Rising Stars: Meet Desirae Clark

Today we’d like to introduce you to Desirae Clark.

Hi Desirae, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
In high school, I used to straighten my hair almost every day, to the point my mom asked me if I wanted to try a Japanese straightening method on my hair, I shrieked with excitement & said YES. Biggest mistake ever! Half of my hair broke off, & I couldn’t figure out WHY. I went through hell trying to figure out my hair, bring it back to life, all the works! Eventually, my mom found my holy grail of a hairstylist, & he helped me feel somewhat confident again about my own hair, aka extensions. After years of playing around with the extensions and styling it was time to graduate high school. School was never my thing, but I still tried college. Eventually, my mom saw a decline in my happiness & asked me if I wanted to try something else. I asked her what she had in mind, & she asked me about beauty school. In 2015, I decided to take her up on her offer, & I applied / ended up at Paul Mitchell, The School in Costa Mesa.

While being there, I was lucky enough to see the cosmetology, esthetician, & barber side of the beauty industry. Even though I was there for my cosmetology license to do hair, something about the one day we had a guest speaker talk about waxing just intrigued me. After finishing school and passing my state board, I could not find my place in the hair industry. I applied to assist in Newport, all the way to LA, and everyone told me that I lived too far, but all the best hair salons were in these cities. Being shut down by these great hair salons lead me to sticking it out in the South Bay, & I will say I went in w/ not the best mindset after all the failures. I’ve had some really great teachers and some not- it’s really easy to be discouraged in the beauty industry, to the point it happened to me. I had a friend from beauty school reach out to me to use me as a Microblading model, and I jumped at the opportunity to see something different in this industry. She told me that even with my license, I could do lashes and brows, something that intrigued me in beauty school. So I did, now six years later, I’m at two salons that wanted me for my work.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I would be lying if I said yes, but that’s what makes it worth it in the end. Through literal blood, sweat, & tears I achieved the five years plan that I set for myself when I was eventually had the confidence in doing lashes & brows. Although I was still in the beauty industry, it was hard to feel confident in completely changing my focus from hair to doing stuff with the face. I was also scared to tell my mom, even though it was in the same ballpark, knowing that there was a possibility that she would be disappointed that I didn’t become a hairstylist was one of my worst fears. Knowing that I needed to have a solid reason to my switch, it made me hungry to be amazing at what I was going to be doing. The biggest struggle was being in Costa Mesa, not having a clientele while working with women that were already set. A small fish in a big pond. I then learned to ask questions or ask if I can watch, or for tips & tricks. I’m more of an observant type of learner than I am reading, & that seemed like my biggest downfall. I had to give away a lot of free services for pictures, I still do to this day sometimes when I learn something new. I spent a lot of money into taking classes to give free services while also driving 30+ miles a day to work. But eventually, a lot of word-to-mouth brought me in a lot of clients, alongside being next to some of the best lash/brow artists I have ever came across.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a lash, brow & semi-permanent make-up artist with a cosmetology license. I have been in the beauty industry for 7 years. I specialize in lash lifts, lash extensions, brow lamination, brow shaping, & microblading. My most common service that I do is a lash lift- that was the first service I learned and perfected, second are lash extensions- since they are more of a commitment from a client. I’m proud of all of my work, due to constantly being able to keep learning & doing something different within this industry, not all lashes & brows are the same, & being able to enhance these specific details of a person is the biggest accomplishment any artist can feel. I would say the most challenging service for me has been the semi-permanent make-up, the detail to it has to be precise & articulate, and having clients that trust me to do that makes it something to be proud of. I think in this industry, to set yourself apart from others is really educating your clients on the service they are receiving- talking to them about what they want to achieve, letting them know if it’s achievable or not, paying attention to their everyday details to figure out what could work for them, & what could not, while being very thorough in why I am choosing a certain thing for them, whether it’s in a lash lift, lash extensions, brow shaping/lamination, or microblading. It’s trying to come to a middle solution, if, I as an artist know what they want exactly isn’t doable at that moment, I can either try to achieve it in a different way or help them try to achieve it in a few months (i.e. help grow their brows back out from over plucking)

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Oh man, I almost don’t remember. I do know that I was very competitive growing up due to playing softball almost my entire life. That has definitely rolled over into my adult life, which I’m not mad about. I have always loved to travel since I played travel ball & was out of town for most weekends, which I think makes it easier for me to be okay with driving out of town for work. Being able to see so many places when I was younger has made me want to see & explore other places. Being adventurous has definitely been in my blood since I was able to grow up in a time that involved with being outside more instead of looking at a screen. Very thankful for that.

Contact Info:

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