WHEN Onika Waldron was in her early teens she loved watching her father cleaning his grey car. That appreciation for a well-cleaned car would inspire her to get into the detailing industry and her winning the International Detailing Association (IDA) 2023 Detailer of the Year award, and becoming vice president of the IDA Caribbean Chapter.
The Diego Martin native chatted about her career and the struggles she faced as a female detailer during a recent interview with Newsday.
She explained that growing up she enjoyed watching cars go from dirty to clean after the various steps.
"A magnificent difference. It piqued my interest. And it was something I could see myself doing."
She was not a "traditional female" who liked being indoors but preferred to be outside, and cleaning cars provided a "good excuse."
Waldron began her journey into auto detailing, which is the process of keeping a vehicle in the best possible cosmetic condition (as opposed to mechanical) via meticulous cleaning and other activities, by watching hours of tutorials on YouTube. And she put what she learned into practice via trial and error.
She started by working on the vehicles of neighbours and relatives and would get additional jobs via recommendations. She would work on weekends and holidays but clients were "far and few in between."
"Months would go by and I would not have anything."
In 2014 she met someone who commended her detailing work and advised her to set up social media pages. She started her Facebook page in April 2014 and this April will be celebrating ten years.
Her business, MaComère Mobile Detailing Services, is under her family's MaComère limited company which also includes car rentals, plants and landscaping, and egg production and retail. She said her elder brother was responsible for the name "macomere" which means "godmother" in French Creole.
"So he wanted to symbolise there as this trust and confidence another female would have in you."
She does all aspects of detailing, including interior, exterior and underwash, and how much work she would do on a car depends on the job. After a consultation, she and the client will agree on what is to be done, whether full detail, full interior, full exterior, paint correction and other services.
"It's a lot of work. If it's the whole vehicle, it can take you two to three days."
Her longest job took a week and entailed full interior and exterior.
[caption id="attachment_1068170" align="alignnone" width="1024"] SQUEAKY CLEAN: Owner of MaComère Mobile Detailing Services Onika Waldron cleans a vehicle's tyre. -[/caption]
Waldron recalled that it was not easy as a woman entering the male-dominated field of auto-detailing. Back around 2019, she contacted male detailers for business and received a variety of responses.
"When they would hear (I am) a female some would shrug. Some would disconnect the call. Some would tell me, 'I am not giving you any information.' And some would comment, 'This is good. You can be an example. You can encourage other females to com
