Today we’d like to introduce you to Wendy McCall Carter.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I spent 25 years in the Automotive industry, mostly on the finance side, until the recession in 08′ I found myself having to start over at almost 40 years old with no degree as I entered the auto sales force just out of high school. I just lost a six figure income with no hopes of replacing it during a difficult financial time in our country. I was fortunate enough that I could take a bit of time to figure out what I wanted to do next.
I opened a pet sitting & cleaning business.It quickly took off needing to hire a few hands to fulfill the demand. I wasn’t going to get rich at this but it was hard, honest ,physical work. During a typical round of golf with, my now ex husband , I fell down some rotten steps at the golf course, right shouder torn, and needed immediate surgery. down that business went as I was the business. I knew I didn’t want to re enter the car business and no one was hiring anyway so I focused on what I could get quickly get educated on and start my own business.
I had always done my own nails, even at 13 I was teaching myself how to do acrylic nails. In 2011 I enrolled in Vtran Beauty college in Charlotte, NC to attend their Nail Technician course. After graduating I rented a studio space in a multiple suite location about 30 mins from my home. I didn’t want to fill my books with family & friends, as odd as that may sound, my intuition led me to see that was a necessary boundary to be successful. I created a referral system for the other 24 studio owners in the building to fill my chair for me, and it worked. Every three clients they sent me, they received a free service. I was paying rent & covering expenses my first week in business. I never went into debt or spent money on advertising.
Two very busy years went by & a slew of health issues began to emerge. My badly diseased gallbladder had to come out but it ultimately saved my life because they found tumors on my right kidney during the gall bladder ultrasound ,that turned out to be growing cancer. They removed part of my right kidney when I healed from the gall bladder removal. Fortunately, the cancer was encapsulated, I didn’t need chemotherapy or radiation but would need to be followed for life as Renal Cell Carcimoa has a decent return rate.
Life gets back on track a few months, business is still going, clients were amazing during that down time. 4 months post-surgery I ended up with a horrible case of the flu , this was 2014 the year it was so bad. Apparently my fever got so bad that it woke up an underlying autoimmune disease called Connective Tissue Disease. It would be months before we could get the pain under control but I had to push through, I had a business to run. My team of doctors and I modified the disease as much as we could but it would be until 2022 until we found a true game changer medication. During that 8 year period, all while running my very booked out business and caring for two physically & mentally ill parents, taking off as little time after surgeries to heal as possible, never longer than 3 weeks, Id have 5 more surgeries.
I had a hip replacement that had to be operated on 3 times, my bones never took to the prosthetic so they had to screw it to my pelvis which caused an impingement on my psoas muscle which had to be surgically severed. This is the muscle responsible for holding us upright. In 2021 my left SI joint needed fusion so I’d add two more huge screws to my body, Im up to 7 I think. Painful pt with a lot of hard work to do was not easy running a busy business but thankful most of my job was sitting so it could still be done and my clients, my loyals ones are still with me to this day.
I moved to Tx in 2015 with my now ex husband ,who in Jan 2023 completely blindsided me with divorce, literally blindside in every sense of the word. I had physically gotten myself to a place where I was dancing again, I was a former competitive country dancer with Champsionship title in the late 90.s early 2000’s but mostly stopped in 2003.
Everyone in Charlotte at the time in our group had pretty much stopped all competition dancing in 2003 with very little social dancing. Fast forward to 2021 I was ready to renter the dance scene so I went to Mavericks in Pfugerville, immersed myself into the regulars crowd, building my stamina and pain tolerance each time. I was ready to start taking West Coast Swing lessons as I quickly realized the dance had changed a lot in the 20 years I had been gone. You see, country competitive dancing is tied a lot to the West Coast Swing community. I was told to take lessons with Glenn Ball at Go Dance Studio in Austin that he was a former back up dancer for many stars like Mairah Carey, Kylie Monogue, Taylor swift etc.
We are all back from covid, business is going well again, I moved my salon studio to my legal home salon since TDLR had relaxed the ADA requirements on Home based business for independent nail techs. I had stopped doing pedicures because of my back and moved my focus to mastering Hard gel. I took several Master classes and spent years perfecting my hard gel application, improving retention & again clients were just showing up with existing customer referrals, my entire business is based on them. I’ve formed a network of like minded local nails techs that we bounce ideas off of, share frustrations and product do’s and don’ts. I keep up with most nail salon trends. I allow my clients to book at their leisure at wwww.vagaro.com/nailsbywendycarter 90 days in advance. Most of my clients have been with me since my move to Texas in 2015 & are extremely supportive of my dancing career.
Since renterting the West Coast Swing World, I have met my new husband and dance Partner,Davd Carter. I never dreamed I’d ever be with a dancer, let alone someone who cherishes me like a precious gift. This man was prepared to wait 6 months to a year to ask me out after my ex blindsided me. He wanted me to heal and make sure I was ok. He knew I was in for a rough ride because when I say I was blindsided I mean ZERO clue it was coming. No fighting ,nothing. Im legally not allowed to disparage him per our decree so lets just say things ended very cliche’.
For the last 3 years David and I have completely immersed ourselves into the hard core competitive West Coast Swing community. We have won many awards in Divisions of our own and together with the most important one we became World Swing Dance Champions this Thanksgiving at The Open Swing Dance Championships held every year in Burbank, CA. If you would have told me in 2013 when all of my health crisis started that I would be a WorldSwing Champion I would have laughed in your face but here we are!!!
I also would have laughed if you told me I’d have the chance to do Bruce Springsteen & Janet Jackson’s nails last year!!! Well, that happened too! Life & opportunity has just opened wide for me the last 3 years. A friend in the beauty business locally had a connection at the Moody Center and needed a clean, on call nail tech, I was happy to accept the offer. Its cool, dont get me wrong but its almost as nerve racking as competing. Apparently Im a tad sadistic to myself but its made me grow in ways I would have never been able to achieve & put me in front of opportunities I would have shrunk from before. True story, I missed the call to do services for Adam Levine a few weeks ago, bummer but there will be others and yess Janet is just as beautiful in person, perfection!
So, I’ve had a wild ride and did the best I could do condense things.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
Clients are becoming more aware of the need for more sanitary nail pratictioners. Independent nail tech numbers are on the rise as we are more known for best practices in sanitation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nailsbywendycarter.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/nailsbywendycarter
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/nailartbywendy
