We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brittany Colgan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Brittany, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How’s you first get into your field – what was your first job in this field?
My first job in the beauty world started in high school as a seasonal job at Sephora. I didn’t even know what half the stuff in the shop was but I was so fascinated by all of it. I like to call it beauty heaven. Today I still am so grateful for my time there as I feel the valuable knowledge I got will be ingrained in me forever. The 2014 make up era was iconic & was the style I learned when I started. Bold make up, the start of mainstream contour, winged liner, & perfectly blended eye shadows. I’d watch only Jeffree Star & Jaclyn Hill on YouTube. The rise of make up had come & I was in the right place at the right time. I became a certified make up artist there & kept following my flow. I got my own brush belt! I felt so official. Around this time I kept with it & got better & better! It lead me to start esthetician school in the first place, continue my education in Miami to learn from Mario (Kim Kardashians MUA), be apart of many super fun things like KCFW, & be featured in magazines like Vanity Fair UK, & Simply KC. I am still an MUA to this day & cherish all the memories I made at Sephora.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Like I said previously the start of my journey really kicked off my interest in the industry. For me, it just kept rolling like a snowball into a snowman. As soon as I graduated high school I went strait to school for esthetics then got to work in the industry. I had core jobs along the way that shaped me into the esthetician & business owner I am today. I worked at The Elms hotel & Spa which was a stepping stone for me learning a lot about touch therapy, facials, & body services. After that I went in to work at European Wax Center where I was able to harness my love for full body waxing. Believe it or not one of my favorite services to preform to this day is a Brazilian wax! The really cool thing about my business is it’s not just esthetics though it’s way more personal. As I was working as an esthetician career wise, my personal life I was battling with mental illness, depression, & crippling anxiety. I physically started feeling these things & had to find ways to cope. Slowly but surly I started to incorporate different ways of holistic healing into my life. Acupuncture, whole food eating, yoga, crystals, reiki, divination. So many things I was also greatly fascinated by! To my advantage esthetics & healing complemented each other so well. There was a part of me that knew I was going to be on my own one day as an entrepreneur but I had no idea what that was going to look like until it was the perfect time. The same year I became a reiki practitioner I felt called to start making healing candles! I put crystals at the bottom for a crystal surprise & infuse them with reiki energy. Following the retail I made was pop up events. This was where I was questioned where I was located. I didn’t have a physical location at that time but it placed a seed in me that blossomed into a flower November the same year! So now I am a CEO of Divine Arts Collective, Healing Spa, Crystal Shop, Reiki Candles!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
This is an awesome question as I feel this was one of the biggest reasons I own the type of business I do! I feel like the time I was most vulnerable & weak was while going to school for esthetics. I had suffered the loss of a great friend & had been starting to see the physical manifestation of my depression & anxiety (grieving, panic attacks, insomnia, ect.). It was a peak to what felt like hell. A part in my journey I don’t wish on my worst enemy, but it was the very thing that made my business so personal. As I started to pick the pieces back up in healing those wounds I found my inner strength, my truth, & my passion for healing blazed fire! It lit a torch under my ass to be better for me so I can help others do the same! It is helping me break generational trauma & become the alchemist I am today!
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
This is kind of embarrassing but I was not a big fan of school or reading & at a young age was told I wasn’t a good reader & believed it. I was a solid C student also because of my lack of interest. Other than art class, & lifting I was checked out. I actually didn’t even finish my first real chapter book until I was 23 years old. The book was The Four Year Career. I was given that book by an MLM coach. I just needed to read about something I was actually interested in & that was money, personal development & philosophy. Now I’ve read many books since then. Some of my favorites being Think Like A Monk by Jay Shetty. He also has an amazing podcast called On Purpose. Some of the most basic books on business & manifestation Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki, The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle, Girl Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis, & my bible Between Life & Death by Dolores Cannon. Reading is something I do now on a daily basis & have grown to love it!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.divineartscollective.com
- Instagram: @divineartscollective
- Facebook: Divine Arts Collective
Image Credits
Candle Image by Immaculate Images