longer saw the same severe breakouts! 

            "If something is not working with your skin you need to look into that."  J'ai loves to inform her clients to learn how to diagnose their skin themselves.   She truly believes "anybody, if they can get it in their minds that treating their skin [is] about maintaining balance," can transform their skin.  That is the basis of her line: balance and restoration. 

            Every person deserves to feel good from the inside-out.  And our skin is a barometer for what is going on inside.  With J'ai's guidance, healing energy, and compassion, I know my skin is literally in good hands; but I also feel I now actually understand how to take care of it myself. 

            For more information on J'ai and her line of products visit her website, www.jaiofbeverlyhills.com.