We recently connected with Elizabeth Price and have shared our conversation below.
Elizabeth , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
Taking a risk…well, I’d like to think of it more as taking a chance on myself. A little over 5 years ago, my family needed change. I needed more flexibility in my schedule to work around our kids’ school and activity requirements. I had worked simultaneously with my husband in his mortgage career while still maintaining a small group of loyal skincare clients. I convinced the hubs to hire a full time assistant so that I could open a skincare studio and dedicate my focus to building a new business with control over my own schedule.
Turns out, it turned out! I started my one room studio as a solo esthetician with a client base of less than 10 people. Friends, family, guests were amazing and referred their friends and family! Since opening in 2016, we’ve now had the pleasure of treating hundreds of guests and gone from 1 esthetician to 3.
I think that being self-employed is risky business, however when you’re betting on yourself – it’s worth it!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m a proud mother of 2 pretty awesome kids, 3 naughty rescue pups, and partner to an incredibly rad husband! In 2006 we had our first child. It was the beginning of the mortgage meltdown and mortgages was what I did, and the only real career I knew for more than 10 years. I figured out pretty quickly that I needed to find a new career path. I also needed flexibility in my schedule. I was looking for an opportunity where I could work evenings and weekends to lessen the financial impact of possibly having to pay for daycare.
Knowing that the guest service industry is typically busiest in the evenings and weekends, I started looking into esthetics. Within moments of touring an esthetics school, I knew I found my next adventure!
Estheticians learn an array of treatments and services in school – there’s so many avenues that you can choose to practice. For me, healthy skin is my passion. I’ve always taken a progressive approach with skin and believe that in most cases, daily practice of good skincare is more essential to healthy skin than receiving an overly aggressive service once a year. This plan of action is not hip and trendy like the crazy peels and bloody facials you’ll see on IG and other social media platforms, but educating guests on consistency and the incorporation of in studio treatments to meet their desired skincare goals continues to deliver positive results.
I absolutely love all of the services we provide – the beauty of being self employed is that if we don’t believe in a service, we don’t have to offer it! Age management is a large part of our practice – addressing changes in the skin as we age is challenging, but working with skincare lines that have clinically backed studies allows us to recommend products that work to slow the aging process.
I think that I can speak for our entire team when I say that the work we’re most proud of, is that with our acne clients. It’s amazing to see the transformation in a person that struggles with acne when they gain confidence in their skin. Since acne is an inflammatory response in the skin, we work with topical products, in studio treatments, but then discuss dietary and lifestyle habits that could be acne triggers. While we’re not doctors – we do like to consider ourselves acne detectives to treat the root cause of one’s breakouts!
There’s so much information out there – too much!! I think the value of partnering with us, or any licensed esthetician, is that we see an array of skin conditions and can help put together a plan that is custom tailored to you!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
In my previous career, I was in subprime mortgage sales. I built relationships with mortgage brokers to earn their trust and their business – but I also had to compete with other wholesale companies offering similar products. To make deals happen, I often viewed competitors as threats.
When shifting to esthetics I had to reorganize my thoughts on other people’s success. The company I worked with ran on the mindset that when our team wins, we win. Unlearning all of the behaviors that brought me success in mortgage was challenging at first, but it was also very freeing.
Now, I intentionally surround myself with other solo estheticians! I’ve learned that being around people that have the same passion and motivations doesn’t have to be a competition, but that we can use each other as resources. We learn together, refer back and forth to each other, and celebrate each other’s wins.
Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?
I think if I was to start my esthetics career completely over, I would focus more on acne. I’m 14 years into my skincare journey and I didn’t truly learn about acne until year 9. I didn’t struggle with it, so it was never a focus for me. However when I opened my own studio – this is what I was seeing the most of.
I love working with clients looking to slow the aging process, but clearing acneic skin is transformational. Helping someone to feel beautiful in their own skin is a gift!
Contact Info:
- Website: vividskinwaxlash.com
- Instagram: @vividskinwaxlash
- Facebook: vivid skin. wax. lash.
Image Credits
@karinajzamora Karina Zamora