Gontse Naledi Chuma, 24, is the owner of Blinqué Beauty Bar. She is also its manager, marketer and accountant. And she works full time as a beauty artist and employs two other artists. Gontse says she makes women of all ages and races look and feel their best with her lash and brow services and now as a dermal aesthetics graduate she will do medically graded non-invasive skin treatments. This all started when she decided to drop out of her civil engineering course and pursue a career she has always been interested in. Gontse enrolled and completed her international diploma in dermal aesthetics “so I could be better educated about cosmetic chemistry, dermatology and all matters of the skin”. It was while she was still studying that she started her business in a small rented room at the age of 21. Today Gontse has a client base of more than 1 000 people from Gauteng, Limpopo and North West. She now rents a four-room office in Pretoria, employs three people and has openings for five other jobs. Gontse believes that the more young people become entrepreneurs, rather than fruitlessly searching for employment, the more jobs they can create for skilled but unemployed people.
Advanced Aesthetics International, Madge Wallace
National Diploma, Madge Wallace
Skincare Specialist International Certificate, Madge Wallace
My biggest achievement is taking a really big leap of faith in my first year of civil engineering and deciding to drop out and pursue a non-conventional career path for which I had passion and drive, which is skin and beauty. I then enrolled at my dream school to pursue my international diploma in dermal aesthetics so I could be better educated about cosmetic chemistry, dermatology and all matters of the skin and the beauty industry. While studying I decided to start a beauty business when I was 21. I started by renting a small room in a building. My business grew fast and I now have a client base of more than 1,000 clients from Gauteng, Limpopo and North West. In 2022, one year into the business operating, Booksy (the biggest booking software in South Africa) awarded my business the most booked Lash & Brow Studio in Pretoria. I then went from renting a small room, to renting the entire four-room office where I hired my first three employees, with five other job spaces open. I graduated last year as a medical aesthetician. My biggest lesson from this was to be resilient and believe in my dream, even if it didn’t make sense for anyone else.
My first lash tech that I went to in my hometown of Polokwane. Her name is Prudence. She used to be an accountant and quit her job to pursue a career in the beauty industry which she found way more successful and fulfilling. She kept going despite people doubting the career change and she runs one of the best and most booked beauty studios in Polokwane. I love her story, she inspires me so much.