Whew!! I never thought starting my business what going to be so tough. I started this journey back in 2014 with the idea of doing makeup, right after Maryland no longer required Makeup Artist to have a license (which I didn’t know at the time) so there was an influx of Makeup Artists in the area. I’m not going to lied I didn’t give it my all at first, I really thought it would be easy and the clients was going to literally in my lap. I couldn’t even get a job at the Mac counter or at Sephora. I felt so intimidated before. In 2016, I revived my dream and linked up with my mentor Jamaya Moore and she showed a different view of what a makeup artist is. Spending that year with her I realize that I have to put more work into my business in order to get the clients to come to me. As I begin working on my business, I realize that I love makeup but I had more love for skin care. After spending a day on set with Jamaya I met another mentee who was also an esthetician and we chatted about everything regarding skin care. Then I notice that as I was working on models, they would ask me for advice on skin care tips and suggestions for products, so much so that I decided to look into Esthetics School.
I started Steiner Baltimore School of Massage and Skin Care (now it’s Cortiva School of Massage and Skin Care) November 2017. I didn’t tell many people in my family because I didn’t want to hear their fears or have them try to make me reconsider my choices. On day 1 was thinking what the hell did I get myself into but on day 2 when I had to do my 1st facial I knew that I found my niche. I didn’t have one subject that I dislike, I wanted to try all the treatments that covered. I may have been late a handful of times but I rarely missed a day. I showed up to all my clinic days, my proctors knew that if they saw me they didn’t have to worry about me hiding or ducking work because I wanted to put that practice in. When I finished in November 2018, I was so pumped to get licensed that study hard for my theory test and reconnected with my teacher, who helped me with getting my bag together for my practical. I passed both my tests the 1st go round in January and received my Maryland license in February 2019. In the midst of all of this I was furloughed from the Federal Government and just so happen to get a job working the front desk at Hand and Stone which I happen to start the day the furlough started. Great timing, right? Shortly after getting my licensed a slot opened up in the back for an Esthetician and I was promoted in March 2019.
My 1st day officially as an Esthetician was so nerve wrecking but I made it and loved it. The more clients I saw the more comfortable I got and the more I wanted to learn so I can be a better therapist for my clients. Somewhere around April I thought to myself I need to keep all my options open and with me living on the borders of Washington, DC and Virginia, I decided to apply for licenses in both jurisdictions. I thought the process was going to take months but I received my license for both DC and VA within a few weeks. Now I can say I’m a licensed Esthetician in Maryland, DC and Virginia.
I still needed to get my website together but I didn’t want to pay anybody else to do it. I wanted to it on my own. I found an online course that walked me through WordPress. Once I found my groove and everything was coming together, I tried logging in 1 day when I was going to finishing touches on my website so it could go live that week but I couldn’t login into WordPress. Not only could I not log into WordPress but when I went straight to my website I got a big blue sign that says the site is not authorized. WHAT!!! So I went back to the web developer that I hired off Fiverr the year before, for him to tell me that the certificate that he purchased from the hosting site has expired and I would need to pay him almost $200 for another year. I asked him what needs to be done in order for my to have complete control over my website. He explained that I need to purchased a certificate from the host and he will transfer it to me. I did that but it took him a little over 3 weeks to respond back to me. I didn’t have time to wait, it sucked that I all that work that I put into my website will now go to waste because the web developer is now holding it hostage and I have to start over. I gave myself a deadline to reach.
I’m glad I started over because going through this process from step 1 has helped me to realize that everything that I researched regarding to web developers holding websites hostage, yes thats a thing, was happening to me and I didn’t know it and wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for going through this. The web developer had limited my access to what I can control and what I can edit on my own website. Through this, I learned that sometimes it’s best to do it on your own. It took me a month to get my website to my liking and for it to go live. I was so proud at myself. I did it. On my own and it looks great.
Nobody told me that starting a business was going to be easy but I couldn’t have dreamed it was going to be this hard. What I have been told was that after laying the groundwork and everything is starting to come together that you will feel the most rewarding feeling ever. I’m starting to feel it now and it’s only the beginning.
Stay with me on this journey. I will update you along the way.
