BONUS EPISODE: With Deborah Carver

On this bonus episode of The Walk Of Life podcast, Cheryl Thibault is joined by Deborah Carver to discuss her chapter in the book ‘Career In The Beauty Industry: Discover If It’s For You’ as well as her life and career in the industry as well as her story and her walk of life.   KEY TAKEAWAYS When I was 18 I ran away from home in Pennsylvania to California where I worked various jobs, eventually working for a publishing company for 6 years, learned everything I could and started my first publishing business at 26 years old, and it was very successful right from the outset. After about 20 years of publishing medical magazines I discovered the beauty industry and started a magazine called NailPro Nails has reverted and the industry is segmenting again. Individual cosmetologists are cropping up all over doing specific work rather than the ability to go in and get all your services done in one place. It’ll be interesting to see where it ends up. I sold my business a year and a half ago during Covid when the world was changing anyway, but I think it’s going to be less employee based salons and more individual stylists doing what they do from a home/mobile base or a salon suite of some kind. I don’t think the majority of young people entering into a career want to work quite as hard now as we did in the past, they want more to enjoy life and not so much the work ethic that we had. For 20 years I rode on the back of ambulances, watched people getting dialysis or getting hyper-alimentation for nutrition, all kinds of things. When I reached the beauty industry it became my heart. I think the people in the beauty industry are, without doubt, the nicest people I’ve ever met, I never had so much fun. They were fun to be with the hairdressers and the nail technicians, we laughed all the time. I’m 80, so I truly was a pioneer for women in the industries that I was in. I was the only woman in emergency medicine, I had a magazine in wiring and cables and I remember being in Atlanta, Georgia and I had to give a speech to 260-some utility managers. I was 26 years old, what did I know about utility managers? I was a publisher, I know how to publish magazines. I was scared to death and I got up on that podium and there wasn’t one woman in the room. Not one. That’s the way it was back then. We forged a path and overcame men not respecting what we said. After the war was over women were expected to go back and be housewives and mothers and expected to take care of men, but from an early age I knew that was not what I was going to do.   BEST MOMENTS ‘When we started Day Spa Magazine there were only 300 legitimate spas in the US and overnight nail salons became spas, everybody added the work to their salons, it was phenomenal growth that happened overnight.’ ‘We all think, as we get older, that we’re unique. We’re not so unique.’ ‘Magazines have a life, some go on forever like NailPro and Day Spa, but they go up and go down. When I sold the company I sold 5 magazines. I miss it, I’m bored to death! I have worked my entire life since I was a child. I am talking about getting into a business venture in the beauty industry.’ ‘Women my age who were entrepreneurial forged a road for all women to be able to go into business and be respected for it.’   ABOUT THE GUEST Deborah Carver is the founder of Creative Age Publications and an iconic leader in the professional beauty industry. She began in the publishing industry in 1971 with the launch of Creative Age, which produced advanced medical and technical magazines. In 1990, Carver switched directions, selling off the medical titles and adding pro beauty magazines to the line-up. Creative Age titles included NAILPRO, Beauty Launchpad, DAYSPA, Beauty Store Business, MedEsthetics, The Colorist, MAN and EyeLash.  Deborah also launched the interactive digital publication Beauty Etc. for the professional makeup artist, as well as the first nail magazine dedicated to the consumer audience, Nail I