Soul of 78-Abbey Crump

"I went to an esthetics school—Body Logic School of Esthetics—down 280 in Greystone. I graduated at Walker in ’17; we were the last class that graduated as Walker.I was going to go to Shelton and I was living in Tuscaloosa. I was going to be a pharmaceutical sales rep but changed my mind. I was driving from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham three days a week. After that, I moved to Jasper and then moved to Birmingham. I was still going to school, so I was commuting for a while.I’ve been working here since August. I have always loved make up and loved skincare. I was always doing stuff like that for other people. I was doing my sister-in-law’s toenails one night because I had a gel nail kit and she said, ‘you should be an esthetician.’ I was like, ‘what? What is that?’ So she told me about it and I looked it up and it was immediate.I like the environment here. People come in and don’t feel confident in themselves. They say, ‘this bothers me.’ So I say, “I can do this, this, and this to help you.’ I like making people feel better about themselves.Lashes are my main thing. It’s my specialty. I do individual eyelash extensions. I separate each individual lash by itself and lay an extension on top of one lash. It immediately, dramatically affects your face. It makes your eyes pop, makes your face look skinner, your nose look skinnier…you just wake up and you are fabulous. There’s not much more you have to do. If anybody’s like me, I spend 15 minutes trying to make each lash go the right way. I can make them longer, thicker, fuller, dramatic, natural…I can use somebody’s eyes as my palette and change it up to however they want it to look.I also do skincare and help sell products. I also do dermaplanes, which is removing the dead skin and fine hairs off of somebody’s face. We do hydrofacials, microneedling, and sell all types of skincare products.I’ve learned a lot from Karen, who’s been our esthetician for about 20 years, as well as Dr. Petro. You can never stop learning things in this industry."Abbey Crump, Esthetician and Eyelash Extension ArtistPetro Facial Plastic Surgery and MedspaInterview + photos by Al Blanton