We were lucky to catch up with Faye Aguilar recently and have shared our conversation below.

Faye, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

It takes a community to be successful.

To set yourself up for success, you need to set your community up for success.

My mom always says, “you don’t dull someone’s light to make your’s shine brighter.”

If my people look, feel, perform, live their best lives, that effects not only them, but everyone around them.

As a hairstylist + makeup artist, in the truest words, I would be nothing without my people. They are my support system.
My people pick me back up if and when I fall. My people provide me the space to create art and have it exist through them, in the salon, on set, on a stage, and in the world.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am Faye (:

I am a 23 year old Chicana salon owner, hairstylist, and makeup artist born and raised throughout southern California.

Being raised in Bakersfield, there is not much to do. My therapist mom, who was a hairstylist at the time, used to take my brother and I to the salon. I would mix color, sweep up the hair, and run around. Some people (me) may say it was free child labor, but it was my introduction to a world of color, shapes, and making people feel beautiful.

Fast forward to high school, I had forced myself into cheer-leading as an attempt to shock myself out of social anxiety. Surprise! That didn’t work. BUT, through getting myself and teammates glammed up for games an rallies, I learned how to work with different hair types, face shapes, and skin tones.

Once in university, I remember begging my roommates to let me make them over. Soon after starting, UCSB had become far too expensive for my family and I to continue. It was my time to try out beauty school.

All this time, music and live concerts were my only vice. By the time I stared beauty school, I was already doing hair and makeup for the opening acts and direct supports of my favorite local bands. I would skip school, my parents would drive me from Bakersfield or Santa Barbara to LA and OC to get paid in snacks. I was living my dream.

Here we are today, three years into my licensed career and I am opening up my own private salon studio, working with major labels and on massive films. I didn’t do it myself. Those people in signed to the major labels and acting in those massive films are the same people that I’ve known for years. Buying a $15 concert ticket, buying merch, JUST SHOWING UP goes so far.

Give the energy you receive. Support those who support you. To set yourself up for success, you need to set your community up for success. It’s true when they say “you’re only as strong as your weakest link.”

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Care for yourself.

It’s SO hard and continues to be my biggest challenge.

In beauty school, we were told “Cosmetologists don’t sit. Cosmetologists don’t eat. Cosmetologists don’t get sick. Cosmetologists don’t have problems.”

F*** that.

You can’t give 100% of yourself to anything if you are only at 50%. There is only one of you in this universe. Honor that.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

By far, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is setting my people up for success THROUGH my art.

I have the privilege of seeing everyone’s potential as soon as we cross paths. It is an absolute honor to help them fulfill that. It goes beyond the hair and makeup. If they look and feel good, that sets their capacity to perform without worrying about what they look like. Performing their day to day life, at a photo shoot, on a film, on stage.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fayemesss/

Image Credits
Celina Kenyon, Ron Dadon, Lauren Stockton, Tarynne Web