Business owner enjoys making people feel beautiful on their special days: Trailblazers & Trendsetters

For a second year, PennLive marks Black History Month by recognizing “trailblazers and trendsetters”: leaders and advocates in central Pa. working to uplift their communities through their work, businesses, arts, ministries and mentorships.

In the coming weeks, we’ll publish more than 35 profiles of doctors, nurses, gardeners, ministers, educators, entrepreneurs, athletes, philanthropists, restauranteurs, authors, actors and others. They were nominated by readers and, for the most part, are people who have rarely been in the spotlight. More people were nominated than we were able to include; we’ll keep the names of those people for future profiles.

We hope you enjoy reading about these trailblazers. If you missed last year’s, you can find links to them here.

Aunesti Brown

Community: Harrisburg

Her story: Aunesti Brown is a Harrisburg native and a mom with a passion for hair and makeup.

Brown says she grew up a tomboy, enjoyed sports and didn’t become interested in makeup until she began to struggle with hormonal acne in her senior year of high school. Looking for a way to cover up her acne, Brown learned to use makeup and, over time, realized she was pretty good at it.

She graduated high school and began to study communications at HACC, but soon realized it wasn’t the right path for her. She decided to pursue hair and makeup full-time. Getting practice in doing her cousins’ makeup and a few girls during prom season, Brown was getting more comfortable doing makeup and in the fall of 2015 decided to make what she says was her first real investment into her craft: cosmetology school.

“The first investment I guess I would say is that I went to school because I knew if this communications, college thing didn’t work, I needed to do something. I’ve never liked working like your average nine-to-five, there’s nothing wrong with it, but I’m miserable at a nine-to-five job. If going to college wasn’t going to work, I had to do this and I didn’t want to just do it, as like a side hustle or a hobby, I wanted to go get my license and do it.”

Since finishing school in 2019, Brown has done countless makeup and hair looks. Brown’s business, Salon 1031, is growing and expanding as she has now been able to secure a suite to better service her clients. She would like to eventually expand her business outside of her hometown.

While being a mom to her one-year-old son and owning a business is not easy, Brown says that her work is rewarding and she truly enjoys it.

In her words: “I’m not helping people as far as like a doctor or something like that, but I love feeling like I’m needed and I am, like, especially with the wedding email inquiries I get. It’s, like, this person’s day is not going to be complete without me, so I feel like that’s something that keeps me going. I was given that talent that is able to bless other people, so I feel, like, that’s why I keep going on, like I said, even the slow days, I don’t stop just because even if it had to end up becoming just a hobby for me, at the end of the day, I don’t ever want to stop doing this.”