Mara Morales
April 16, 2020 8:40 PM
Worried About the Ball? Don't Worry At All! by Mara Morales
At home, starting a new business was extremely difficult in many ways, but it did at least have the advantage of Every Door Direct Mail marketing options. It was easier to figure out how to reach the widest possible audience on the USPS website than at a magical school. Even if Mara could have sat long enough to try to count every girl in the school at mealtimes, she could never be sure that everyone was at any given event, even the rare supposedly mandatory ones - sometimes, someone was gonna get sick or just skip even though they weren't supposed to. She also somehow doubted that getting to know everyone individually was at all practical, especially after Jessica's experience with that guy at the start of the year and what Mara herself had heard from Mr. Row.So she had improvised. She began with fliers in public areas for one week, then escalated to sending a handful (probably too many, but these had been made by Jessica on a copier at Arvale over Easter and therefore had not touched Mara's budget) to each of the twenty-eight girls' dormitories the next week. She had wrestled particularly with that decision. She knew there were guys who wore make-up, but this was a pretty backwater kind of society, this wizarding world, and while there had been that YouTube ad during Pride Month two years ago which had nearly given the Senator a stroke, dudes just weren't that much of a part of Arvale's audience. Their money spent as well as any if they wanted a lipstick shade which had been released in 1948, but they weren't really the target audience.
Not, of course, that she was representing Arvale Cosmetics here. Just similar-looking products in vaguely similar packaging. That was all.
Reasoning that the dudes could read the public signs if they wanted, she had gone through with her targeted marketing plan based on the number of girls' dormitories she extrapolated must exist based on the Aladren set-up, and that was that, other than waiting to see if she could actually draw enough interest to turn a profit from this with fliers reading, among clipart images of waltzing silhouettes Mara had figured out how to charm into movement,
Don't worry at all!
Beauty and cosmetic consulting services will be available on [weekend dates and times] in [unused classroom] in advance of the Sonora Midsummer Ball. Learn what your best colors are, learn the best tricks for how to put them on, and get ready to dance your night away!
Color-Matching Consultation: 1 galleon
Application Tutorial: 3 galleons
Some items available for immediate purchase! Private consults also available by appointment
Based on the conversion rates she had worked out on her pocket calculator over the holidays and the size of the school, she thought it was within the realm of the doable to break even on consultations alone. That would allow any make-up purchases made to be mostly profit. Breaking even, though, would do, and so she hoped that she could rely enough on Jessica recommending said service to her friends to help her get past that point if the ad campaign alone didn't do it, and that two weeks before her first set-up date was enough time for people to send their kids money at school.
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Mara Morales
Worried About the Ball? Don't Worry At All!
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
April 16, 2020 9:49 PM
I am worried about the Ball. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Were all the other girls just naturally good at being girls? What the heck was happening here? First Jessica, who was perfect all the time and could host dainty tea parties in her second language with dainty foods and dainty drinks in a dainty outfit, and then there was Hilda, who looked perfect and lovely all the time without trying literally at all, and then there was Evelyn Stones, who was mostly just a face to Johana Leonie but it was a nice face with good lipstick, and then there were professors like both of the Brooding-Hawthornes and the Headmistress and all of these people looked perfect!Johana Leonie took a deep breath, exhausting herself with just the weight of her irritated thoughts. On the morning of the first weekend that this stinkin' makeup thingy was set to be hosted, Johana Leonie was sitting on her bed reading and re-reading the flier she'd received. She had already taken the time to scrawl out a rough translation of it and she was pretty sure she understood what was happening. And she did have some galleons she was allowed to spend at her own discretion . . . Jessica had also talked this whole thing up, which made it sound a bit more legitimate and a bit less embarrassing. If Jessica Perfect Hayles thought it was a good idea . . . well, maybe it was.
There was nothing to be done but move forward with this and admit to her own undainty-ness. Shame, really, but at least there was help for it. Plus, she had a date now. It simply wouldn't do to look like a slug when she was supposed to be a lady and there was no room for egos in the anti-slug/be-a-lady campaign.
Johana Leonie found the unused classroom and Mara Morales inside, exactly as Jessica and the fliers promised she would be. Johana Leonie held aloft one such flier to make it clear why she was there despite her obviously nervous posture. She'd been a confident young kid; what the heck had happened? Puberty, for one. It came with training bras and acne and some weird feelings in her stomach when she thought about Kai. Oh, and also twelve horrifying weeks a year. There was no winning.
"Hello," Johana Leonie said, working hard to get that "eh" in there. "My dress ist pink. Und... you help?" She looked down at herself, wishing she'd thought to do something with her hair before she'd come. Her strawberry blonde curls were mooshed into a lopsided bun with her signature loose strands flitting about her face, and she wore the Sonora-brand green potato sack. She actually looked pretty okay in green, but it wasn't exactly a good representation of her coloring in a pink dress. "Bitte. Please," she added, not wanting to be rude.
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
I am worried about the Ball.
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Mara Morales
April 17, 2020 12:23 PM
Let's work on that. by Mara Morales
One of Jessica's friends was here. Mara put on her best welcoming businesswoman smile, knowing she had quite a lot riding on this one. For one thing, an older student putting her reputation in the hands of another was not a trivial matter. This could make or break her whole scheme. For another, this was Jessica's friend. One of the new friends Jessica had made since Mara had kind of blown up her sister's previous social situation....Jessica had never once blamed Mara for it. She had never even discussed that element of it. Somehow, though, Mara didn't want to push her luck when it came to being even tangentially related to things going wrong in Jessica's world again. It just seemed...imprudent, somehow. Her sister would forgive her eventually if it happened, of course, but it would be a massive headache that neither of them could possibly benefit from, so why bother?
"That's what I'm here for," she said cheerfully, thinking rapidly to figure out how to negotiate all this with their language barrier. "Come in. Now...here we go." She pulled out a chart with stripes of color all over it, showing different shades of reds and pinks. "Can you see a color that looks close to your dress?" she asked, figuring that was a good place to start. You could wear shocking magenta lipstick with infant pink if you wanted, she supposed, but it took a strong personality to carry it off, and infant pink lipstick with a magenta dress might be even trickier. Pink was such a narrow word.
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Mara Morales
Let's work on that.
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
April 17, 2020 12:34 PM
Let's work on my English. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Johana Leonie blinked at the vast array of colors to choose from. She appreciated that she understood most of what Mara said, although she wasn't sure whether it was because she was getting better at English or Mara was speaking more simply. She pointed at a soft, dusty rose color. "My dress," she said to Mara, hoping to get the point across. Then she cocked her head and wondered if she had any other opinions about the whole thing. She pointed out three other shades that were very dark or very bright, and shook her head. "Not me."This whole thing was way out of Johana Leonie's comfort zone, but she wanted more than anything to learn it all. She wanted to be perfect and pretty, but also practical. Could people wear makeup everyday, even when they were working or doing other things? "I want that I am pretty. But . . . I want that it goes easy."
She looked around, noting that there were mostly cosmetics here. That made sense, since that's what this whole thing was about, but she couldn't help wondering at the "beauty" part of the fliers. "Do you hair?" she asked a little more embarrassedly. "Oder... can you help my hair?"
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Let's work on my English.
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Mara Morales
April 17, 2020 3:40 PM
I'm not sure I'm too qualified for that. by Mara Morales
Mara nodded in agreement when Johana Leonie pointed out shades she did not like. "I agree," she said, to the extent it mattered. It might do so. On one hand, the customer was the one with the dough, so her opinion was the one that counted. On the other, though, she wanted guidance, and Mara supporting her opinion might increase her faith in the both of them. Hopefully, anyway. "I think you'd do better with softer colors," she said, and wondered how the concept of softness in a color would translate from English to German.She nodded sympathetically as Johana Leonie explained she wanted to be pretty, but for it not to be too much fuss. "That's totally fine," she said. "You can get a really good look with just two or three products, if you want," she explained. Not as profitable, of course, but anything beat nothing, and was the first step down the road and et cetera and et cetera. Mara herself didn't believe in fussing too much with these things.
"Hair's not the thing I'm best at, but I have an assistant for that," she said. She got out a tiny, business-card sized piece of paper and wrote J - hair consul? Yr friend from T.paw.. Then she folded it over, closed her eyes, and pointed her wand at it, trying to concentrate all her considerable willpower on convincing that note to fly up to her sister's room. The spell was hard, and it had taken a long time to make it work, but she and Jessica had tested it several times and it seemed to work, and it was more convenient than carrying an owl around. She watched the note go flapping into the corridor and wished it luck before she turned back to her client. "Hopefully she'll be right down - it's just Jessica," she added. They had decided it was best not to pretend they didn't know each other; the client body was too small to pull it off long; Jessica had probably even told her friends that the products had been obtained through Arvale Cosmetics. "I do have some things that can help with common issues - if you spray this on it when it's wet, it helps it not tangle up," she added, reaching into one of her boxes and producing a sample-sized bottle of such a spray. "Your hair might be really pretty with a side part, too," she added as she picked lipsticks.
"Okay. Which of these do you like best?" she asked, finally satisfied with some choices. In front of Johana Leonie, she put three. One was a fairly classic rosewood, slightly warm-toned and deep pink. The next was a pink which trended toward mauve, a rather cool shade. The third was brighter but more translucent than the other two, a medium salmon pink. They couldn't, after all, discuss blusher until they nailed down a lipstick, and concealer and mascara and an eyebrow pencil were a different phase of the operation.
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Mara Morales
I'm not sure I'm too qualified for that.
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
April 17, 2020 3:50 PM
Shame. by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Two or three products. Was that what these things were called in English? Was that the word for makeup specifically or for all the things? Or was it it the stuff inside the bottles and cans and jars? She raised her eyebrows in open surprise when Mara used magic in front of her, just like that. She did it like it was easy. Johana Leonie had grown up around magic, but she wasn't nearly so adept at wand magic. Of course, now that she wasn't home much, she wasn't too good at other sorts either. Just potions. Were all these 'products' potions?"I know Jessica!" Johana Leonie grinned. "Her tells me that doing you good. I want also pretty. Same you. Same Jessica." She shrugged her shoulders, her tone light and easy. The words were hard, but the conversations weren't; she enjoyed socialising.
She wasn't really sure what Mara said about her hair but she smiled appreciatively anyway. "I think I need that you show me," she said, blushing. "Oder Jessica."
Then it was time to pick a color. She wasn't terribly sure what she was even supposed to be looking for. They were all different, which was helpful, but Mara obviously thought that any of them might make an okay choice. Or that they had the potential to. But what was she supposed to be looking for? Just a color she thought was pretty? One that went with her dress? Her hair?
Her skin? "I like all. How to know which is most good?"
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Johana Leonie Zauberhexen
Shame.
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Mara Morales
April 18, 2020 11:14 AM
I'll do my best though. by Mara Morales
Mara smiled when Johana Leonie said she wanted to be pretty like Mara or Jessica, but she was slightly taken aback. Not by the desire to look like Jessica, of course. Jessica was always perfectly presented - it was a matter of family pride as much as vanity, Mara thought. The surprising part was the casual and equal inclusion of Mara.Mara knew she was not ugly, per se. She even thought she had prettier eyes than Jessica, and there was nothing wrong with her hair. She also spent the vast majority of her time looking quite neat and presentable, in clothes that were of decent quality and were reasonably flattering to her frame and coloring. She didn't think of herself as pretty, though - or, more precisely, glamorous, since that was what really went into it all, nine times out of ten. Beauty had as much to do with what went on in your head as what went on with your face, and Mara considered herself too practical for it. Jessica and Lola could be glamorous, and Mara could get things done.
"Everyone does pretty their own way," she said with a smile. "Though your colors will be pretty similar to Jessica's," she added.
She had worried the hair talk would go completely over Johana Leonie's head, and so it did. "Tangled is when doing this is hard," she said, picking up a hairbrush and running it through part of her hair. "If the brush won't go, it is tangled. A part..." She used the brush to sweep part of her hair to the opposite side from where it usually fell, baring her left temple instead of her right, making her hair heavier on the left than on the right. "It's like how you comb your hair, see? Maybe Jessica can explain it better." Or in German, though she didn't think her sister was that good, even now that she was doing a correspondence course as an elective.
The lipsticks she could speak a little more confidently about, having spent most of her life immersed in that stuff, and the question being a tad easier to explain without resorting to mime. "It sort of depends how you want to look," she said. "From the ones you didn't like...I'd go with this one," she said, indicating the sheer salmon pink. "It will brighten up your face a little, but it doesn't clash with your dress color. Plus you don't need to do much else with your face with this, so it's easy," she said. "Maybe just..." She turned to another container, coming up with a tube of medium brown mascara, a tube of porcelain concealer, and a soft brown eyebrow pencil. "These things, and they're not hard to use - this gives your eyebrows a little color and shape - " Mara pointed to her own brows to indicate what she meant - "this goes on your eyelashes, and this...you rub it in anywhere on your skin that's red or has a scar or anything, to make it ev - all look the same," she explained.
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Mara Morales
I'll do my best though.
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