The young-at-heart wait for Sides, the beauty veteran, who is a licensed massage therapist, hairstylist, and has a “master’s degree in nails,” to cut, curl, manicure and massage them with familiar hands and enlighten them with good ’ol country philosophy.

Now, Sides has yet another treat for her customers.

After attending Mardi Gras 2000, a cosmetologist’s convention in Charlotte, she and her fellow hairstylist and nail technician Lindsey Monroe, learned the Amber Silhouette Body System, designed to reduce the appearance of cellulite.

“For years, people tried to get rid of it with cream, rubbing it and waxing it, and that’s not going to get it,”Sides says.

What may help is the cellulite body wrap process:a method which starts with covering the desired area with a cellulite cream, and then a therapy wax. The client is then covered with a plastic wrap, a thermal wrap, a sheet and, finally, a wool blanket.

The all-natural Amber system that Sides uses is based on four main principles: detoxifying, cleansing, nourishing and exercising the body.

“We … realized, ‘Hey, this is the future, this is the thing that we want to have!’ This company has been in business for a long time, but they’re just now coming up with this type thing. I’ve looked at several different companies and I’ve sold everything and tried everything — we were in Younique, we were in New Skin, we were in this, we were in that — but Ihave never been as excited as I am over this.”

Sides raves that the system promotes the total beauty experience: health, skin and body awareness.

“What you do to your body and what you put into your body is the way you’re going to look and the way you’re going to feel. And combining all this with the massages and the facials … it makes you feel better, look better.”

After using the professional system on clients, Sides offers them the opportunity to learn how to maintain their health at home by giving classes in the system.

“You do the herbal wrap on them, they get a class on health and wellness awareness, and then you sell them the take-home products to help keep it up,” she says.

“We do makeup, complete makeovers, and hair and skin analysis. But the main thing now is not to buy the products to cover it up. The main thing is to keep it from getting that way.”

n