Island Aesthetics: Origins

Island Aesthetics is a one-man detailing operation where customers and their vehicles receive personalized attention from myself, Owner and Principal Detailer, Jesse Grimm.  This boutique-like experience and individualized care is executed from my detailing garage in Bayport, NY,.  It’s a detached home garage that has been completely renovated with vaulted ceilings, upgraded electric, ample lighting, plus heating, cooling, and everything necessary to detail in a controlled environment year-round.  Tucked away on a quiet, residential dead-end street in one of south shore Long Island’s most desirable towns, this is a safe, beautiful, and discreet location where anyone can feel comfortable leaving their car to be serviced.  And if you can’t get here, I can come to you! But it wasn’t always this way…

I’m fairly certain most detailing business start with a humble beginning, and mine is no different.  It was late spring of 2017 and I was one year into owning my new Subaru WRX.  I was 25 years old, and just like any other car I had owned previously, I could just about afford to own it and keep it clean, but nothing beyond that.  I always wanted to get into performance parts and tuning, making the car faster and more aggressive, upgrading the sound and audio, but at that time it simply wasn’t in the budget.  I was buried under a massive amount of student loan debt and had just left my job to start a completely new career in sales, and at a time when most of my peers were spending money in bars and clubs having the time of their lives, washing my car on the weekend seemed to be the only type of stress release and escape that I could afford.  

Such a story was the same going back to the very first vehicle I had - a 1999 Ford Ranger that I shared with my older brother.  Then, it was my 1999 Infiniti i30 that got me through my senior year of high school and a few years of college, and finally with my 2012 Hyundai Veloster - my first “new” car.  I would be on the receiving end of typical jokes like “hey, can you do mine next” or “you’re gonna wash the paint off that thing!”  It was clear to everyone around me that I loved taking care of my vehicles as early as I was able to drive them.  Frankly, signs were evident long before that.  I have memories of being 5 or 6 years old, being eager to help my Uncle Larry wash his Mercury Cougar in the driveway at my grandparents’ house with some dawn dish soap and wash cloths!

Fast forward back to 2017, spring is starting to turn to summer and a good friend of mine - Jeremy, who also had a Subaru WRX - had me over at his house one weekend, and as was typical for the time, we were hanging out, washing cars, enjoying every second of it, and that’s when the idea hit me.  It was like a ton of bricks.  “Hey, we could totally pack this stuff up and wash people’s cars at their houses.”  

“Yea, you’re probably right,” he replied, and then we started to share the ideas with others shortly thereafter.  It started with some friends, the first of which was my buddy Corey who paid us $100 to detail two cars.  We spent an entire day in the sun washing these two vehicles, claying the paint, applying a sealant, and taking care of the interiors with a quick wipe down and vacuum, just to come home to $50 each and a message that said we forgot to vacuum his trunk!  We were true rookies, but were happy enough to have a little money in our pocket for some beers and a SePort Deli sandwich - the guiltiest of pleasures at the time.  Then, there were some other friends who took us up on our offer, and finally came our first “real” customer - someone outside our friend group - a doctor at the hospital Jeremy was working at.  

After this first summer, like any good snowball pushed hard enough down the right hill, it picked up momentum and began to grow bigger and bigger, little by little.  We started making regular visits to the doctor’s house, his one vehicle turned into all his vehicles, my buddy gave us a shot at redemption after the great trunk debacle, we ran out of products and started to order more, some money started to flow and we started to figure out how we could get faster and more efficient with our services. Before we knew it, summer weekends spent detailing became a regular and consistent thing for the two of us!  

Things were going well and there was consistent growth year-over-year, but it was still a seasonal side hustle at best.  And then in the spring of 2020, the world went crazy!  We were in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, I had just been furloughed from my job and put on unemployment, and all of a sudden I had an opportunity to dedicate myself to detailing as much as possible.  I wasn’t just looking for side money on the weekends anymore.  Now, I was looking to fill my schedule as many days of the week as possible to replace my income and supplement as much as possible what I was receiving from unemployment.  Fortunately, I had erased all of my student debt, but my girlfriend and I were getting serious about our future, I wanted to get a house and an engagement ring, and this was not the time for a massive hole in my income and budget.  

I was determined not to let this catastrophe go to waste.  I saw an opportunity in the midst of chaos and dove right into it.  For some added context, Jeremy was getting serious about going back to school at a time when his own career was moving onward and upward, there was even a thought about him moving out of state, and we agreed that the business would continue solely under my guidance.  Later that year, the business began to formally take shape after some quick help from Legal Zoom and a bit of advice from my accountant, and in August of 2020 Island Aesthetics had officially become a registered business in the state of New York and I was off and running!  

As they say, the rest is history.  My furlough eventually ended and I went back to sales full time with the same company, but this time I was juggling a much bigger ball in my other hand.  From that point on, it was a cycle of servicing customers on weekends and during time off, getting better and more efficient, restocking products and upgrading equipment, so on and so forth.  Eventually I got into higher-end services above standard detailing, such as paint correction and ceramic coatings, I even got into motorcycle and marine detailing, the customer list started to grow and I kept getting busier and busier.  The growth continued consistently, and frankly, explosively, year over year.  So much so that it really became a bit of a problem for me.

It was a good problem though.  I had monetized a passion of mine, I was good at it and loved doing it, the work would put me in a flow-state where I would lose concept of time, and the reaction from customers energized me to no end while inspiring me to continue to work harder and keep progressing.  The problem was, that feeling wasn’t coming from my sales job and that was still my primary source of income.  So my detailing business had become quite the distraction.

By 2023 I was engaged, we were homeowners, I had already renovated the garage and had the resources necessary to detail year round without being limited to strictly mobile details, and after some planning and calculated risk assessment, I realized I had an opportunity to still support a reasonable standard of living if I committed to detailing full time.  It was a difficult decision - I worked for an amazing company that taught me skills that will last a lifetime, allowed me to earn a great income, and surrounded me with some amazing people - all of which made my departure incredibly tough and emotional.  However, I had eliminated all my debt, I had enough saved for emergencies and our future wedding, and found myself in as good of a position as ever to make the transition to full time entrepreneur and detailer.

And now Island Aesthetics has become something I never could have imagined!  Every experience and lesson along the way has inspired me to innovate and improve, and continues to push me in my pursuit of never-ending progress.  I was there at the creation, through infancy and development, and continue to be at the helm of what I know will be a great Long Island business.  Professionally, the business receives one hundred percent of my focus now.  Customers and their vehicles receive better care than ever before.  The social media presence continues to grow through Instagram and YouTube, where you can get a look behind the scenes at what really goes into making these vehicles look and feel their best, and I have more time to be active in the community by attending cars & coffee or any of the local Long Island car shows.  

Island Aesthetics will always be rooted in its humble origins.  As the business continues to grow, it will always be represented by good, genuine people who don’t just have a passion for cars, but understand the visceral, positive feeling you get when a car is clean, free of clutter, looks and feels its best, and is protected from the world around it.