Winks & Kisses...A Hope & A Prayer!
Welcome to Winks and Kisses! As I sit here writing my first entry in my new blog, I'm thinking, "I have no idea what my focus is going to be." I'm literally all of over the place. Will this blog focus on beauty? Lifestyle? What about traveling adventures? I don't know... hell it's going to be about whatever I feel like discussing at the moment. So let's start with a brief introduction of Winks and Kisses.
W&K was born 5 years ago, shortly after I moved to Nashville, TN. I didn't know anyone, didn't have any clients, and didn't know anything about starting/running a business. But I was determined to make this my "thing" and establish a name for myself in this country big town (that's what I called Nashville back then. My opinion has completely changed in this short amount of town and so has this city, but I will save that discussion for another day). Anyway, I literally came up with a list of names (I can't remember any of the others), sent the list to my family and friends, had them vote and Winks and Kisses was born.
Makeup was my thing but my technique and skills needed some HELP! Up until then, I had only been doing makeup for friends in college, for our girls' night outs ( I was the resident makeup artist). Shout out to everyone who took one for the team, by allowing me to practice on them, and risk going out looking like a clown. I look back at old pictures, and I literally cringe when I see some of the looks I did. Whew chile!
Anyway, back in 2013, my skills had improved a little from my college pro bono days but not by much. I figured, in order to get to where I wanted to be, I needed to set some goals, invest some real money in my business, and do a little bit more pro bono work, to get the name out there. And that's what I did! I paid for a photo shoot, got some of my co-workers (from my REAL job at the time) to model for me, and beat their faces, to the capacity that I was capable of. I started to build my kit with some brand names that my "clients" would recognize (MAC, Sigma Brushes, BH Cosmetics, to name a few). I found someone to design my logo and put together a whole marketing package for me. I built my own website, established my Instagram page. Winks and Kisses was up and running and it was on and popping!
Fast forward 5 years later, I'm a licensed esthetician, with my own little studio, a growing clientele, offering more services other than makeup, and thanking God everyday for pouring into my business and blessing me with the ambition, hunger, and drive, to set out to do what I said I was going to do back in 2013. I say all of that to say this, sometimes you just have to start somewhere and more often than not, that means starting with nothing but a hope and a prayer. Shit, that's all you need. Just sprinkle in a vision, some hard work, and a "go get it" attitude, and you're in there!