MSCHERRYTWO'S THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

So how do you do that? Well, first you need to identify your skin tone. An easy way is to look at your veins - if they're blue you're cool; green you're warm.

"If you're olive skin tone you want to stay in your darker colors but olive skin tone can play with the fiery reds - they work really well with reds and even some of the cool blues," said Robert.

Our first model Ali has a warm skin-tone with red undertones -- which means she should avoid bright reds, as well as going too blond.

"Right now I think Ali's hair has a drab appearance to it and considering she has a warm skin-tone she could use a lot more depth and richness into her color -- so we're going to go into a rich brunette color on her with some highlights."

To save money, Robert gives Ali what's called a glazing service. Typically your stylist adds highlights or low lights to the foiled hair -- but in this case, Robert just covers that hair with foil and puts the glaze over the hair that's left out.

"It's basically going backwards in the process but it's a pretty neat deal because we're not actually putting highlights/lowlights. It's quicker so it doesn't take up so much salon time; it's also conditioning and adds gloss and color depth. So for a $45 glazing service, she'll look like she had a $300 highlight/lowlight color service. Our next model May also has what's considered a 'warm' skin tone, but like me, her complexion is olive."

While reds work well with her skin tone, stylist Roy Ramos says she has too many red highlights.

"As you can see she's got some re-growth going on, we're going to do a process called shampoo cap. The shampoo cap is not as expensive or intense a process to do than it would be to do a color or highlights. We're using a little bit of color and a little bit of shampoo together, it's not as invasive as permanent is and it will give her a nice change with minimal effort basically we're going to put it all over and leave it on for about 20 minutes that will be it -- she'll be toned down and more warm color and softer color for her over all - then if she wants highlights we can do it," said Roy.

The shampoo cap costs between $35-$40.

Lauren has cool tones.

"She wanted to go a little darker with her hair so we analyzed her skin tone - she's neutral to cool which gives the opportunity to wear your darker chesnut browns, your warmer browns," said Robert.

Robert also gives Lauren an inexpensive color glaze.

"You still want to keep some kind of variety of color you don't want to go to a blanket one brown color solid. So by pulling out some hair we left out some of her blond we were able to utilize what she already paid for on her last salon visit. The thing you want to remember with a color glaze, it does not lift your color, so if you're a dark brown you can't color glaze yourself into the blond family," said Robert.

Since color glazes are not permanent, it will naturally fade after six to eight weeks. It also has the added bonus of conditioning the hair.

Brittany has light skin with a pinkish undertone so Robert says she should stick to cool colors.

"Instead of going blond - the only issue with that is you have a high maintenance factor with going blond because you're going to have roots showing up in a three weeks so I suggested a little technique we've developed here at Elektra called panel coloring. It's different than highlighting in that it's quicker and it's more intense blond but it's not going to give her a situation where she's going to have to worry about a re-growth situation in three weeks. We've stayed away from key areas - your part area, your crown area and front hair line," said Robert.

If you wanted to keep a look like this up, you could come in once every three months and have a few panels put in.

If you're still confused on what colors work best for you, Robert says look at your natural color and go from there.

"She's a level seven when we're talking colors. We go level one being the darkest to 10 being the lightest. When you're a seven that would give her medium to dark blond look. Generally you can go two to three shades either above or below your natural color and be able to maintain that without salon visits every two to three weeks," said Robert.

For more information visit www.elektrahair.com.

'Coupon Contessa' Nora Kapche makes her own detergents and scrubbing cleaners.

"It just takes a little bit of effort," says Nora. "If it works for your family you will be saving so much money."

For laundry detergent you just need three simple ingredients: borax, washing soda and a bar of soap. First, grate up the soap. You can use "laundry" soap or just a bar you already have around the house.

For laundry detergent mix together 3 cups of grated soap, 3 cups of borax and 3 cups of washing soda. Use a 1/2 cup of the laundry soap per load.

"It's very easy, you can store it for months at a time," says Nora. "Nothing will happen to it. Just put it in an airtight container."

"This is really potent stuff -- you really only have to use a little bit," she adds. "This batch we made right here will yield you 94 loads."

The batch of laundry detergent for our recipe costs $2.29 to make -- that averages out to two cents per load!

And you can use that same box of borax to make another common household detergent.

"We are going to make dishwashing detergent," says Nora. "This is one of the simplest things to make ever!"

Nora combines 1 cup of baking soda with 1 cup of borax.

"I like to make sure that there are no big rocks or anything in here. I do sift this through just a little," says Nora. "Two tablespoons per load and you are done!"

This entire recipe costs 58 cents to make, and can be used for 14 loads of dishes. That's only 4 cents a load!

"My family usually washes dishes every night," says Nora. "So that is every day, 365 days a year we are washing dishes, so that can really add up."

Nora's final money saving recipe -- scrubbing powder. You'll need one cup each of salt, baking soda and borax.

"Now this one you don't have to worry about the lumps, you just have to mix it together," says Nora. "Having the salt in the recipe acts as a scrubbing agent."

Total cost to make the scrubbing cleaner is 67 cents. And this batch could last you an entire year!

For more information visit Couponcontessa.com.