Nevaeh Dent, center, and her mentees: London Loman, Constance Dennis, Kamaiya Hyman, and Skyla "KK" Kenion. To understand how Nevaeh Dent came to run her own beauty supply shop, salon, and after-school program teaching young people the finer points of braiding, makeup, nails, lashes, confidence-building, and entrepreneurship — all at the age of only 20 — you have to go back to her Troup Middle School fifth-grade teacher, Marissa White.“Just her being young and Black, being a teacher,” Dent said, was an inspiration for all she knew she too could accomplish.Dent spoke with the Independent about her beauty business background and dreams as lively music played amid an array of hair extensions, stocking caps, and braiding gels in the tidy, well-lit 1700 Dixwell Ave. shop.The store is called LSH Beauty Supply. Dent also runs LSH Academy, short for Luxurious Skye Hair. (Skye is short for Neriah Skye, Dent’s younger sister, who passed away at three months.) The 20-year-old known as ​“Coach Vae” spent six weeks this summer schooling Greater New Haven area girls aged 7 to 17 on the beauty care business. There will be an after-school program with the same curriculum starting next month.“I feel like the beauty industry is frowned upon and we aren’t recognized as real heroes when it comes to the role we play in people’s lives,” she said on a recent afternoon at her Dixwell Avenue shop in Hamden. ​“I want these girls to know you can make a career out of the beauty industry because you have the power to make people feel better about themselves.” Nevaeh Dent at grand opening of LSH Beauty Supply in January. Her authority on these matters comes from her experience at LSH Beauty Supply, which she opened in January, as well as the two other businesses she owns, LSH Studio, a salon in West Haven, and the LSH​“Vaecation” spa two doors down from her shop on Dixwell which is slated to open soon. Her precocious belief in herself comes, in part, from her fifth-grade teacher, Marissa White. White, now a principal at Renzulli Academy in Hartford, said she formed the young women’s leadership group BEAUTI — an acronym for bold, enlightened, and unique teams identify — while Dent’s teacher at Troup. “We talked a lot about skin color, and we went through the lyrics of Lauryn Hill’s song ​“Doo Woop (That Thing)” and just talked about having dignity and having respect for yourself and what that means in today’s world,” she said.Already then, White said, Dent was growing into a leader, starring in talent shows with her rapping chops, wowing with her deft moves in a dance circle on field day. ​“It’s a natural gift of hers to stand out in a positive way, to be a go-getter,” she said. As for her work in the community, she said, ​“that’s her figuring out how to use her gift to encourage and uplift other people.” Dent’s mother Ivory Brewer, it seems, alighted her entrepreneurial spirit — by pointedly refusing to pay her allowance. ​“She would say ​‘why should I pay you to clean up a house you live in?’” Dent recalled with a laugh. To get what you want, she told her daughter, start your own business. Dent worked on building a website for an online business selling hair extensions and accessories everyday after school. She was 12. Once it went live, the orders started coming in. ​“Some of my classmates would purchase stuff off the site and I’d deliver it to them at school,” she said. For online orders, she got her science teacher to print out shipping labels for her. At an informal reunion at her shop, her summer program alums reflected on their experience.“I learned to be a boss, and how to do nails, makeup, hair, and lashes,” said Skyla ​“KK” Kenion, 9. “We practiced on mannequins, and I learned to have confidence in myself and not let anyone make me feel less than,” said Constance Zimmer, a seventh grader at Highville Charter. ​“She said, ​‘it’s okay if you don’t get it the first time, just keep trying.’”“I was already confident but I didn’t believe in myself,” said London Loman, an eighth grader at Hamden Middle School. ​“I learned how to braid better and I learned how to believe in myself.”Makayla Evans, a Nevaeh Dent protégée, at LSH Hair Supply on Dixwell. Styling a client’s hair in the back of the shop was another mentee, Makayla Evans, 19, who runs marketing and sales at LSH Beauty Supply. She said she initially met Dent at a back-to-school giveaway she was hosting. “To see someone who looks like me, who’s from the same place as me, New Haven, and who’s where I want to be was really inspiring,” said Evans, who studied cosmetology at Eli Whitney Technical School and is now pursuing a degree at Gateway in nursing and business management.“I don’t exactly know what her plans are and I don’t think Nevaeh even knows,” White, her former teacher, said. ​“But with what she’s done so far at such a young age, the sky’s the limit.”