How I Became an Esthetician | 01

Welcome to my first blog post! As someone who personally loves to journal, I’m excited to share my thoughts and knowledge on all things beauty. But first, let me unfold the whole journey on how I got to where I am today. 

As a teenager, I was eager to get out into the working world and explore what type of jobs I would enjoy. After working as an ice cream scooper, candied popcorn maker, food runner, and hostess, I quickly realized that I loved working with people. Hospitality has always been my thing. The adrenaline of problem solving while being kind and having constant interactions with strangers was refreshing to me. After working a string of odd, hourly jobs, I found my way into a big name salon. Although I was only working at the front desk at one of their small locations at a local mall, I was none the less proud to be working with them! Growing up I had always been into makeup, all things face-masking, and hair. 

*Let’s not forget the multiple times when I bleached my overly side-swept bangs and colored them purple which often would fade to green. GREEN.*

This new job encouraged me to experiment with all the products they carried, not to mention the amazing discount employees received for beauty services. Sheesh! I was spoiled back then. When I first received the position at this salon it was the summer before my second year of college. The following summer I was able to transfer to a bigger location with the same big brand salon. I loved my coworkers, and enjoyed the working environment so much that I began asking the makeup artists and estheticians what their school experiences were like. Eventually I heard about the Universal Spa Training Academy in a town just near where I was living. After doing some more research, I made the decision to leave university and enroll at this amazing beauty school. 

My whole experience at beauty school was an answered prayer. I found a school that was passionate about teaching, their students, and esthetics. The hands-on training, late nights serving clients, field trips, and the one week intensive class in downtown Chicago for laser hair removal and more are just the staples from my time there. Close friendships were quickly made and my love for beauty grew everyday. Going into it I didn’t think that the hour total commute, Monday through Friday, 9am-5pm and sometimes until 10pm on clinic days was going to be easy but it was. To my surprise, I didn’t complain once about the travel or about the time spent at school. I simply loved going. 

Growing up I always had dreams of starting my own business whether it was my own bakery or boba tea shop I always recognized that entrepreneurial side of my personality. When it came toward the end of the year at beauty school, our final project was to create a business plan that would reflect a made up model of our own salon. This project sparked something in me and I took full advantage of the work that I’d been assigned to dream up of my own beauty studio. I curated a whole plan that would one year later come to fruition.

This whole journey of working random jobs and going to multiple schools helped me find my strengths and recognize my interests, and ultimately paved the way for my career. I will never stop being curious because that’s what lead me here! My advice to someone who is in the same boat I was in, is to just continue doing the next fun thing, and you might end up somewhere that you never that you’d be, but you feel like you were always meant to be there.