Meet Kiarah Forrest | Entrepreneur | Business Owner | Licensed Esthetician

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kiarah Forrest and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kiarah, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
I feel like risk is good, I feel I took ALOT and I mean a lot of risk to even start my business and to keep it going. As my boyfriend would say who’s by the way one of my biggest inspirations is” a lot of people get what they want and risk losing it where as I risk it to get it” so that meaning I took a lot of risk in starting my business and now that I risked everything and what I mean by everything , I mean money, friendships, family etc and now that im starting to become successful slowly but surely, ima do everything in my power to keep it and manage it the right way so I won’t lose it. So I feel like risk played a major part in my life/career because nobody seen my vision in my business but me and I knew that I had to risk a lot to even prove to myself and everybody else that mix and beauty is going to be successful.

What should our readers know about your business?
Mix and beauty is my 1st business I put into action, it’s like my 1st baby. I’m a licensed esthetician so I offer, facials , permanent makeup, waxing , sugaring and brow services. I’m starting to sell scrubs and body butter personally made by me. I feel like my authenticity and my passion for my career is what sets me apart from others, the way I do things I put my own twist to my business and I feel like the way I incorporate my story into my work ethic makes me different as well. The thing I’m most proud of is my ability to keep going and never give up despite my trials and tribulations along the way. I use to down myself a lot , I wasn’t very confident in myself or my dreams, I got knocked down a lot when I was younger and along my entrepreneur journey.. and you know not having alot of support can knock anybody down so I think that my ability to keep going through my heartache and hurt is what I’m most proud of.. I got to where iam today by never giving up and being consistent. Consistency is definitely key in being a business owner and no it wasn’t easy, ive stopped, started over so many times, I’ve changed my vision so many times, I’ve wanted to quit, I’ve cried , I’ve tried many different things but the one thing I didn’t do was quit and that’s all that matters, no matter what, just keep going because if God gave you a vision to see he will bring that vision to you and get you through whatever it is that you need to get through to bring that vision to life. I’m a firm believer in God and I feel that if you have faith everything will work out just fine and it’s working for me and in my favor maybe not as fast as I would like it to but it’s working. The lessons i learned along the way is that everything is not going to come easy, you’re not going to start a business , post a little on social media and then wake up the next day and be a millionaire or successful, it takes time and patience to build an empire, it takes hard work and dedication especially if you have big dreams. I want the world to know that mix and beauty will be the next big beauty brand and service salon and one of the top beauty brands in the world, I want the world to know that you can do anything you set your mind to, if god can see you to it , he can and will see you through it. I want the world to know that confidence and self love is something that this world and a lot of people including myself lacks and I want to be able to help people with that whether it’s coming across my content on social media or getting serviced by me because little do people know helping others helps me and helps me with my confidence and helps me feel good about myself.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Hmmmm…… brunch places to eat cause I love a good brunch.. would be toast at lenox , cirque and corner cafe. a good lunch place would have to be canoe or figos pasta, dinner would definitely have to be a seafood spot cause I love seafood oceanaire or rays on the river… all of those places have really good drinks too, im a fruity drinker so they all have like fruity type drinks… i definitely would visit and hang out at like the blue martini in Atlanta it’s a vibe it’s a nice lounge in buckhead or if I’m chilling or something I would do twin peaks or the battery. They have really nice restaurants/bars there and fun activities to do there.. Good music and good food is all you need to have a good time lol.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
My boyfriend plays a big role in my story. He’s literally my back bone, my ride or die, my motivation, my push. We’ve been together for 7 years and he’s been right by my side the whole time even when I first came up with this idea… My business name actually comes from apart of his name. So his nickname/rap name is remix and when we first started dating we would call us keemix , so my nickname is kee and so we just put our nicknames together and called it keemix, so when I started esthetician school and was coming up with my business ideas and names I came up with mix and beauty , and the meaning behind it is putting my own twist to the beauty industry and letting it be known that I’m not like everybody else im different so I’m bringing my own mix to the beauty industry. I started this business at a really low point and dark time in my life and I would cry cry cry all the time about how I wasn’t really getting support from certain friends and family members but I would see them support other people and he would always tell me like you got a good concept keep going, never give up on yourself, you got this, you gonna make it and even though we was both at a dark space he never dimmed my light , he always made sure my light was lit and pushed me to keep going and always let me know ima make it and I always would see that he would go through things and still be able to bounce back and he’s such a firm believer of being a hustler and going after what you believe in and being confident because I wasn’t confident at all and so he helped me with that and made me see my worth and watching him personally helped me a lot and I love him and will forever love him for being one of the biggest inspirations in my life besides my kids.

Instagram: @themixandbeauty and @xo.kiarahnicole