Happy Easter to all of our friends. We appreciate every one of our friends we have made through our Maltese Obsession journey. We share with you a little video EASTER GIFT basket, where the Team MO girls dress up in their Easter finest and show you ‘LIFE at Team MO’
We did have two camera’s rolling when we shaped Pinky’s face, and we hope to share a full video of how we gave Pinky her Pretty Princess Seoul Transformation as we performed a modernized Korean cut on her TINY Maltese face. The 2 different angles of the camera hopefully captured some of the cutting action. In the meantime, you can enjoy a few shots of her in this SHORT SNEAK PEAK video. The BEAUTIFUL ANGEL IN THE top right hand corner is my daughter and Artistic and Musical Director for Maltese Obsession. She is performing a cello piece accompanied by her piano teacher. It is a sweet haunting ‘FAREWELL’ as Pinky says her farewell to her long beard and OLD style!
Happy 5th Birthday to my 1st Pet Maltese Cosette. Cosette arrived to us and she has FOREVER changed our lives.
Cosette is who has inspired us to grow MALTESE OBSESSION. Cosette came to us via her AKC Breeder, who had her hand delivered and escorted to us by airplane ride. Cosette was so sweet and smart from the minute we held her in our hands. She was FULLY POTTY trained within the first MONTH. Cosette since then has enjoyed sleeping right next to my rib cage each night in our bed.
Cosette can play fetch with a tiny cat ball 24 hours a day if we would engage with her. We stock up on these tiny balls each Christmas as we can never find them any other time of year.
Cosette is ALWAYS Cheerful and CARING! WE LOVE HER!
Cosette has always been in a creative AMERICAN style cut her whole life, but we decided to give her a fresh new look for her 5th Birthday.
We slowly transitioned her to a KOREAN STYLE GROOM.
The reason we transitioned her Korean style cut, is because we wanted to take care to NOT cause unnecessary staining by having the short muzzle hairs poke her in the eyes.
NONE of the hairs ON TOP OF HER NOSE NOR IN BETWEEN HER EYES have been cut in this particular Korean cut. Cosette’s style of Korean cut is VERY different from Tweety’s.
Cosette has some nerves that get her stressed some on the grooming table and other uncomfortable places. She tends to show signs of stress sometimes when she is nervous. Cosette typically dances all over the grooming table as she really finds it nerve wracking to be off the floor. She prefers not even to be held unless she is able to sit on your lap on the couch.
We therefore try to break up her grooming sessions into multiple MINI grooming sessions. If you have a nervous dog, or one that dislikes the grooming process, we recommend splitting up your grooming routine into little MINI SPA Sessions ^_^
We hope you enjoy the videos where we show you how we created Cosette’s new Sprinkle of SEOUL with a Dash of California ~~ SeoulCAL look.
WARNING ~~~ Please do not try to use SHEARS, CLIPPERS OR SCISSORS around the NECK, EYES OR FACE if you are not experienced in using these sharp grooming tools. We also recommend you not use the same tools around your DOGS FEET, unless you have been properly taught SAFETY technique on how to use them. ~~~~~~ KOREAN style cuts involve very fine detail work around the FACE and FEET and SAFETY should be a PRIORITY.
Korean and Korean Fusion style cuts are not necessarily for all maltese. Some face structures can carry the EXTREME Korean cuts better then others. Maltese all have different hair structure and density as well. A good cut, however, will grow out quite nicely. Many people comment that they love the Korean faces, but do not favor the PINK SKINNED body/torso/neck.
Here in this video we have Tweety and Cosette who are both in TRANSITION styles. Their neck and torso have a little over 1 MONTH/4 weeks of grow out. They are soft to the touch and nice to pet with fur on their bodies. Tweety’s face has the hair around her nose all trimmed. We must take care when this grows out to ensure that none of these hair poke her in the eyes and cause staining.
Cosette had the hairs on the corner of her eyes cut about half a year ago and she suffered from severe staining as these grew back. We trimmed back her muzzle some to move towards a Korean muzzle, BUT we left the hair on her nose UNCUT. The hairs are all longer then a ‘proper’ Korean style as we left her unfinished intentionally to ensure that none of the muzzle hairs poke her in the eyes. We will then trim back and round out her muzzle to a proper Korean shaped muzzle ~~ hopping to video tape this to show you how to shape her muzzle without cutting any hairs on top of her nose nor around her eyes.
Playing with the camera we show you both girls ~~ still pretty ~~ even in between grooms and in between cuts ^_^
I recently attended the SUPERZOO Groomers Supershow in Las Vegas and had a fantastic time. There was so much to see and the Grooming Supershow captivated most of my time and attention.
I did post updates on the Maltese Obsession Facebook page, but found myself with little time to blog all of the wonderful information that I learned. After I returned from Las Vegas, I realized that I NEEDED to have purchased some new shears to review. I have received so many questions on finding more affordable BLENDERS AND CHUNKER SHEARS, that would work equally well to do Tweety’s Korean cut in particular.
My personal perspective for home maltese pet grooming is that you can achieve a lot with a good safe clipper like the Wahl Bravura, or any good clipper that has stainless steel comb attachments. My personal opinion on shears for home grooming is that most straight shears will work for a basic ‘home’ trim, but if you want to achieve a better more professionally groomed look for your maltese you MUST invest in a ‘FUNCTIONAL’ pair of BLENDING shears.
My GTG ~ SHEARS are
Good curved shears
Great Chunkers ~~~ less teeth and T-shaped teeth ~~ VERY AGRESSIVE cut, but more forgiving then a pair of striaghts
Great Blenders ~~ more teeth and I prefer the TEETH TO BE CURVED gripping teeth that grab and hold hair for the CLEAN CUT
I have other favorite GTG-Shears like my tiny curved Pixi’s and my tiny Pixi texturizers that do very minute detail work, but I don’t absolutely NEED them to do a lovely groom on my dogs or dogs that I may be grooming.
The great deal is that you can pick ANY 3 Shears from the KISS SILVER line for $99 for the 3 shears. You can pick ANY 3 shears from the KISS GOLD line for $149. They also have a line of very affordable shears called the ENTREE LINE.
I picked the center KISS SILVER BLUE 3 shears for $120 + shipping
9.5″ Curved == purchased individually is $59.99
21 teeth CHUNKERS 6 1/2″ == purchased individually is $59.99
42 teeth Blenders == purchased individually is $59.99
NOTE the BLUE row has the pinky handle to use them REVERSABLE === this is handy when using the CURVED SHEARS to round out the feet or to shape the long PALAZZO Trouser legs. A reversible blender is also cool when shaping a Korean style face (^.^)
The row on the left Kiss Silver Silver had a funny shaped thumb hole whereby my clunky thumb would NOT stay in nice, so that was a FAIL for my hands. The Kiss Silver PINK were nice too and i may need that set to have around as well.
AWESOME deal that was presented at the SUPERZOO was some entry level shears that GEIB was promoting. There are a couple good lines of entry level shears that were surprisingly EQUALLY sharp and responsive as my beloved CC shears. I don’t know how long the edges will hold up and whether the action on the joints will maintain it’s smooth responsiveness, but a quick Tweety Korean groom proved them FANTASTIC for home grooming purposes.
GEIB ENTREE and ENTREE BLUE TITAN are also nice entry level shears that are pretty affordable and the ENTREE has a few very inexpensive shears in their line up.
The nice thing about GEIB is that they have been in business for many years and similar to CC Shears, they come with a Lifetime Warranty. The box of shears came with a warranty as well as a return address sticker to mail the shears back for sharpening at the Buttercut Sharpening location. There is a fee for sharpening the shears, but it is nice to have that option to send them back to the manufacturer and have them professionally sharped for their nominal fee.
Please keep in mind that the GEIB KISS and ENTREE line of shears is their entry level groomer shears. Every pro-groomer and home groomer will have different personal preferences in what shears work best for individual hands and techniques. This particular set of shears was reviewed as an option to those asking for more affordable YET FUNCTIONAL blenders and chunked shears.
Thanks for visiting and please come back to visit. Happy Grooming,
Tweety is making her debut VLOG appearance. She was groomed into her Korean cut over a month ago, and we will VLOG her upcoming clipper Korean cut for viewers to see how we do this at home.
This technique of washing her eye area is only one of the many ways that we as maltese owners can keep the eye area as clean as we can.
One question that I am sure to get is what our thoughts are on Angel Eyes and antibiotic treatments for eye tearing. My experience working for many years in the pharmaceutical R&D as well as the sales and marketing end of antibiotics, has led me to lean against any unnecessary use of antibiotics for our family (both humans and dogs). Bacterial drug resistance has become a huge problem in the pharmaceutical R&D world and I lived too close to seeing the human struggles resulting from antibiotic super infections and resistant strains of bacteria.
Spa Lavish Blueberry Facial Cleanser by Tropiclean
Above is pictured the Blueberry facial cleanser that is used in the video. On my other dog, I also use Contact Lens saline solution that contains Boric Acid to cleanse the eye area. The saline cleansing is followed up with applying corn starch, which helps keep the eye area dry. There are various different ways to clean the eyes and remove tear stains. Excessive tear staining could be the result of blocked tear ducts, teeth problems and/or other health issues.
We hope you enjoy meeting Tweety!
Note: All fluffs as wells as their groomers have different tastes, needs and favorites. Not every SPAW treatment need be the same. Maltese Obsession is happy to share our PAWSITIVELY Perfect GO TO Grooming experiences.