Hairdresser and Pharmacist Focuses on Aesthetics to Gain Professional Freedom

Her career path goes from butcher to drugstore clerk; now, this hairdresser and pharmacist focuses on aesthetics to gain professional freedom

Heidy Rodrigues's story has many peculiarities. She has been a butcher, a hairdresser, worked with cosmetics, and even in drugstores. A pharmacist by training, her connection to aesthetics goes back many years, mainly to the time when she split her attention between her beauty salon and her job with cosmetics.
She has lived in São Paulo for at least 14 years; she arrived in the capital seeking better opportunities for her personal and professional life. Already a mother, the difficulty of finding time for formal work in Pharmacy while caring for her son was one of the main reasons she moved to São Paulo and looked within aesthetics for ways to gain more freedom and quality time with her family.

Her affinity for medications led her to enroll in college, and her passion for caring for others brings her to the postgraduate program with the aim of opening her own clinic and continuing to contribute to people's well-being.

Moving states and job opportunities

Heidy is from Minas Gerais. Her move to São Paulo was driven by the dream of becoming a pharmacist. Seeking a better life, she moved to the São Paulo capital with the prospect of taking courses and specializations to improve her qualifications as a professional.

To be able to start her degree, she says she did not have the financial means, and her work as a hairdresser is what made that opportunity possible. With the salary she earned as a hairdresser, she was able to pay the tuition for pharmacy school.
Heidy says that the desire to study pharmacy began in elementary school, when a chemistry teacher at her school, also a pharmacist, inspired her.

In São Paulo she was able to take the courses needed to improve her performance as a hairdresser and thus earned enough income to pay for her degree.

Heidy's path included several experiences. She has been a butcher, worked with cosmetics, and was a hairdresser, as we mentioned, but her great passion was pharmacy, which gave her the opportunity to work in drugstores and compounding pharmacies.

She spent four years working in drugstores and pharmacies, but the arrival of her son and caring for her home made it impossible for her to continue in the profession. She spent years waiting for a chance to return to the job market, and that was when aesthetics came into her life.

“Betting on what is growing”: a new career

Many women understand the difficulty of the double shift between work and household care. Everything gets more complicated when you have children. For Heidy it was no different. When her son was born, she found herself overwhelmed trying to keep working outside the home and had to leave her formal job (CLT, Brazil's formal employment regime).

After some time, she felt the need to return to the job market and, since she had an affinity for cosmetics and liked taking care of people, she began searching for which paths to follow. That was when she discovered the possibility of becoming an aesthetic pharmacist and decided to pursue her specialization.

She realized that aesthetics is a growing field and that it would be a good opportunity to invest in this segment; after all, with the desire to open her own clinic, she intends to have more autonomy and freedom to enjoy leisure time with her family.

“I want to have my own business, be able to be with my son and have my own income. I see more freedom to balance things. I see that it is a market that is growing, so we have to bet on what is on the rise and on what we like”.

She also decided to trade the pharmacy counter for aesthetics so she could contribute to people in another aspect of their lives, at happier moments.

“I worked as a hairdresser and had the pleasure of seeing people happy. At the pharmacy, people usually arrive already sick or looking for something related to a health problem. In aesthetics it's different. They come in happier. You work interacting with people, taking care of health, but at a moment of joy”.

Heidy has already decided which area within aesthetics she intends to work in: hair and face. It could hardly be different for a hairdresser; after all, she already has an affinity for hair products and procedures, and she says that in all her professional experiences she manages to align what she learned and apply it to her new role, and that is what she intends to do now in aesthetics.

“No doubt these experiences will help me in aesthetics. From all my professions I take something and apply it to my current need. The exchange of information during classes, the girls asking me about hair procedures, for example. All of that is very advantageous. I learn and pass on a lot in the clinical immersions”.

Success Stories>Aesthetic Pharmacy