In this bonus episode, I share some of the fantastic tips shared by my guests that can help the beauty career curious, those who want to make a pivot into the industry or within it, and some critical insights for those pursuing entrepreneurship. Keren Davey, a Senior Brand Manager, Luxe and Clinical Skincare at Sephora, shares tips on breaking into the business, even if you haven't had an internship. Jolorie Williams, the General Manager at Revlon, oversees Creme of Nature provides tips on navig...
Feb 18, 2022•37 min•Season 2Ep. 58
This week, we feature Rochelle Graham-Campbell, the C.E.O. of Alikay Naturals . Rochelle is an entrepreneurial dynamo who puts her heart into everything she does. And she gives us lessons on building a business strategically. As a young newlywed, Rochelle was paying her way through school and working three jobs: a C.N.A., a waitress at Olive Garden, and delivering daily newspapers with her husband, Demond. Then, she started doing YouTube videos as a form of creative expression, escaping all the ...
Feb 11, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 57
This episode features photojournalist and author St. Clair Detrick-Jules. She joins the podcast to discuss making her book "My Beautiful Black Hair " and why it was vital for her to chronicle the hair and heritage of those with textured hair. Around the time St. Clair was concluding her studies at Brown University, she learned that her four-year-old sister, Khloe, was being bullied about her textured hair. Khloe, who lives in France, didn't have a lot of examples of beautiful Black women with te...
Feb 03, 2022•37 min•Season 2Ep. 56
For this show, I had the privilege of chatting with my friend and legendary makeup artist Sam Fine about his career journey. He's worked with Iman, Vanessa L. Williams, Patti LaBelle, Queen Latifah, and Cynthia Erivo, to name a few. So, folks, get out your pad and pencils or note app, Sam is about to take you to school. We chatted about his early aspirations to become an illustrator initially brought him to New York City from his native Chicago and later sent him back home. But while working par...
Jan 27, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Season 2Ep. 55
This week, the Start Right Here podcast welcomes a groundbreaking beauty entrepreneur, Miko Branch, CEO of the haircare brand Miss Jessie's, salon owner, and author of Miss Jessie's Creating a Successful Business From Scratch—Naturally. Miko, alongside her late sister, Titi Branch, built a multi-million dollar brand that is sold in outlets like Target and Wal-Mart, has more than 40 SKUs, and was at the forefront of creating products that accentuated the beauty of curly and coily hair. Miko share...
Jan 20, 2022•46 min•Season 2Ep. 54
Chrissy Cabrera, the founder of Naturally London, never dreamed about becoming a beauty entrepreneur. But a rough first pregnancy, where she suffered from swollen feet and an aversion to ingredients in many foot care products, prompted her to make her own. Still, she didn't think about selling the products until the friends she gifted started asking where they could purchase her products. Along the way, she evolved her hand-crafted line of products and became a certified aromatherapist. Chrissy ...
Jan 13, 2022•58 min•Season 2Ep. 53
Megan Young Gamble calls herself The Project ExecutionHER and the principal consultant at Get Level Consulting . She used transferrable skills in project management to move from working at a car rental company and claims to beauty. She has also created a successful career in the beauty industry while living in Georgia, proving opportunities outside New York and Los Angeles exist. She landed a position at Astral Brands because they were looking for someone from outside the industry who could brin...
Jan 06, 2022•57 min•Season 2Ep. 52
In this episode, we talk with a woman who is making an impact internationally with her beauty brand, Shirley Billot, the CEO and Founder of the amazing skincare brand Kadalys. We have a far-ranging chat about the impact of her early life living in Martinique, the significance of bananas as a symbol of freedom for its Black inhabitants, the culture shock of moving to Paris, and how she came to start her brand. Shirley shares how her images of beauty were formed when she didn't have a television. ...
Dec 16, 2021•44 min
Keren Davy, Senior Manager, Clinical and Luxe Skincare at Sephora has beauty in her DNA, she was raised in her mother's hair salon. First had tea parties, later got to work, and eventually obtained her cosmetology license, yet it was a challenge for her to land her first corporate beauty role. So in this episode, Keren and I explore whether there is such a thing as the "right" school when it comes to getting a job at a big beauty brand. And if that is indeed true, what do you do when you don't f...
Dec 09, 2021•36 min•Season 2Ep. 50
This is part 2 of an interview with the amazing Kim-Van Dang, the former beauty director of Instyle turned serial beauty entrepreneur. In this episode, Kim and I chat about how her love of fragrance helped her build profitable beauty businesses. Kim could see the writing on the wall before she decided to leave In Style. The internet and its impact on print publishing was going to change things significantly. So she began thinking about her next gig. She realized that she often gave free advice t...
Dec 02, 2021•56 min•Season 2Ep. 49
Stay tuned for a 2-part Master Class on having a stellar beauty career. In this episode, I am joined by Kim-Van Dang, the former beauty director of In Style, who talks to me about her impressive editorial career and how it led to her becoming a serial entrepreneur. I call her the CEO of many things, and you'll find out why. In this first episode, Kim shares her love of magazines and her determination to land a summer job at a publication. After being turned down for several positions, she landed...
Dec 02, 2021•45 min•Season 2Ep. 48
In this episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Jolorie Williams, the General Manager of Revlon. In her role, she proudly oversees the Multicultural Division, which includes Cream of Nature products and Contract Services. Jolorie loves working in haircare and even has some mannequin heads in her home where she tries out the latest products in the pipeline. Her first job was in a non-beauty role at Bristol-Myers Squib. But at the time, they also owned Clairol, and when a position opened in t...
Nov 23, 2021•44 min•Season 2Ep. 47
You may know Trae Bodge from her more than 1,000 television appearances as an intelligent shopping expert. But, Trae has deep roots in beauty. You can say that she was practically born into the business because her mother owned a shop in her small Massachusetts town where they sold creams, soaps, and other products. Trae initially wanted to be an artist but found a way to use those talents in beauty with a custom-blending company called Visage Beaute. She initially started working for the brand ...
Nov 18, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 46
Makeup department heads, beauty entrepreneurs, and twin sisters Denise and Janice Tunnell have carved out an impressive career behind the scenes in the film in television industries for more than 20 years. From "Hustle &n Flow" to "The Notebook" to "HBO's "Boycott" to now Netflix's "Sweet Magnolias," to name a few. This week's episode discusses how they made the career shift from accountants to makeup artists and later found their way to film and television. We discuss how these Baltimore na...
Jun 10, 2021•58 min•Season 1Ep. 45
If you are a young person interested in fashion and beauty, who majored in journalism, this episode featuring Janell M. Hickman-Kirby will give you some guidance on how to build a career that works for you. Janell, a graduate of Hampton University, began her career as an intern in the fashion closet at Women's Wear Daily. She explains how she made the most of that internship and how it led to a role in public relations at Victoria's Secret. She worked on the fashion shows, managed the samples, c...
Jun 03, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 43
Ginger King, President of Grace Kingdom Beauty , a cosmetic development and manufacturing company grew up in beauty. Her mother was the first woman to open a Shiseido boutique in Taiwan. Yet, even though she loved makeup and secretly wanted to be a makeup artist as a teen, she never thought that she would have a career in beauty. But her science background opened the door in ways she could never imagine. After college, she landed her first job, at a company that processed pineapples. But she als...
May 27, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 43
This week, it is my pleasure to welcome Stephanae McCoy, founder of Bold Blind Beauty to the Start Right Here podcast. Today, we are going to talk about how the beauty industry interacts with the blind. Is there an intersection? What grade would Stephanae give the industry? What is it like navigating websites when she needs to shop for beauty? Stephanae also dispels some of the myths about the blind community, the companies in beauty and fashion who have been getting it right, and what steps nee...
May 20, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 42
This week, Maisie Dunbar, President of the Maisie Dunbar Beauty Brands and Bluffajo Cosmetics , joins the podcast to discuss changing careers, building a clientele, embracing entrepreneurship, and empowering underserved communities with new skills during our chat, and so much more. Maisie explains that she always received compliments on her nails from her colleagues when she worked in IT at British Telecom and later the FDA. Still, she never thought about pursuing a career in beauty until a frie...
May 13, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 41
For Amber Makupson, founder of Meraki Organics , the creation of her line and entrepreneurship came due to her quest for a healthier lifestyle when she became pregnant with her daughter. That path led her to change her diet and look closely at what she was applying to her hair and skin. It also led Amber to enroll in a program to become an aesthetician. Economic realities, however, caused her to be realistic about building a clientele full-time. Instead, she decided to keep her career in marketi...
Apr 29, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 40
Miki Wright, a salon coach and founder of the "Beauty Superstars Talk" podcast, says that working in the beauty industry was her destiny. But that doesn't mean that her path has been easy. Miki packed her worldly possessions into her car and drove from Houston to Washington, DC, determined to start her beauty career. She landed her first job asking women whose hair she admired where they got it done and tracked down that salon. When she was offered a chair in that salon, she happily accepted but...
Apr 22, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 39
This week, I welcome Drs. Drew and Joya Lyons of Smile Savvy Cosmetic Dentistry to the show. I wanted to explore the link between the field of cosmetic dentistry and beauty. That's because you can't really talk about beauty without considering how your smile and teeth play into the equation. That's both aesthetically and vocationally. I talk to the duo about how they each came to be dentists, why they started a practice together, the challenges of working with one's spouse, and the specifics abo...
Apr 15, 2021•30 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Dr. Edward Dickerson, founder of Fayetteville Plastic Surgery Specialists and Cape Fear Aesthetics is among a small group of 25 Black doctors who are double board-certified in facial plastic and reconstructive surgery. On this episode, he shares how he journey on a path from Peekskill, NY, where he grew up, to West Virginia State University (where a number of generations of his family have studied), to Morehouse School of Medicine as part of an ROTC program to building his plastic surgery and ae...
Apr 08, 2021•37 min•Season 1Ep. 37
Dawn Fitch was living her best life as a graphic designer at Sony Music. But one day, as she walked down the street, she lost all feeling in her legs. Her body was sending her message, and while it took several years for her to be diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, she decided to look more closely at the products she used. Dissatisfied, she started making her own as a hobby, and the seeds of Pooka Pure and Simple were planted. And at the urging of friends, she took her products to a local fes...
Apr 01, 2021•40 min•Season 1Ep. 36
Makeup artist and Educator Mimi Kamara went to college intending to be a psychologist. Before she graduated, she decided to take her love of makeup and decided to make it her profession. And she succeeded. On this episode, Mimi shares her career ups and downs and the lessons she's learned along the way. She was so determined to work in the beauty industry that when she presented her makeup portfolio to the store manager at the MAC outpost in SoHo and was told that the only thing available was a ...
Mar 25, 2021•49 min•Season 1Ep. 35
What does it mean for a society to be truly inclusive? And why is aging left out of that conversation? These subjects are at the heart of my discussion with the model, producer, and pro-aging advocate Karen Williams. Karen was discovered by a photographer in a Toronto airport and began modeling at 13-years-old. She considered herself to be on the periphery, with lots of jobs for Seventeen and brands like Clairol. At 5'9", she wasn't considered tall, and there wasn't a Kate Moss exception at the ...
Mar 19, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 34
When it comes to dermatology, Dr. Cheryl Burgess of the Center for Dermatology & Dermatological Surgery in Washington, DC ., is in the 1%. She is among an elite group of key opinion leaders in the entire field with affiliations that range from the American Academy of Dermatology to her role as a board member of the Skin of Color Society . She is also a clinical research investigator and holds four patents for a technique that she perfected almost twenty years ago. Not bad for a woman who wan...
Mar 11, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 33
If you've ever wondered what it's like to work in marketing communications, aka comms for beauty and other CPG brands, then this conversation with Liv Lewis, Senior Vice President of Client Experience at Egami, an award-winning multicultural agency, will answer many of your questions. Liv had her heart set on working in fashion when she first arrived in NYC. However, she couldn't envision a future being in a room full of racks of clothing. She quickly pivoted to beauty p.r. via a temp job that q...
Mar 04, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 32
Cheslie Kryst, Miss USA 2019, won the first pageant she entered as a freshman in her high school. But she also had her share of losses before she was crowned Miss North Carolina USA. But she kept coming back because she knew that she deserved to win. And so she did. By the time she won, however, she was a practicing attorney at a firm and juggled the demands of both until she became Miss USA 2019, which became her full-time job. Cheslie explains that Black representation in the winner's circle w...
Feb 25, 2021•26 min•Season 1Ep. 31
When you hear the brands that Lorrie King has worked on it a who's who of legendary beauty brands. From her side gig at YSL Beauté, while she worked in finance, to John Frieda (before acquisition), Chloé Fragrance (with Mr. Lagerfeld), Elizabeth Taylor Fragrances, and those are just the start. Lorrie had a stellar career on the corporate side of beauty before she began working with beauty startups. She launched the skincare brand Sio before joining with her partner, Celeste Lee, to conceive and ...
Feb 18, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 30
Jessica Pritchett, founder of Ooli Beauty knew that she wanted to be an entrepreneur. As a child, she watched her father, a pharmacist, make that decision after the only position he was offered was a janitor. Instead, he spent 16 hour days running his own pharmacy doing every job that was needed. Jessica started working in music and later cable television knowing that the loops that she had to jump through daily as a Black woman weren't for her long-term. She had several ideas for businesses, so...
Feb 11, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 29
