Today we’d like to introduce you to Arlet Castillo.
Hi Arlet, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
At a young age, I understood that the nail world would play a significant role in my life. I loved drawing and recreating everything. For example, when I saw a chair, I would draw it exactly as it looked, detail by detail. The same went for drawing faces. When I was around 12 years old, I began getting my nails done. I attended my nail appointments and tried to learn and memorize every movement the nail tech did.
I told myself, “This is something I can do! It’s very easy!” Then my sister, who started working as a nail tech, became my inspiration. I began working as a nail tech when I was 18 years old. I remember thinking of that little girl saying, “I can do this, it seems easy, but NO!” It was more difficult than I thought, but I did not give up and kept practicing because I really liked it.
I was born and raised in Cuba. I lived there until I was 19 years old. My father decided to leave Cuba and live in Spain to give my sister and me a better life. This was very difficult to achieve in Cuba. After a couple of years, my sister decided to go to the United States with her husband, and in 2016, I decided to go to the United States. Leaving my mother and little brother behind with much sadness and a broken heart but at the same time with many goals and dreams.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I moved to Texas, and my first job in this country was and will always be as a nail artist. I cannot deny that the first couple of years were hard. I worked in the field that I love, and I could not complain. As time went by, things started changing. I started achieving my goals, and my clientele started growing. The majority of my clients who followed me were with me since day one of my journey. They believed in me.
Some people humiliated me, but those were the best lessons that I could have learned. That humiliation gave me the strength to keep moving forward. As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” After 6 years of living in Texas, I met my boyfriend, Derek. He was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. I decided to relocate to Nashville to be with him, and now it’s been almost two years since I moved here.
I love Nashville. It was a dream move to this beautiful city, which has been a big challenge for me. Leaving everything behind once more and starting a new life is not easy. But here I am, I overcame that fear. I currently have a big support system from the people that I love. I can say that I am proud of myself and of everything that I have accomplished until now.
I currently work at “Indulgence Salon and Medi Spa” in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee. They opened their doors to me since day one and offered me all their support. My work can be found on Instagram as “_dreamynails1_”.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
My advice to everyone is “Love what you do, and what you love will love you one hundred times more.” Having the opportunity to connect with a lot of people, making them feel beautiful, listening to them, crying with them, and listening to music with them is a beautiful experience. Meeting other artists and inspiring others is the best feeling.
Another piece of advice is to not worry about what other people think. Constantly worrying about what other people think of you can eat you alive. Unlearning this has changed my way of thinking significantly in a positive way. I struggled a lot with these negative thoughts with myself. This affected me immensely, especially in my creativity. It affected me while working, posting videos and pictures of my art.
I noticed that I had anxiety because I was worrying about what others thought. Little by little, I started to unlearn these habits of self-criticism. Even though this is something that will probably never fully go away, working to unlearn these habits have helped my self-growth to overcome that anxiety.
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