Hi! I’m Nicole Stephens. I am a hairstylist, makeup artist, esthetician and Davines Discover Educator. I have worked in the beauty industry for over 20 years and began my journey in Minnesota and now work in both Central Wisconsin and Garner, North Carolina.
While cosmetology wasn’t my first career, I should have known it’s what I was destined to do. From a very young age, I would style my dolls’ hair, even using toothpicks and water to roller set Barbie and her friends. As a preschooler, I have vivid memories of watching my mom do theatre makeup and I remember sneaking into her bathroom to look at her eye shadow palettes in grade school. Starting in high school, I would do hair and makeup for our theatre productions and gave a couple of my friends some really awful undercuts and haircuts. In college and after graduation, I often did hair & makeup for my sisters and their friends for various formal events.
Eventually, I became an independent sales consultant for a popular direct sales skin care and makeup company. I learned so much with that organization and it ultimately inspired me to become a licensed esthetician. I loved it so much and began building my career by once again going back to school as an apprentice and earning my cosmetology degree and license. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Though I spent almost half my life in Wisconsin, I now live in The Triangle full-time. But I still love to go back to Wisconsin to visit my friends and family and work with some of my long-time clients. I believe in building clients for life and always work to pamper my guests with little extras during their sessions with me. I take a spa approach to my services, incorporating warm towels at the shampoo bowl and focusing on massage during the conditioning and treatment phases. I love helping my clients to relax and want them to leave my studio feeling refreshed and renewed.
I use Davines hair colour including Century of Light, Mask with Vibrachrome and View. For haircare and styling, I use Davines Heart of Glass, More Inside, Naturaltech, and Oi. I use Temptu airbrush makeup for my airbrush makeup services and a collection of my curated favorites for traditional makeup applications. I strive to be eco-friendly and sustainable whenever possible — one of the big reasons why I’ve chosen to work with Davines not only in my salon but as an educator for the brand. Sharing my Davines knowledge and love as a Discover Educator takes me all over the Carolinas.
I love to travel not only for work but also in my free time. I love a cruise as well as camping and dragging my hubby along on death marches, errr, I mean hiking adventures. I also love working in my garden, building a sustainable homestead, and baking in my kitchen.
Want to book a hair session with me in North Carolina? Click here. To book with me in Wisconsin, click here. And if you’d like to shop from my salon, Brush & Bashful, for your favorite Davines products, click here.