Megan Springsteel Memorial Cosmetology Scholarship

From braids to a silk press, many young black and brown people have a personal experience getting their hair done. Whether it's getting it done every week or waiting months to finally get it done, these unique experiences we have collectively have brought us together more than we know. Growing up, my mother would always try to keep my sisters and my hair in style and maintained. We all had thick, 4C hair and she would do what she could to keep up. At around 8 or 9 years old, my mother began to push me to help her while she did my hair. It started with just asking me to finish the braids down to the bottom and evolved into me washing, prepping, and doing half of the work. By 10 years old, I was doing my hair and trying tons of new styles as I got older. Because I started doing my own hair so young and my parents couldn't afford to take me to a salon, I quickly began to try new things. Reaching the end of middle school, I started to do my nails, brows, etc. It came as second nature to me and I loved learning new things. Going through high school, I would get asked to start a business doing hair or nails by all of my peers and family members. I knew I wanted to start a business, but I wasn't sure if being an independent hairstylist was best for me. Reaching the end of high school and choosing Entrepreneurship to be my major, I had to figure out how to include all my passions in the businesses I want to pursue in the future. I want to create something bigger than myself that can benefit the people in my community. Choosing to open salons and beauty supply stores is only a fraction of the things I want to pursue in the future but it is one of my biggest goals and will be the first business I open. There are a lot of cosmetologists and estheticians that either don't have the proper education or don't have the opportunity to have a space in a salon. Providing both a safe and open environment could allow many more people to be able to pursue their dream legitimately. It is very important to me that the salons I open provide the best education and certifications possible. Cosmetologists and estheticians should know how to work will all skin/hair types and know how to use the proper techniques necessary for each client. My goal is to be able to search my communities for passionate, creative, and adaptable estheticians and cosmetologists that are looking for a salon family to join. Because I also want to open many other businesses and get into the music and entertainment business, I want to be able to intertwine them all. I hope to be able to provide bigger opportunities to everyone that may work in my salons. Cosmetology has been a big part in my life since I can remember and has had a bigger impact on me than I could’ve imagined. It is very important to me to include my passions in my career decisions because I want to love what I do. I am looking forward to beginning my journey with opening salons and beauty supply stores as well as helping my community as much as possible.

The ideology of beauty has fascinated me ever since I was a little girl. At 7 years old, I would be sneaking into my mom's bathroom to play in her makeup or her room to try on her wigs. I would do these things to try and look "pretty" or "beautiful". Even now that I'm older, I wear false eyelashes and lipgloss to feel this way. Society lets it be known that a small, skinny, pointed nose is "better" than a bigger, flatter one. I would like to change this false idea of beauty and perfection. My goal for my future is to have a beauty salon that gives people a sense of self-confidence and love. It would be a very warm, welcoming, nonjudgemental environment, that's accepting and loving of everyone no matter their age or gender. The style of makeup I would provide won't be over the top and dramatic (unless they request it) but would be subtle and enhance the beautiful features that are already there. I would like everyone to know that you do not have to hide your natural features to feel beautiful because you already are and those features are what make you stand out and make you who you are. As far as hair, as a black woman growing up in America, I was told that my hair was too "nappy" or "rough". My mom would always perm my hair or hot comb it to get it straight and soft giving me the idea that my natural hair wasn't "good" hair. In reality, all hair is good hair, from type 1 to 4c everyone's natural hair is beautiful and should be accepted. This is another principle I would abide by in my salon, I would style hair in a way that was true to self. Our hair is our crown and should be worn proudly and confidently. Ultimately, being able to have my beauty salon would help me broaden the ideology of natural beauty, self-love, self-confidence, and self-worth. As I would always abide by my principles that every face and hair type is beautiful and perfect. Every person on Earth should be comfortable in their skin with a sense that they are beautiful and perfect the way they are. I would love to be the person to open the eyes of the ones in the dark and who are blind to their self beauty.

I have been in love with cosmetology since I was a little girl. I used to tell my family that I was going to be a "haircut teacher". My dream in life has always been to pursue a career in cosmetology. I love to make people feel beautiful and comfortable in their own skin. During middle school, I struggled lots with my identity and feeling worthy. Coming home and doing crazy makeup looks everyday helped me to find myself. I would create abstract looks and make videos all day long. Makeup really changed my life, and it helped me find my confidence and joy for life. I love everything to do with the hair, makeup, and nails! My goal in working as a cosmetologist is to help people feel empowered and worthy. It would be so amazing to be able to accomplish my goal in life, and with cosmetology schooling, I will be able to do so. It has been my dream to attend cosmetology school, but as a pastor's kid, it has been difficult to afford such schools. In my future, my dream would be to own my own salon. I love meeting new clients and making them feel refreshed and beautiful. It would be amazing if I had the chance to make my salon vision come true. Receiving this scholarship would aid me in making my dreams come true and help many feel confident in their own skin. It would truly be a honor and a dream come true to receive this scholarship! Thank you so much for your time:)

Ten years ago, I started to play with my mother’s makeup. My first attempt came short of its original intent to make one look beautiful due to my clumsy inexperience. This innocent event was only the beginning of a decade-long infatuation with everything cosmetics-related: from listening to self-taught beauty gurus to watching professional Vogue YouTube videos and even making my own tutorials (all evidence hidden in the depths of my own computer, of course). What was a simple fascination with the magic of enhancing natural beauty, slowly fell out of focus as my attention and the attention of all my peers turned to a teenager’s worst nightmare: puberty. I criticized every feature on my face, learning tutorials to manipulate the small imperfections to become more eurocentric and “popular.” Unhappy with my monolids, I used every trick and method known to mankind to give myself some type of crease (see Google results page 86 purple line). All through middle school and until my freshman year, my makeup box became my Pandora’s box to reject and resent every feature that came from my Chinese heritage. In my freshman year, my grandpa suddenly fell ill, leaving me emotionally distraught over the fact that I was oceans away with no way of visiting. I was expected to continue going through daily normalities when all I wanted was to go see my sick grandpa, my childhood best friend. When my relatives made the hard decision to stop medical treatment, I saw my father cry for the first time in my life. This jarring loss made me realize how much I had lost touch with my family and heritage. I felt embarrassed that my last conversation with my grandfather consisted of me relaying the briefest of messages through my parents. The language I had once spoken almost fluently had been reduced to a mere “hello” and “I love you.” I threw myself into learning the Chinese language, thus my vocabulary growing tremendously. Thanks to my deep dive into Chinese media and culture, I came to the sudden realization that the features I had once used makeup to hide away were being admired, praised, and showcased; pale skin, monolids, and round faces--everything I possessed was being recognized for the beauty I had once believed I lacked. All of a sudden, makeup became not an impersonal disconnect, but rather an artful enhancement of the features that connect me back to my heritage. My interest in makeup blossomed into a thirst for knowledge of cosmetic science; in the process of joining the market, both makeup and medicine must be biologically manufactured, tested, and FDA approved. Intrigued by this world and its collision with my own passions, in my junior year I participated in a research project focusing on drug discovery and computer-aided drug design- led by a teacher who had a background in the pharmaceutical industry- using a computer program to design fragments based on a Covid-19 compound in hopes of discovering a fragment that could be used to create an antiviral. In the methodology of using the components of a problem to create the source of a solution, I couldn’t help but relate to my nearly viral childhood insecurities. Right in front of me in Youtube tutorials and google searches, in Asian culture and the Chinese language sat the fragment of a cure: makeup. With my lifelong love for makeup, newfound knowledge in medicinal chemistry, and immovable confidence in the culture I shared with my grandfather, I found myself playing with my mother’s makeup again; only this time making plans for my own future makeup company.