Salon Confessions Podcast

In this episode, we welcome one final virtual guest into Jen’s nail studio with us - Dr. Ebru of Aveseena Skin Care. 

Dr. Ebru is an internationally recognized immunologist with decades of research under her belt, and a personal passion for science, skin, and women's well-being. She has spent her career studying the intricate relationship between the immune system and the skin—especially how stress, aging, and environmental tri...

Our guest today has a litany of writing, performing, music, and acting credits to her name.  Satori Shakoor began her career with acclaim as a background singer and recording artist, touring with George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic as one of the iconic Brides of Funkenstein - later becoming an actor, comedienne, and television comedy writer.

in 2011 she joined one of my favorite storytelling organizations - The Moth - as a Main...

When we shifted from a sporadic side project to a consistent show, my first priority was learning how to edit. Because we record during live manicures, our setup is... challenging. Between “sound bleed” from sitting close together and the background noise—filing, beeping, clinking—we basically picked the worst environment for beginner podcasters.

During a mini-sabbatical from work, Harper was laser-focused on improving our audio...

What defines femininity, or masculinity, and how do you connect with those elements of yourself?  That’s the question we are pondering in today’s episode.

In our last episode, Jen and Harper went to a spa and did a Yoni steam, where we sat over pots of steaming herbs to help moisturize and revitalize our female parts.  As we talked about it afterward, Jen shared that it was a good way to connect with her Feminine side, and after...

This season, we haven’t yet done a Try It Out episode, and we really thought long and hard about doing a sauna and open water cold plunge, since we live in a cold weather state and cold plunge is supposed to be the best new health trend.  But as this season crept on, we kept not scheduling that cold plunge, and finally realized we just really didn’t want to.  Thankfully, Jen did some more research and found out it’s not as good for...

As women in our 50s, we often turn to topics related to perimenopause and menopause, because frankly, there is no end to the things we can talk about in this area. 

One of the things we’ve both noticed is that our internal core temperature has seemed to be higher these days, but neither of us felt like we were really having what seemed like “hot flashes.” At least not in the way we had seen and heard them described.  Gross nigh...

The pelvic floor is the entire group of muscles, tendons, organs, and structures that make up the area that includes our bladder, vagina and uterus, and perineum, rectum and anus.  For women, there is a lot going on down there, and when something is off, we might get sent to several different specialists to help diagnose and treat the problem.  Thankfully, more and more women’s healthcare is addressing the pelvic floor and pelvic a...

We’ve been doing this for FIVE seasons now, and every season, we end up with an episode that makes us laugh more than any other.  We call these our Gigglefests, and they are our favorite episodes to record and share with you.  We think they best capture the essence of our friendship, and the essence of all friendships.  Our closest friends are the people we can go and sit with when we are having the absolute worst day and they will...

On this episode, we invited Harper's friend Mari Ruddy to come in and get a pedicure and tell us about her story and her book Extreme Healing: Reclaim Your Life and Learn to Love Your Body.

Extreme Healing shares Mari's journey of finding salvation through cycling, running, and triathlon. These activities carried her through trauma, type 1 diabetes, and three rounds of cancer. In this book, Mari shares hard-won wisdom and pe...

Ten years ago when Harper met her now husband Hudson, he brought a vibrant young 12-year-old into her life, her step-kiddo and soul-child, Grey.  

Grey is someone with depth, alertness, creativity, sensitivity, and an adventurous spirit.  Grey has never walked the straight and narrow road, but has always found her way, meeting life's challenges with courage and confidence.

Grey is a senior in college, and we asked them to come on...

The great thing about Life Hacks is they can be ANYTHING.  It can be things about cleaning your house or your stuff, managing your time, salvaging and repurposing, changing your mindset, cooking and meal planning, or just about anything that is a part of your daily life that someone has figured out an easier way to do.  And really, all of us have life hacks.  Maybe some of them are things we picked up from childhood that our parent...

Welcome to Season 5 of Salon Confessions!

On our first episode of the season, we are talking about SLEEP!  Do you remember being young and able to sleep through the night all the way until 11am or even noon?  Harper was never great at falling asleep, but she didn’t suffer from sleepless nights very often.  Yet every decade, that precious commodity of sleep just seems to slip further and further away, despite all of the urgent wa...

Each year for many years, Jen and Harper have chosen a word of the year to help guide and direct our mindset for the year ahead.  Choosing a word of the year is different than making a resolution.  We are not about the “new year, new me” attitude that is so quick to fail.  

A word of the year is intentionally open to interpretation, and helps guide our thoughts, actions, and beliefs.  In years past, Jen and Harper have chosen word...

In this episode, Jen and Harper are walking back through our 2024 seasons 3 and 4, reminding ourselves what we’ve done and how much fun we’ve had, and helping you get to know us a bit if you are new.  And if you are a long-time listener, we hope this episode is a fun walk down memory lane too.  We thank you so much for being here with us on this journey, for being loyal Confessionistas, and encouraging us with your comments, feedba...

With the war that is raging over healthcare and women’s rights to have agency over the private choices that they make with their healthcare providers, we realize that our listeners want to talk about these issues more.  Women of all ages are frustrated and outraged at the lack of care, the cost of care, and the poor quality of care. Even more than that, the research and education on women’s biology and physiology - how our bodies a...

A few weeks ago Jen and Harper kicked off a sub-series called “Jen and Harper Try it Out.” In our Try it Out Series, we give things a try that you might see ads for on social media that look really interesting but you aren’t sure whether they will be worth it or not. It might be a new kind of medspa treatment, or self-care, or unique therapy or experience.

Harper recently saw a BOGO ad for a Float Spa on Facebook and clicked "bu...

This year has been a year of trial and error and learning for Jen and Harper, figuring out what treatments, prescriptions, and supplements will work for us as we go through perimenopause, Hashimoto’s, ADHD, and other women’s issues and aging issues. 

Since we’ve spent so much time sharing our challenges, we’re dedicating this episode to sharing some updates with you on what treatments we’ve landed on that have been working for us,...

Because we share a lot of very personal and intimate confessions on this show, we’ve chosen to keep our names and faces confidential, so you probably don’t know that Jen is a curly red head, and Harper is a long-haired wavy blondy-brown-silvery head.  We both recently entered our 50s and talk a lot about the aging process on this show, but one thing we haven’t talked a lot about is the great debate - “to dye, or not to dye.”  As in...

Jen & Harper have a lot of fun with their husbands. Jen & "OfJen" and Harper & Hudson spend a lot of time laughing in their marriages, and in today's episode, we are sharing some of our best and funniest marriage stories. These are the gut-busters, the giggle-fests, and the truest of true confessions.

We bring you into our homes and tell you all the god's honest truths about what really goes on, and how we navigate mar...