I grew up visiting the local beauty school down the street from my grandmother's home in Temple Hills, Maryland. My grandmother visited regularly, often dragging me along for her weekly $15 wash-and-set, and I'd always imagined that's where hairstylists were made. Sometimes I'd get my hair done too, mostly thick cornrows that roped across my scalp in neat lines.
"I feel like I wanted to go to makeup school at one point because I just wanted to throw myself in there. I researched so many schools, and I was just like, 'Damn, I don't have the money,'" says Raisa Flowers, a self-taught makeup artist based in NYC. Flowers has worked with everyone from Pat McGrath to Paper Magazine and has been doing Euphoria-esque makeup long before the show became a cultural phenomenon.
While it's important to know the science behind hair care and the importance of keeping nails healthy and fly, many artists agree that being licensed doesn't guarantee you'll work or become the next big thing. And although technique can be taught, true talent and aesthetic sensibility are innate—a point that all of the artists interviewed agreed upon.