Salon Confessions Podcast

Back in Season 3, we brought on a guest, Zoe, who is a dear friend of Harper, to talk about being in an Ethically Non-Monogamous relationship.  She educated us about terminology and common misconceptions, and shared with us that she does not identify as a “swinger” or as being part of “the lifestyle.”

Zoe's experience with ethical non-monogamy is much more about dating and building relationships together with her partner...

Red Light Therapy is all over the place these days, and as a woman with Rosacea, it’s been recommended to me to use red light or LED therapy to help treat it.

We have both tried things like Botox and Dysport, but in the last year or so have stopped.  Harper stopped because it felt like her forehead was tender for weeks and while she liked the visual results, she didn't love living with a tender forehead, and feeling like she...

So much of social media is bland self-promotion, too many ads, too much toxic content, and too little true “social” engagement.

It’s a time suck, it feeds the billionaires, and it’s objectively addicting.

On the other hand…

Social media has built bridges of community, brought us insights from every day people, and helped build positive influencers who help make society better.  

In this episode, we dig into what we love and hate about ...

February 17 2026 kicks off the lunar new year - the year of the FIRE HORSE.

The Chinese zodiac runs on a 12 year cycle, and each of 12 years is assigned an animal, and every repetition of each animal is assigned one of four elements - wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. 

Additionally, each animal has a “fixed” element, and the horse’s fixed element is fire.

So this year is the year of the Fire-Fire Horse, meaning it is doubly po...

Every season wrap is another moment to sit and be in awe that we have come so far.  Our little show has continued to grow, and as we end one season, we begin looking forward to our season number ticking upward yet again, and we sit in gratitude and delight that we are about to be another season older.  

So many podcasts out there never get past EPISODE one, fewer still get past Season 1.  We are finishing out our sixth season, a...

On this episode, we are going to get really vulnerable and honest about life and motherhood after divorce.  This show is all about confessions - talking about things that people don’t normally talk about it real life.  And one of those things is the deep feelings we go through as moms after getting divorced.  This is a topic on the more serious side, and usually we like to keep it fun.  But Jen and I have been feeling really strong...

On today’s episode, we dig into the topic of exercise and menopause, and how we are trying new things to maximize our physical health while we continuously learn new things about the measures of physical health that make a difference.

Even just 10 years ago, we both were exercising and working out to stay in overall health, but also because we wanted to look fit and toned.   We worked on our abs, and glutes, and cardio, and arms...

Jen has an aesthetician’s license in skincare, which was her first license even before she started doing nails.  So skin and skincare has been important to her for….forever.

Harper, on the other hand?  Her first facial moisturizer was Jergen’s, which remained her primary moisturizer into college.  Beyond that, she rarely - if ever - had a face washing routine.  And never had any fancy face wash, just good old soap and water.

But ...

When it comes to health topics, we’ve spent a fair amount of time talking about perimenopause and menopause, but we haven’t spent a lot of time talking specifically about breasts, even though they seem to be just as complicated and frustrating and confusing.   October was breast cancer awareness month and we’ve had two breast cancer survivors on our show, so we didn’t want to do another full episode on breast cancer specifically, b...

In this episode, we are talking about birth order.  Why?  Because Harper's older sister and Jen were talking a few weeks ago and suggested it.  Harper is a middle sister between two girls, and it’s a topic of conversation that tends to come up between them somewhat regularly.  According to her sister, that’s because Harper brings up how much she was ignored and forgotten as a child as often as possible.

It’s all in good fun,...

When passionate women with rich personal stories build businesses, they do so for much more than profit, and those are the people we love to talk to and share with you.

Kate Assaraf is one of those women.  Kate came from the beauty industry in product formulation and marketing, but started her career backstage, and she tells about just how fake the beauty industry can be.  She was so passionate about turning the beauty industry ...

For your listening pleasure today, we have captured a real-life hormonal meltdown of two perimenopausal women who are losing their ever-loving shit over…well…everything.

We didn’t plan for it.  We actually had an entirely different topic planned for this episode.  But as soon as we started exchanging a few salty comments about where our moods were at and we realized we needed to let it all out and figured it would be interesting...

Today’s topic is about Knowing your Worth, and in many ways, starting a podcast is a test of knowing and understanding your worth.  We used to have the best conversations and when Jen suggested we start a podcast Harper didn’t know if anyone would care or want to listen.  But as we’ve done this show for the past few years, it’s become clear that what we bring to the podcast environment does have value and we do have worth in this s...

For this episode, we talk about the energy of gifts, which we thought was a great topic for the confessional, because it’s something that can sometimes feel like a secret, even if it’s a happy, special secret.

So we dove into things like gifts from our dads and how rare that was, special gifts from and for our kids, and the feeling of purging gifts that had energy associated with them.  Gifts that came from loving people but no ...

Here we are - kicking off SEASON 6 of our grand Salon Confessions adventure! Each episode, Harper heads into Jen’s private nail studio and we lock the door, pull the curtain, and confess to the altar of polish all of the things that women want to talk about but rarely do.  

We talk about the foibles, fallacies, and frustrations of being women in perimenopause, and bring on guests to discuss things that go on behind the public cu...

Welcome to the Season 5 wrap-up of Salon Confessions.  This is our longest season yet, coming in at 14 episodes!  We just couldn’t stop!  

At the end of every season, we like to give you a wrap-up of all the episodes so if you are new to Salon Confessions or missed anything you can get a recap and stay up to date on all the topics we covered.  Maybe there’s something you want to go back and re-listen to, or missed completely and wan...

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...