beautycareers

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 friend mentioned that she had enrolled in nail school Maisie followed suit and discovered that although she was great at doing her own nails, she really was terrible at doing It for others and vowed to master the skill. 

Her first job in beauty was doing nails at a barbershop, and a few months later, when she moved to a popular DMV hair salon, she decided to pursue her dream full-time. This was a risky decision that forced her to find clients. So she took a script and started recruiting at the bus stop, offering free manicures. She reasoned, if she were always busy, people would want to try her services. It worked. Soon Maisie was so popular that she needed help, and she made a connection with a local nail school to get an assistant. This started a tradition of her offering a training program that prepared students for the workplace. 

Once Maisie was an entrepreneur, she began expanding her services, first offering massage therapy and later skincare services. She also became licensed in these areas so she could walk her talk. As her business grew, she realized that her team couldn't give excellent service if they were never served themselves, so she exposed them to the best in class beauty experiences. Later, she learned makeup artistry and cosmetic ingredients so that she could apply those skills to her own line, Bluffajo Cosmetics.

Maisie explains that although her eponymous salon and spa were an award-winning venture, she wanted to pivot her business because legacy creation became important. She also wanted to establish better beauty training programs on the African continent and her native country of Liberia and explore distribution options for her makeup line. 

She also explains why she always believes in leading by example and becoming a trainer and influencer for two of the biggest companies, Seche and CND.

When Shekela Joseph got her first job as a cashier at Sephora, she was excited; however, hair had always been her thing. But her colleagues saw something different, they saw Shekela's face as a canvas, and they wanted to use her as their model time and time again. Along the way, she picked up the skills and moved to a beauty advisor role and was so proficient that she was recruited as a beauty educator for Too Faced Cosmetics.

In this role, Shekela traveled to more than a dozen stores in the NY metro area, teaching her team about new products and techniques. She moved from the boutique brand to luxury beauty as a Runway Makeup artist for Burberry Beauty. Always willing to up-level her skills, Shekela talks about how she became a Business Manager at Saks Fifth Avenue for Decorté Beauty, a Japanese skincare brand, which has been well-known in Asia for more than 50 years. She shares what it is like to recruit, hire and develop her team and how she encourages them to meet their sales goals.

Shekela talks about the impact Covid-19 has had on how she does business, particularly when it comes to virtual events and Zoom consultations and the challenges that come with them. 

She shares how she thinks beauty companies need to advance their efforts in creating a more equitable industry, noting that while there have been great strides, more needs to be done. 

In this episode of the podcast, Leslie Bethel, a 25-year veteran of the beauty industry joins host Corynne L. Corbett to discuss the critical role a retail business manager plays in a brand's success in-store. Leslie's specialty is at ground zero, at the retail counter with customers. She's worked for luxury brands that include Christian Dior, YSL Beauty, La Mer, and Laura Mercier as well as managed Blue Mercury, a brick and mortar store. Leslie discusses how she balances the needs of the retailer, the brands she works, her staff, and the customer. How Profit projections, staff coaching, merchandising, and keeping abreast of inventory is essential to her success. And why skincare is the backbone of luxury beauty. 

Guest Bio: 

Leslie Bethel is a Business & Education Manager and Brand Strategist with more than 23 yrs expertise in managing top retail doors in NYC for some of the luxury beauty industry’s most prestigious brands. As a teenager, she became obsessed with the business of beauty after witnessing Eunice Johnson and her enormous success with Ebony Fashion Fair,

After briefly attending Norfolk State University, Leslie left school and moved to Washington, D.C

Her first job in retail management was Counter Manager for Elizabeth Arden. In 1997, Leslie moved to NYC to pursue the goal of growing corporately w/ a luxury beauty brand. Eventually, she held positions as Business Manager for some of the best luxury beauty companies in the Industry including YSL Beauty, Christian Dior, Laura Mercier, and La Mer. She also served as a Store Manager for Blue Mercury.

Currently living in Washington, D.C. preparing for the next phase of her career. She’s blogging about her experiences in the industry, networking and strategizing on how to bring her life-long dream into fruition. 

In the premiere episode of the podcast, host Corynne L. Corbett chats with Karen Chambers, executive director of Iman Cosmetics about her career journey. Chambers will share how she went from being a communication major to beauty retail and how she combined ambition and passion to learn brand and product development. She will share the invaluable lessons she learned along the way including the importance of showing up on time and flexibility in the ever-changing beauty landscape.