Nayamka Roberts-Smith, LE — better known to the world as LaBeautyologist [1] on Instagram — is a Beverly Hills-based aesthetician and influencer [2]. Here, she shares how she began her career in beauty, from running a nail business out of her college dorm room to making the switch to skin care and aesthetics. This story was told to Danielle Jackson and edited for length and clarity.
My mom was a cosmetologist, but she didn't work in a hair salon. She just learned cosmetology — she went to school when I was 5 — because she wanted to just be able to do my hair, my brother's hair, her hair, that kind of thing. In cosmetology, you technically learn hair, nails, and skin, but she wasn't interested in the other things. She just wanted to do hair. So she used to give me her nail stuff to play with when I was a kid. I had her manicure bowls and I used to paint my friends' nails and do mine all kinds of crazy designs when I was in middle school. I taught myself how to do acrylics [3], and then by high school I was doing some of my friends' nails [4] for prom.
When I went to college, I had a little nail business out of my dorm room called Nai's Nails. I even had a flyer and business cards; I would do my friends' nails for free and then they'd go somewhere and people would be like, "Oh, my God! I love your nails." And they'd be like, "My friend does them! Here's her card." I always had a beauty and entrepreneurial spirit, but I was studying political science and anthropology because I didn't realise you could actually make money and have a real job doing that.
I dropped out of college when I was halfway through my junior year, and I didn't know what I wanted to do at that point. I decided to go to school for nails, because I already knew how to do nails [5]. It was something that I liked, so it was just going to be like a holdover until I figured out what I really wanted to do.
On Her First Job In Beauty — and Why She Switched Paths
I worked as a nail tech in a small hair salon in my hometown for eight months, and while I was there, they took us to an international spa conference where there was a hair side and an aesthetics side. Because it was a hair salon, I distinctly remember being on the hair side. Nail techs were kind of scattered in between both because the industry wasn't that big yet. I went over to the spa side, and it was all calm and this pretty baby blue colour. The nail side was loud and crazy. People were doing all these crazy designs and there were barbers on stage, and there was hair, and lights flashing, and pink! It just had a completely different energy and I was like, "These are my people."
I distinctly remember gravitating to them. From then, I figured I would probably go back to school for aesthetics, but I wasn't sure yet. I moved up from the small, local hair salon to a really big spa in my area, and I worked in the nail room. Being there, I felt like the aestheticians were the core of the spa. They were the ones that people came for. I loved how they made people feel and the things that they learned. They would have product knowledge going on in the back room and I would always put my ear to the door to hear what they were saying. It was just so interesting, the science of everything.
I noticed a lot of Black women didn't come into the spa for facials. I always felt that there was a big gap in the industry for that reason.
I also noticed that a lot of Black women didn't come into the spa for facials — they'd come in for nails or massages, but never facials. I always felt that there was a big gap in the industry for that reason. Even while I was in aesthetics school, I was the only Black girl in the class, and I was one of the few Black girls who had ever even gone to the school. I just realised that there was a huge gap between what my friends, peers, and all the Black people that I knew knew about skin and cared about in regard to skin and what the industry was saying about skin. The girls in my class even had a better base knowledge of skin care than a lot of my Black peers. I really wanted to close the gap.
On Realising That the Skin Care Industry Needed Her Point of View
When I started in skin care five or six years ago, it wasn't as big of an industry at all. Now it's huge, but it wasn't then. No one really cared, even when I was tweeting about skin care. I also didn't see a lot of Black women. I know that would discourage some people, but for me, I was like, "This lane is wide open. I'm valuable in this space because I'm different."
There's the huge myth that Black doesn't crack and that Black people don't really have to do much to their skin, but I think that attitude is slowly changing because that's obviously not true. Black girls have acne, women of all ages do have anti-ageing [6] concerns, and there's just a lot of misinformation out there and a lack of access. The skin-care industry has always been notoriously advertised as a luxury thing for upper middle class white women with ageing concerns. They even cover that in school — that's the target market for the skin-care industry, it's in books. That's who skin-care brands and aestheticians were talking to. It completely ignored a market of people, and it's just recently happened that the industry has become more inclusive.
On Making Skin Care More Accessible
I was probably one of the first Black aestheticians on Twitter [7]. My mission was to make it accessible, not only luxury. I do that by using social media, but also the language that I use. I try to focus on taking the science-y, confusing stuff and putting it into plain words and explaining it like I'm explaining it to a five-year-old. Making it fun so it's not boring like a lot of information can be, and making it for people like me — people of colour, people who are younger, women — or anyone who needs this information but isn't always going to seek it out.
I love science, and I think it's really empowering when you learn how to take care of your body. For me, it's more than just skin care, it's teaching people how to take care of themselves, which is extremely important in terms of self-esteem and wellness. It was a really great outlet for me to create community and care about people.
On the Honour of Having People Who Trust Her Opinion
Having someone trust you with their body is an honour. I take it very seriously. As vain or as shallow as it feels, how your skin looks changes how you feel about yourself. Imperfections are normal and natural, and I don't want people to obsess about it, but it does feel good to not like something about yourself and to be able to change it by yourself. It really means a lot that anyone would even care what I have to say and that the way that I relayed the information helped them understand so that they could apply it in their life.
On the Skin-Care Tips You Should Never Forget
Wear SPF [8]. Period, bottom line. I don't care what kind of SPF you use. Physical, chemical, spray, powder — I don't care, just please use it. One thing that's also underrated is just hydrating your skin. The skin performs so much better when it's hydrated. You can treat hyperpigmentation [9] and decrease inflammation and acne just from having hydrated skin. This is the key to keeping your skin healthy.