Magazine for the professional nail industry.
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JULY 2016 | NAILS MAGAZINE | 141 gone smoothly, that may have been the end of this story. But Jackson, despite achieving nationwide acclaim in NAILS' Next Top Nail Artist Season One competition and on the TV reality show "Nail'd It," failed the California nail tech licensing exam — not once but twice. "My frst exam was in October of 2014, and I fnally passed the exam in March 2015," Jackson says. Jackson had already been doing nails professionally for 10 years when the she failed two exam segments: practicals for basic manicure and tip application/sculpture, demonstrations she felt she could do in her sleep. After re-doing nail school and traveling across the country to take an exam for work she had spent a decade doing, Jackson realized there has to be a better way for nail techs to relocate without jeopardizing their careers. A second exam with wrong information given by the proctor led to a third examination. "Which would be OK if I were a resident of California," Jackson says. "But I had to travel the 3,000+ miles from Connecticut to retake the exam not once, not twice, but three times. I was not a happy camper, but I did what I had to do because coming to L.A. and pursuing this career full time was what I wanted. And I was determined to make it a reality, one way or another." Once she accomplished her own dream, she set out to help other Connecticut nail techs. She started by contacting the governor of Connecticut. "I fgured, why not go directly to the top?" Jackson says. But she was advised to contact her local legislative representative instead — someone she'd contacted several times but has yet to receive a response from. "Because of the lack of response, I've just continued to research how I can make an improvement and have continued to fnd diferent avenues to advocate for nail technicians," she says. Her research has included meeting with an advocate who helped Utah, one of the other last regulatory holdouts, fnally pass nail tech licensing. She plans to continue reaching out to non-responsive legislators and encourages other nail techs to join in the fght. "The licensing should encompass both sanitation require- ments and ofer reciprocity with other states," says Jackson. "Other nail technicians in Connecticut feel the same way, and have given me support in making this a licensing state." At frst glance, Temeka Jackson seems so at home doing nails for celebrity clients at their Los Angeles residences that an onlooker might mistake her as being born and bred in California. But Jackson's road to becoming a licensed nail tech in California was full of false starts, detours, and devastating potholes. She's now determined to help pave the way for other nail techs from her home state of Connecticut, which is the last of the 50 states to not regulate manicuring via a government-issued license. Jackson advocates for turning Connecticut into a nail tech licensing state and says she will not consider her advocacy successful until there is bi-directional reciprocity with California. Jackson currently works full-time as a nail tech in Los Angeles, doing home visits for clients including Vanessa Simmons (from "Project Runway") and Alexis Spight (from "Sunday Best") and also seeing clients at Enamel Diction salon in Los Angeles' Mid-City neighborhood. Still, Jackson's love of her hometown of New Haven, Conn., shines through her conversation; she does nails there during visits and cites it as the source of much of the inspiration for her current drive. As one of the only black nail techs in Connecticut, Jackson says she was discriminated against when she frst entered the profession. Clients, she says, would choose to wait for her established Asian counterparts rather than give "the black girl that does nails" a chance. But as her skillset grew, so did her clientele. "Although it was hard, it inspired me to bring something new and exciting to Connecticut," Jackson says now. "I am one who likes to attack challenges head on and use them as ammunition to be a stronger person. Being discriminated against only made me work harder on the creative end so that when clients saw my work their attention would be grabbed immediately!" That head-on attitude became her biggest asset when making her cross-country move. Because Connecticut has no nail tech license (and certainly did not have reciprocity with California, which has one of the highest government standards for nail techs in the country), Jackson had to re-enter nail school. "I actually had to enroll twice during my career. There was the initial enrollment at the beginning of my career. In Connecticut, you are only given a nail technician certifcate; you are not informed that the certifcate doesn't have weight outside the borders of Connecticut," she says. "I only found this information out once I put in motion the task of moving to California, where I then learned that I needed to not only re-enroll into a nail technician program but I also had to take another examination in order to be a certifed nail technician in California." If that exam had Get Involved! Connecticut-based nail techs can email Jackson at tjack324@hotmail.com. Jackson holds her hard-won California nail tech license. Jackson does nails for Justina Pelletier while Pelletier is hospitalized. The Connecticut teen became a fan of Jackson when she saw Jackson on "Nail'd It." TEMEKA JACKSON PERSUADING STARS TO ALIGN After a cross-country move that almost jeopardized her livelihood, Temeka Jackson fghts for a manicurist license for Connecticut nail techs.