When I was 18 years old, I was enrolled in college and I honestly hated it! Everyday I went to class, I just kept feeling like this is not where I’m supposed to be.  And so, I started thinking of other things I could do.

In high school I was always the friend who was into beauty. I loved doing hair, makeup and getting my nails done. Around the time of me starting college, being a nail technician was not very popular in my city. There may have been 1 or 2 nail tech’s that I heard about, but for some reason I just thought … how about I try nails?  It was the one thing in the beauty industry I had never really tried to do myself.  And since I knew for sure that I didn’t want to attend that college, I was fully prepared to take this on!

I immediately started indulging in Youtube tutorials on acrylic nails. I ordered everything that I needed off of amazon, and started practicing on a practice hand with a little desk in my room. I loved it! I quickly decided that I was going to put my all into making this work for me. I started looking up how I could obtain my license, enrolled in beauty school and absolutely loved it!  It was so new for me because I honestly never even thought I had any other options besides college.  There weren’t many examples in my community of people who took a different route, nor was it talked about in my high school.  Being in that environment was just so exciting and refreshing, and it made me believe even more that this could be my full time career. 

After finishing nail school and taking some time to perfect my craft, in January of 2020 I finally decided to start taking clients full time. I had a little setup in the living room, and was taking clients daily.  I then moved into a shop where I rented a booth for 2 years and I now finally have my own suite and am operating as a full blown business!

I started taking clientele over 3 years ago, and I am now 22 years old. Not only has my business grown tremendously over this time , but I have grown personally as well. I didn’t have a blueprint of what it looked like to embark on this journey of becoming a nail tech and an entrepreneur.  I made this my full time endeavor and many things I have had to teach myself through a lot of research, notes and putting myself out there. As an entrepreneur, you never stop working because the elevation of it and your future is solely dependent on your work ethic… I know that this is my purpose. 

I have gained clients that have been with me since the very beginning. Clients that have turned into friends, that have cried, laughed, needed encouragement, spoke life into me and vice versa.  Clients that believe in me and and have watched me grow, learn, gain more skills, get better, and truly turn this into a business.  They always say how much I impact them but they truly impact me just as much, if not more.  And that is one of the biggest reasons why this is what I do and why I love being a service provider.  Being a nail tech allows me to explore and expand my creativity in ways that are so therapeutic to me.  It’s art. It’s my craft.  I’m in awe of the fact that I have enough support to be able to do this full time… it’s only the beginning.  I really want everyone who wants to become a nail tech or even just be in the beauty industry to know that it is hard work, but it’s possible! I want them to be able to see that through me.