Meet
Crystal Carrero
Clean Beauty by Crystal is a modern clean-beauty practice rooted in real professional experience.
With nearly two decades as a New York City hairstylist and makeup artist, Crystal has spent her career working hands-on—touching hair and skin, troubleshooting concerns, teaching maintenance, and refining routines for clients of all ages. Her approach is guided by holistic health, artistry, and research, including trusted resources such as the EWG Skin Deep database. The products offered through her curated online shop are the same ones she works with daily—selected for performance, safety, and thoughtful formulation. Crystal’s mission is to make healthy beauty practical, effective, and stylish—sharing knowledge openly, answering questions, and offering education that empowers people to care for themselves with ease and intention.
Crystal created NOMAD_STUDIO, a clean-air hair salon concept in New York City. Part boutique, part spa, and part working artist’s studio, the space blends natural textures and organic aromas with the quiet energy of thoughtful design. Here, lived-in haircuts, natural color, and restorative treatments meet a calm, elevated atmosphere and a carefully vetted edit of clean haircare and beauty tools. Clients can shop online or in-studio, receive personalized guidance, and experience Crystal’s clean-beauty philosophy in practice. As her community continues to grow worldwide, Crystal is developing her own line of hair, skin, and makeup essentials—shaped by years of research, real feedback, and a belief in beauty that is conscious, effortless, and deeply personal.
NATIVE NEW YORKER
Born and raised in Park Slope Brooklyn as a hispanic young girl. Life wasn’t easy; I was often sick, and we had little access to healthy living. I didn’t know it then, but soon I would have a huge problem to solve. I would go on to spend most of my teen years sick and unhealthy, this became the root cause for my deep search to live a healthier lifestyle that would improve my illnesses, mental health, de-stress my nerves and be my path to lifelong wellness.
YOGA, THE START OF MY HEALTH JOURNEY
When I was fifteen, my mom won the apartment lottery and we moved from Brooklyn to a new Manhattan high-rise building on the Upper West Side. The building offered free yoga classes, which I ended up taking twice a week for months. At just fifteen years old, yoga had such a deep impact on my life and still does today. After just a few months I felt such a total body transformation. Yoga slowed my anxiety, gave me strength and stamina, confidence and increased my agility and ability to focus. At 16 I committed to being a lifelong yogi and started building a relationship with my mind, body and soul. Naturally as I emerged myself in the study of yoga, I spent lots of time researching and learning new and old philosophies related to natural health; acupuncture, Chinese traditional medicine, pilates, the melt body massage method and many more philosophies. My research surprised me, as I realized ALL these techniques are connected with similiar core beliefs. They are daily DIY techniques put in place to practice self-care and stress relief. One of the core beliefs that still fascinates me and I try to remember daily is that the body is so closely connected to the mind it has the ability to heal itself when prompted correctly based on massage, stimulation, inversions and so many more methods.
MY CAREER INSPIRATION TO BE A HAIR AND MAKEUP ARTIST
In 2004 I graduated from high school. A neighbor suggested a temporary summer job at El Flamingo: a low-budget, off-Broadway theater and nightclub. El Flamingo was small and seemingly insignificant, but it introduced me to the creative early productions of Diane and Randy Weiner, who would later become award-winning writers and directors of some of New York’s most characteristic Broadway shows and musicals, including Hair, The Donkey Show, Sleep No More, and The Box. As a young adult, I got to oversee these directors’ artistic process almost every day for over a year. To me, their work was the most fascinating craftsmanship of the arts. The way a story was woven together, then directed, then brought to life for nightly shows with vivid voices, props, wigs, costumes, makeup, and hair. I began to assist in the show’s hair and makeup artistry. There was so much heart, character, and creativity in the process, and I enjoyed getting to be part of it all. What inspired me most wasn’t just the hair and makeup, it was the ability to be a creative director and bring a story to life.
THE START TO MY PROFESSIONAL CAREER; BUMBLE AND BUMBLE SALON
I started as a apprentice at Bumble & Bumble, a top product and salon brand in New York City. Established in 1977, Bumble was known for their innovative haircutting techniques, fun stylish product line, trendy fashion color and editorial fashion hair styling. Founder Micheal Gordon, was influenced by the crafted haircuts pioneered by Vidal Sassoon. The Bumble styling team took some of these precise haircut shapes and developed a signature haircut style by using a straight razor tool to cut instead of scissors. The straight razor left the haircut with a soft long-lasting deconstructed shape then paired with new never seen before styling products (Fun fact Bumble was the first to invent the first ever salt infused spray) the brand built a reputation for messy, disheveled imperfect cool hair. I spent three years as a cutting apprentice learning from some of the industry’s best global hair stylists. The bumble apprentice program was one of the most challenging yet fulfilling jobs I’ve ever had alongside being an entrepreneur. Each week we had to find a variety of three hair models for class. Model hunting like a scout, I’d bring a photo of the haircut or style I was working on and come up with a pitch to entice my subject. I got good at scouting, developing my eye and quickly visualizing haircuts, styles and color that would suit or improve a person’s hair, personality and vibe. The next tier in the program was to join bumble’s editorial Fashion Week hair styling team after years of classes. Every season for eight years I was placed on a different lead hairstyling team to work on top designer shows like Ralph Lauren, Lacrosse, Oscar de la Renta and many more. Although I always worked with hair, being backstage at these shows revitalized my love for makeup, which I found more creative and less technical than hairstyling. I continued to learn and grow with the company becoming an educator at The Bumble & Bumble University. I went on to eventually lead my own haircutting and styling classes teaching salons and stylists all over the world the Bumble way. Bumble was bought out by Estee Lauder in 2006 was now a powerful fashion-forward hair salon and hair care product line in New York and worldwide. I worked non-stop in many different parts of the company at this time. It was hard work and creatively competitve and demanding. However, it gave me the opportunity to build a great loyal clientele and be a part of a successful creative brand story. Some of the clients I met and worked with at Bumble have followed, trusted and continue to work with me for over 10-15 years now and are a big part of my business success today (you know who you are and from the bottom of my heart I thank you). I honor and treasure their honest feedback and suggestions about my products and services.
I BECOME A MOM
I FOUND THE RAW FOOD LIFESTYLE
After years of holistic research I came across the raw food method by Natalia Rose. I was instantly interested in the raw food lifestyle philosophy simply because I hadn’t heard of anything like it. At this point in my life I was in desperate search to find a holistic approach that could help bring relief to some autoimmune illnesses my son and I suffered from like chronic sinusitis, eczema, nasal polyps, skin cancer, and eventually a drastic case of alopecia areata. Natalia was sensible and confident that this was the path to optimal long-term natural health and beauty. She believed any person looking to increase their energy, lose weight, gain mental clarity, or strengthen and improve their skin and hair from the inside out would be impressed with the results of this lifestyle method. I went on to practice a raw food lifestyle detox intensely for 1 year. At the start I lost over 50 lbs, rejuvenated my skin and hair, and cured some of our illnesses mainly through just eating clean food. What I learned was the raw food approach extended way beyond diet and natural beauty, I found a detox tool you can use at any age. I believe parts of it are a “lifestyle” choice because it’s a consistent, preventative, foundational string of techniques that all flow together. Best part is you are in control of tending to your bodies needs which forces you to monitor and care for your own health. Some core beliefs and practices revolve around the idea that the body is smart and powerful enough to cleanse and beautify itself if prompted to, nourished and most important de-stressed. This includes natural homemade foods, simple preservative free products, detoxing fitness routines, skin and body massage cleansing, food combining and much more. (place a link to Natalia’s book here) Throughout my 14 years of raw food lifestyle studies I changed all my beauty products, daily hygiene products, fitness tools, and supplements. I believe I found an incredible way to help my body naturally detox from the inside out. I continue to be engaged and curious to learn new human body health science capabilities and philosophies.
MY PASSIONS GROW; I SET OFF ON MY OWN AS A FREELANCE ARTIST
After eleven years at Bumble & Bumble, it was time to go my own way. Though I valued all the training, friendships and care I received, I had some new ideas to put to the test. Working there no longer fulfilled me. Bumble was a high fashion brand, and when it came to hair and skincare I was more interested in function and health; I wanted to start my own brand using products I loved and believed in. The first step I took after working for a large beauty company for 11 years was to be a freelance hairstylist while focusing on my dream creative outlet of being a professional makeup artist. I enrolled in intense makeup course training at Makeup Forever Academy in Soho. My unique skill set, experience, hard work and creative eye I’d developed in my early years set me apart from other freelancers in the industry. I was able to get work with some of NYC’s top talent agencies, assisting powerful leading artists and practicing my own hair and makeup creative direction skills on small production gigs. See my professional hair and makeup portfolio here www.crystalcarrerohmu.com I booked great jobs quickly and networked. I searched for a salon I could join part-time that would allow me to still work with my clientele and aligned with my love for using clean natural products but it did not exist. Hopping around the city and renting chairs forced me to problem solve and create my own salon environment. Then it came to me! I would build a private clean beauty studio in a co-working space to test my idea and new clean beauty salon concept. Clean by Crystal opened in 2018 in the heart of midtown Manhattan Nomad NYC and became one of the first clean beauty salons.
CLEAN BY CRYSTAL IS BORN
Clean by Crystal was created to be a clean beauty salon, online store and educational blog for people of all ages interested in modern health and style. It brings together all of my professional skills, passions, practices, research and personal values. I believe that health from a holistic approach is a “superpower” no matter what your life circumstances are and I can teach it to anyone who is open and willing to do the work. My core mission is to educate, share my knowledge, answer questions and bring old and new health methods to life in the most effective, fun, stylish authentic way. After spending 15 years working with many traditional beauty brands and comparing them with products I believed in, it was time to share methods and research I had tested and learned. As a hairstylist and makeup artist I spent most of my career touching, feeling, troubleshooting, and trying to teach simple at-home maintenance to my clients. For years I used and recommended natural products, provided samples and tried these tools and products on different skin types and hair types. Gathering feedback to understand how they work best for each person. I then found a trusted vetted resource EWG (environmental working group) skin deep database to research and ensure all curated products I chose contain clean sustainable ingredients.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR CLEAN BY CRYSTAL
Today, Clean by Crystal is thriving. In the salon my clients enjoy the relaxing environment, care and private experience I’ve created for them. My online store has been a fascinating new experience. I’m now able to connect with people from all over the world interested in healthy living and seeking my professional guidance on product suggestions and solutions. Several times a month I still enjoy working on a variety of projects and productions. The experience allows me to continue experimenting, sharpening my skills and stay updated on growing trends. Additionally this is the space I created for weaving in and testing different skin and makeup products to my beauty applications. Adding on, my now 19 years of professional experience as a New York City hair and makeup artist puts me in a unique position to get real feedback and answers to questions from a large audience of clients, models, and online store customers from all over the world. Naturally, my next journey is to develop my own curated special line of hair, makeup, and skin tool products inspired by my clean beauty brand. My vision for the future is Clean by Crystal product brand will bring all my years of research together to create a product with high-quality safe preservatives and ingredients, sustainable smart eco packaging and fun tasteful colors and designs.