To Los Angeles, With Love

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Source image: Getty; Illustration: Ingrid Fowler

Dear Los Angeles,

If we’re being honest, we had a bit of a rocky start, you and me. I thought you were too light, too easy, too 72 and sunny. Never trust anything this easy, this comfortable. Except your freeways. Y’all are a bunch of maniacs on the 405. And I could never understand your obsession with yoga pants, matcha, and cleaning your cars. Where were your fast talkers, your jaywalkers? Where was your moxie? I guess if we’re being really honest, you thought I was too sarcastic, too impatient, too ironic. A New Yorker in a square hole. We respected each other, but over these past seven—Jesus, seven?!—years, there’s been a distance.

Last week, I was driving west on the 10 to pick my son up from school in Santa Monica. And there was no mistaking it. The hills were on fire—flames 10 stories high, plumes of black smoke engulfing the land as if the bulkhead of Hell swung open right there on the side of the mountain. In that instant, all ambivalence vanished. Los Angeles wasn’t my adopted home, it was—is—my home.

Say cities are like people: they all have their own identity. Imagine Rome. It invites you to share a bottle of wine and stay for some pasta. New York is already annoyed you’re not walking faster. And think of Paris. Actually, forget Paris, it’s too intimidating to sit next to, so keep walking and stare at your phone. But Los Angeles is unmatched. Unmatched in its warmth, its delightful disposition, its ability to inspire you—not with high fashion or sanctimonious pontificating or streets walled with money—but just by being its easy, sunny self.

It’s no wonder that for generations, LA has reeled in the most talented hairstylists, makeup artists, fashion designers, and visionaries. They come here to find ideas, to add their mark, to contribute a piece of their own to the beauty that is so uniquely LA. Think of the dreamy glitz of award season or the beachy hair and surfer cool vibes of Malibu. The funky weirdos in Venice or the edgy streetwear of Melrose. Home to the Gold Rush and the Golden Age. This city is the manifestation of storytelling, of artistry. And over decades, LA has captured the most exciting, creative, gorgeous ideas and bestowed them on the world. Los Angeles sends out beauty the way other places export coffee beans.

So this week we’ve been speaking to some of the people who have made LA what it is—the beauty professionals whose inventiveness has helped mold the identity of this city. They told us what Los Angeles means to them, how it’s shaped their careers and sparked their creativity. What we found is that LA’s superpower is its ability to bring out the best in the people within its city limits. Maybe the “La La Land” moniker was never ironic. Maybe it was a testament to the grace built into the DNA of the city. That bright, shiny identity born between the mountains and the water’s edge—it’s not weakness. It is LA’s strength, its grit, you might even call it moxie. —Danielle Pergament

Adir Abergel, hairstylist and creative director of Virtue Labs

“I moved to Los Angeles in 1986. I'm originally from Israel; my parents sent me here to have a better life. When I was nine years old, I moved in with my aunt, who lived on Sunset Boulevard. My entire childhood, I was surrounded by all of the beautiful, eccentric people who lived in this city.

Los Angeles gives you the freedom to be exactly who you want to be without judgment. If you’ve ever felt like a misfit or like you weren’t being seen, Los Angeles has always had space for you—more so than any city I've ever been to in my life.

That’s really affected the way that I see beauty and the way that I like to enhance the beauty of others as a hairstylist. And that is by not homogenizing anyone, but by really seeing them for exactly who they are and building upon that.

The beauty industry is intertwined with the city. We are a family. I have connections with every hair and makeup person here; there is kinship that defies competition.

I know that our industry is resilient. I hope that we can show the world how strong we are. And I hope that when the media stops covering the fires that we all continue to take care of each other—and that we can be there for each other in those quiet moments that happen behind the scenes.”

Molly Burke, beauty content creator, author, and advocate

“I was five years old when I told my parents that I was going to move to LA and be an actress. I didn't even go to LA for the first time until I was 19, but my whole life I knew that it was where I was meant to be. I'm from Canada, so it was a bit of a process, but finally, at 23, I moved there… and it just felt like home.

Growing up being disabled, I'm inherently different, and I think society often looks at difference as a bad thing. [Editor's note: Molly was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa at age four and lost her sight almost completely by age 14.] We like sameness because it's comfortable and it's easy. But I'm not ever going to be the same as most people—creatively, that's not my path either. I'm a quirky, artistic kind of person who never liked to follow the rules. For all those reasons, I never felt accepted for who I was by anybody but myself and my family. I felt like I couldn't escape my story or who people saw me as.

When I moved to LA, not only did I get to leave this traumatic past behind… it gave me the freedom to explore and fully become who I was always meant to be without judgment, without fear, without ridicule. Because LA is one of the only places I've ever been where I've experienced the celebration of uniqueness. Being yourself is seen as cool. It's this space where people go to believe in themselves.

We need art to add color to our lives. LA is a city of art and artists who don't listen to people who say, "Don't follow your dreams, follow the path." That's an energy I want to be surrounded by. I want to be surrounded by people who believe in themselves, who celebrate being weird and unique, who don't listen to what society says but rather build the life that they see as valuable.

There's always been some judgment around Los Angeles. You either get it or you don't. It's either for you or it isn't, and it's always been for me. That is my chosen home. Still, every day, I am like, "This city is amazing."

My biggest thing right now is advocating for the disability community. Some of the lives lost were disabled people who could not evacuate because they weren't given access to resources that disabled people need, and this is a huge issue. Disabled people who have been displaced are missing medical equipment, they're missing mobility aids. The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies has a Disability and Disaster Hub that is led by and for disabled people throughout disasters like this one.”

Anastasia Soare, founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills

“Do you remember at the end of Pretty Woman, there’s the scene where the narrator says, ‘This is Hollywood, land of dreams’? That’s exactly what it is for me.

I grew up in Romania under a communist regime. In the winter, they used to turn off the electricity at six o’clock. It was so cold; you could feel it in your bones. We had a VCR and one of the only movies we could get was Beverly Hills Cop. And from what I could see in that movie, the weather in California was beautiful. It was, for me, the American dream.

I came to Los Angeles on July 29, 1989. I remember getting off the plane and seeing the sunshine and palm trees. I couldn’t speak English. But we needed to pay the rent, so I got a job doing facials and waxing at a salon. And after a couple of years, I rented a room in another salon and started my first brow studio. Within six months, I had celebrity clients—Cindy, Naomi, Stephanie, the supermodels.

Today, I’m surrounded by the most incredible women. Clients have become friends. I’ve gotten calls from people who have lost their homes and are staying in hotels, and they’re asking for makeup just because they want to feel normal again. They want to feel like themselves.

One of my very good friends—and a client for 30 years—Norah Weinstein co-founded Baby2Baby. Their organization has the resources and the infrastructure to put diapers and clothing into the hands of people that really need them.

I went through the 1994 earthquake. All I could take was a bag with my passport and a few pictures. I got my mom and my daughter, and we got out. I lost everything. I lived in the car for three nights and then a client of mine helped me to get to her, and I stayed for two weeks in her house, and then I found an apartment. I cried. I wanted to go back to Romania because I was so terrified. But you know what? We forgot. We recovered, and we built our life back.

Angelenos are resilient. We get together and we support each other. It’s going to take time, but I know we’ll get there.”

Mara Roszak, hairstylist, owner of Mare Salon, and founder of Rōz

“I’ve never lived in a city other than LA. My mother was an artist, a sculptor, and I grew up in Laurel Canyon, which is a very special place. I’ve never been able to imagine being anywhere else. LA is so core to who I am, to my artistry and my creativity and my overall aesthetic. I love the natural ease of hair and I work a lot with floral inspiration. I think that’s come from being here, surrounded by nature and a certain sense of ease I’ve always felt in LA.

Growing up, I didn’t realize how big LA was. My world was just Laurel Canyon. And then I started working in the beauty industry and I was, like, oh wow, we have everything here. I can have my entire career here. This city’s provided so many artists such an incredible way of life—you can be very creative and have a thriving career at the same time.

After high school, I worked at Starbucks and went to beauty school. I didn’t have my drivers license yet so I’d take the bus up and down Wilshire Boulevard. One day, a family friend who worked with Sarah Michelle Gellar called and asked me if I could do Sarah’s hair. I had to ask my mom to drop me off at her house. After that, Sarah hired me to do a worldwide tour. It was only my second time ever leaving the U.S. When I got back to LA, I got more and more clients through word of mouth—and I finally had to get a driver's license.

Maybe if I’d grown up somewhere else I would have felt pressure to go to college, to be more ‘traditional.’ But a lot of people come to LA really young; instead of college, they spend those years working and trying to make a career in Hollywood. That energy and that passion is really woven into the fabric of this city—so many young people come here excited to get their lives started.

I felt so supported by my community of LA artists when I started my hair-care line, Rōz, and now I want to show up for them. We’re working with T3 to provide full kits to hairstylists who’ve been affected by the fires—our whole product line plus a set of T3 tools. So many people in the beauty industry were just getting on their feet again after the writers' strike and now have a whole new challenge. I had to evacuate my home in La Cañada last week, but I’m so motivated to get back home and start packing these kits up for them.”

Grace Ahn, makeup artist

“My parents immigrated from Korea to LA, and then they had me and my sister. I was born and raised in Koreatown. I moved to New York in 2010, but I have a place [in LA] that I share with my family, and it's really my home.

I did recognize early on that LA is really a mecca for dreamers. Just like any big city, there are a lot of transplants, people coming to the city for a certain reason. It’s a city filled with big dreams but also with a little bit of tragedy. It's tough, but it's also very rewarding.

Los Angeles is a magical place for artists in the beauty industry. Clearly there's a big industry for celebrities, film, and television. Being a creative, it was always my dream to work in that space. The only start that I knew of was to work at a makeup counter, and so that's what I did in Los Angeles as a young person. That was my ‘college.’ I never went to an actual college. That's how I built my life, and that's what sparked my interest in becoming a makeup artist. Being born and raised in LA gave me the advantage of having [the entertainment] industry in my backyard.

The beauty community in Los Angeles has a lot of grit and gumption—a lot of very smart and savvy people who are business-minded as well as artistically-minded. It’s impressive seeing how quickly the beauty community in Los Angeles mobilizes. But to see everyone hop on the wagon to help is not a surprise because I think that's how everybody is anyways; it's always been an industry of helping each other.

I have no doubt that Los Angeles is going to be rebuilt because that process has already begun. The fires are still going on, but ever since they started, we immediately snapped into perspective of what's most important: people, your family, your loved ones. The rebuilding is inevitable, and it's going to be a beautiful thing.

My friend Grishan Roof in Los Angeles is organizing to put together kits for people that have lost their hair and makeup kits during the fires. That’s just one person gathering the community to organize something. I've been contributing and spreading the word because it directly affects not just my people, but my industry.”

Kim Kimble, hairstylist and founder of Kim Kimble Hair

“I was born in Chicago but when I was 7, my mom moved to LA and moved us out here with her. She wanted to work as a hairstylist. She read about this hairstylist who worked in entertainment and she went to work for her in her salon. When I landed in LA, I just remember seeing palm trees. I was like, ‘Oh, I really like this aesthetic.’

Coming from Chicago, I was used to brick buildings and stuff like that, but LA just had a different vibe: palm trees, beaches, and great weather. There are so many things about LA that I love and that I've grown to appreciate over the years, but the first thing I always go back to is the palm trees and the weather.

When I started working in entertainment, LA was the place to be because it has Hollywood, of course. There's always work here as a hairstylist, as opposed to some other cities. LA, New York, and now Atlanta are big hubs for entertainment. But at that time LA was the place to be—and it still is. In terms of hair, there are a lot of trends and ideas that come out of Hollywood so I’m always inspired creatively in my work being here. The beauty community in Los Angeles is big and it's a great community. For a hairstylist, you can come here and really develop a great clientele. You’ll always be busy, because there are always people that want to come here, even if they don't live here, to be glammed.

While I love Los Angeles for all the work opportunities, I love the healthy lifestyle too. I feel like it all goes together. People here want to look good and take care of themselves. I get motivated seeing a lot of people here eating healthily. There are a lot of restaurants and accommodations for people who want to eat healthy.

One thing that’s been positive to see during the fires is people helping people. The community of LA helps each other out. There's been a lot of people that have shown up for people who are experiencing loss.

For example, Frends Beauty Supply, which is a supply store that services a lot of entertainment hairstylists and makeup artists, has put together a drive to collect things to donate to people who lost their kits in the fires. I hope to see people here be able to continue to work. I closed my salon during the pandemic, but plan to open a new salon in March. We have to figure out how we come back from this. How do we turn this around and make it positive?

Despite all the devastation, I can't afford to be afraid because this is my home. This is where I'm planted and rooted. I could live in other places, but this is my home. I don't want to leave LA and I'm not going to leave LA.”

Ava Shamban, MD, dermatologist and founder of Ava MD

“I was born in LA. My family moved here because of its lack of prejudice—being Jewish, my father, an engineer, couldn’t get a job in Boston around 1945 because of antisemitism. He ended up coming out here, and starting a small aerospace company.

LA was a huge land of opportunity—it still is for so many immigrants—and that's how it felt to me [when I decided to move back after leaving for] Harvard undergrad and Case Western medical school. You come to California with your raw talent and your ambition and your willingness to work hard, and you can be anybody who you want to be. You can be a movie star. You can be a politician. You can farm the land. You can fish the sea. You can be a surfer. You can be an artist. It is the quintessential American place. There was never a caste system here in California. Nobody says, ‘No, you can’t do it.’ And it's such a land of extremes, in terms of beauty and what you have available. You can ski in the morning, and surf in the afternoon.

I'm very much about living off the land in the way that you can go to the farmer's markets, you can be close to the land. I love when you're at the ocean, and you look up and see the mountains. I like the ocean. I've been going in this whole year—cold dipping. I don't know of any other place in the world where you can duplicate the experience you get here.

Part of me wanted to be an actress and I’m trained, which not that many people know, but I guess it's not that surprising considering my career. My mother was like, ‘No.’ I wanted to be a doctor, too. Ultimately, I was able to merge the two by doing Extreme Makeover. Where else in the country could you do that? LA gave me that opportunity, and the bottom line is that I was able to reach so many people's lives. People wrote me letters from all over the world—this was before email—saying things like, ‘I didn’t know I had rosacea and that I could do something about it.’ That footprint, that reach—that’s something that I could only do here.

And I was on the ground at the beginning of the cosmetic movement. In Los Angeles, Arnold Klein, who just doesn't get the credit he deserves, taught me how to inject—and he was a legit artist. [Editor’s note: Dr. Klein was a dermatologist who was extremely influential in the early days of aesthetic injectables; he has been called the “Father of Botox” and “King of Lips.”] He was obsessed with lips, and now I'm known as the lip person. I'm on every single lip trial. [Editor’s note: Dr. Shamban conducts clinical trials required for FDA approval of new injectables.]

So Arnie Klein was a huge inspiration. He got this terrible reputation for treating Michael Jackson, but he also treated everybody, from Michelle Pfeiffer to Elizabeth Taylor. He really knew about beauty and about what it looked like, and so he really helped my aesthetic eye. And [Dr. Richard] Fitzpatrick from San Diego, he was the laser person, and that's how I really learned a lot about lasers. He's the one who came up with [SkinMedica] TNS serum.

It’s like someone has pushed all the fertilizer for creativity that’s in the United States over to Los Angeles, over to California. The energy that's here is very powerful and inspiring. When you wake up, you're excited, because people around you are excited about what they do.

We will rebuild. Let's just put it this way: All the important cities in the world that burned down have been rebuilt—Paris, San Francisco, Chicago. The [population of the] Palisades is very creative. Hopefully we'll get something that can be a blueprint for other places to create a more livable space. We're going to follow the pathway of Paris and rebuild, and do it better than it was before.

[Editor’s note: To help the LA community, consider donating to Santa Monica College's disaster relief fund.] I sit on the board of the Santa Monica College Foundation. Santa Monica College is a city college. Most of the people there come from families where nobody speaks English, and it's an incredible entry place for young people or older people to be able to start their education. They have the highest transfer rate to UCLA. I do a free dermatology clinic there once a month. It’s cool—you see people from all over the world who are coming here to get an education. And [now] it's like, 'We're going to get rid of our immigrants.' I'm like, ‘Really? Who's going to rebuild those 5,000 homes?’”

Melissa Hernandez, makeup artist

“I was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. My parents immigrated from Mexico in the ‘70s and bought a home four years later. They still live there. Los Angeles is my home. It's my heart, it's my soul, it's my everything.

LA is such a melting pot that it was a little bit of a culture shock when I started traveling for my job. Being surrounded by people from all backgrounds has always just been my norm, but I've been to some states where there aren’t people who look like me. It made me realize how fortunate I was to grow up in a place that’s so diverse and so welcoming. I’ve always known that beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, and forms.

The way I got into makeup is something that would only happen in Los Angeles. While I was getting my degree, I got a part-time job at the MAC counter. One day, Hailee Steinfeld came in. She gave me an opportunity to do her makeup while she was on tour, and that's how I got my foot in the door. Had it not been for that job and for her, who knows where I’d be now.

I've seen so many people showing up for one another in the beauty community this week. The makeup artist Grishan Roof—who goes by Depot Chopra on Instagram because she depots products to make them easier to use—is building out kits for artists that have lost theirs. It takes years and years to build these kits—to find brushes and eye shadows and products you love. I know so many people that have been donating items to her.

In a time where the world feels super divided, it is so beautiful to see the outpouring of love that's going on right now. Every time I go online, I'm crying—either from such incredible sadness or from happiness that someone is getting the help they need. As devastating as it all is, it's also so beautiful to see everyone come together.”

Andrew Fitzsimons, hairstylist and founder of Andrew Fitzsimons Hair

“I moved to Los Angeles in 2017 after living in New York for five or six years. In New York, there’s a lot of pride in how hard everything is. There’s a friendly but begrudging attitude towards Los Angeles dwellers that’s like, ‘Why are their lives so sunshine-y and easy?!’ I kind of adopted that attitude automatically without ever having visited. And then once I came here, it was like that Sex and the City episode set in LA. You want to hate them, but you also want to be them.

As I started going to Los Angeles more for work, I realized how much it has to offer. You can go to downtown LA and feel like you're in a major city, and then moments later you can be at the beach. I love that I can really curate my life here, that I can be around nature but still do my job. I’ve found community here. I’m an immigrant—I was born in Ireland—and immigrants usually find each other because we have a lot in common. My friend Mariana Marroquin immigrated from Guatemala and is the director of the Trans Wellness Center in LA, where we have an ongoing donation program for unused beauty and self-care items.

The backbone of California really is the immigrant population, specifically the Latinx community. There are millions of undocumented people who are frontline workers in the United States. In California, it’s the undocumented population that is growing food, picking food, packaging it… They’ve done the hardest thing in the world, which is to leave everything and go to a strange land to make sure they can help their families survive.

So during this time, when there obviously has been so much devastation and loss and heartbreak, I know it has been even more difficult for undocumented immigrants. There’s an organization called the 805UndocuFund that helps provide financial support and resources to undocumented people. We can't forget about those who make this beautiful city what it is, who put the food on our plates and who are here to contribute to the growth and the prosperity of America.

Los Angeles is the entertainment capital of the world. It gives us so much joy and wonder and escapism and fantasy. As RuPaul says, ‘Hollywood is an idea. It’s not a real place.’ I really agree with that. That idea is all wrapped up in this wonderful, weird city. And I'm proud to be one of the weirdos living in it.”

Amy Liu, founder of Tower 28

“I’ve lived in LA for most of my life, and eight years ago, my family and I bought our first home, in the Pacific Palisades—a 1950s original that I spent a year remodeling, choosing every finish and detail to make it our own. It’s where we’ve raised our kids, surrounded by an incredible community of neighbors, friends, local shops, inspiring teachers, and countless other cherished connections.

Living near the ocean has profoundly influenced my perspective and career in beauty, shaping Tower 28’s design and ethos, which embody the fun, approachable spirit of So-Cal beach culture. The name Tower 28 comes from an actual lifeguard tower at the crossroads of Santa Monica and Venice Beach—a perfect symbol of everything we stand for: community, safety, healthy fun, and clean living.

The recent fires have devastated the place we call home, breaking my heart as I see the impact on the community we love so much. On Friday, we’re hosting a gifting suite for Palisades residents, with over 70 brands stepping up to support—for more information, contact partnerships@tower28beauty.com. I’m forever appreciative of the way our network of brands immediately stepped up to help. It’s a testament to LA’s resilience and the power of connection that defines this city I love so much.”

Iván Pol, facialist and founder of The Beauty Sandwich

“I'm from Miami originally. So I wasn't born in LA, but The Beauty Sandwich was. My dreams came true in LA. I remember arriving in the Palisades and thinking, 'This place isn't real.' It felt like one of the last slices of Americana with its picket fences. I fell in love with this California dream.

People like to think the people here are selfish, but this is a community that opened their hearts to my brand and launched my career. I know it in my bones: I wouldn't have what I have today if it weren’t for the love of LA. [After my spa burned down in the Palisades fire], so many other providers like dermatologists, plastic surgeons, tattoo artists, colorists, you name it, reached out to me and said, 'I'm so sorry for your loss. I have a space for you. You can come here tomorrow. It's yours.' That's the beautiful thing about Los Angeles: We're a community that really helps one another.

I'm so grateful and thankful to LA, to California, to all the Angelenos. My message is that we will rebuild stronger. I am making personal donations to Baby2Baby, Altadena Girls, and LAFD Foundation and hope others will join me if they are able to do so.”

Ernesto Casillas, makeup artist

“I am born and raised in LA. I had a beautiful childhood. I think people that are not from LA maybe see it differently—they think it's all movie stars, movie sets—but I grew up in predominantly brown neighborhoods that were very family-oriented. My family is from a small town in Mexico, and a lot of them have migrated here.

Even though I grew up working class, Hollywood was in my backyard, so it always felt like my dreams were within reach. That's one of the beautiful things about LA; your background doesn't matter. I worked as a gardener with my uncle when I was 14. I was working for people with more money and nicer homes and the contrast was stark between our realities, but it seemed like it wasn't too far-fetched to achieve that dream myself.

LA being a hub and meeting ground for creative people was very inspiring for me, and a lot of the opportunities that I’ve gotten have been through friends that I met in the beauty community. Even though some of us are self-made, I'm pretty sure none of us is self-made without someone else's impact.

We've been hearing that a lot of organizations here are very backed up with donations [of physical goods]. But with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, you can sign up to form groups of volunteers and go to different blocks around the city to help clean up. That’s very much needed right now. We need labor. If you're not able to donate money, volunteering your time is great.”

Chris McMillan, hairstylist and owner of Chris McMillan the Salon

“I’m born and raised LA. Manhattan Beach to Hollywood and now I live on the border of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, where my salon is. Beverly Hills is a mecca of hair. I mean, Shampoo! [Editor's note: The 1975 Warren Beatty movie is based on Gene Shacove, a hairdresser who had a salon on Rodeo Drive in the 1960s.] People come here from all over the world to learn how to do hair… and to get their hair done.

I started doing hair in LA at a great time—just as celebrities were becoming fashionable. Thirty years ago, celebrities were starting to be put on the covers of magazines, instead of models. All of a sudden Hollywood became fashionable, instead of glamorous. It really felt like a golden age, and I never left.

Honestly, I’ve never been tempted to leave LA. I do also spend time in Paris, though. And I think the LA girl and the Parisian girl are actually very similar in their beauty vibe. In LA, they have the beachy, cool hair and in Paris they have the bob or the Birkin bangs… but they both have the same effortless cool. It’s not the same aesthetic but it’s the same vibe at the core.

I just love Los Angeles. I go to new places all the time, I travel a lot, and I'm always happy to be back. It’s just a great community and I think the LA community, not the government, is what’s going to rebuild.”

Reporting by Jenny Bailly, Annie Blay, Nicola Dall’Asen, Sarah Han, Elizabeth Siegel, Dianna Singh.

More about the Los Angeles wildfires:

• How to Help Firefighters and Those Affected by the California Wildfires

• What to Do If Your Skin's Been Exposed to Wildfire Smoke

• My Spa Is in Ashes. My Hope Is Not.

Originally Appeared on Allure