[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to episode 22 of the artists to artists podcast. My name is Angie. I'm a full-time freelance makeup artist and a makeup artist educator. And if you have been following me on social media recently, I have been posting a lot of work on set. August was a busy month. September is becoming a very busy month and I've been doing a lot of beauty focus, shoots campaigns.
E-commerce I've worked with a couple lash brands will lure my usual. I started working with flutter habit, which is another lash brand. I also did a beauty campaign for rougher brushes, which was really cool. And there's probably other things I'm forgetting, but I've been posting a lot of content of me onset doing beauty focused work.
And of course, as a result of this, I have been getting asked a lot of questions on YouTube, on Instagram, about how you go about attracting clients like this. If you're a makeup artist and you want to do beauty focused work, what I wanted to do for you in this episode is kind of give you the bird's eye view of how I got to where I am. Now with the beauty focus work [00:01:00] that I do so that you can understand the amount of work, the amount of time that goes into building a career where you are working with. Brands who are shooting beauty focused content.
I don't want to say beauty brands per se, because I do a lot of beauty focused content for jewelry companies. I've done a lot of skincare stuff as well. Some of it has never seen the light of day. Some of it has gotten out there. So I've done a lot of beauty focus, work, not necessarily for beauty brands.
I do a lot of work that's stills and video. So I wanted to walk you through the whole process. So you understand exactly what goes into attracting clients like this, getting this type of work, maintaining good relationships with clients like these. I think if you listen to the very first episode of this podcast, if you haven't done that, that's something you're going to want to do.
So you can kind of better understand my story where I'm coming from.
In this episode, I wanted to go into more detail just about the beauty focus side of things, because. It was something, or it is something that I am doing intentionally because all of the pieces [00:02:00] kind of fit together for me.
The content that you're seeing from me now and the type of work that you're seeing from me now is about I would say 15 years in the making, but it's been longer.
This is not something that I decided to do three to five years ago or shift my career during the pandemic I have been working towards getting more beauty focused clients for many many years And it's not just because I want to work with beauty brands exclusively, which I would love to do, but there's not a A ton of that type of work here in Toronto, which we're gonna touch on in a few minutes, but because I Enjoy the challenge of beauty focused work at the end of the day I don't want to say I'm a product junkie because it sounds like I have Boxes and boxes of product in my apartment right now, and I don't I just came into this industry From the retail side of things and I love Makeup.
I love campaigns. I love looking at them. I love checking out new products. I love packaging. This is what started my interest in makeup right from the [00:03:00] beginning.
If you have watched that very first episode about where I started, I started working in Shoppers Drug Mart, which is like a Walgreens, if you're American, it's just a drug store that had a cosmetics department. And I immediately wanted to work in cosmetics, I was on cash for a bit, I did some merchandising, and I just wanted to be in cosmetics, it was something that I was drawn to as a child, very creative of course, I did a lot of drawing, painting, art was my thing, so everything just kind of And I started doing makeup applications on people when I was a teenager.
I started doing makeup on people, my friends, people at school, right away, pretty much. It was just something I was very Interested in and I had access to a lot of products from working at chopper's drug mart We had a lot of free product going out at that time.
The other thing you have to remember is it was 1996 1997 the beauty industry was very different. The internet was very different Beauty brands would come out with things seasonally. They wouldn't be dropping things every two weeks it was a [00:04:00] different culture back then the beauty industry was Completely different doesn't even look the same anymore.
It was just a constant source of excitement for me and inspiration. When I eventually figured out that I wanted to do makeup artistry full time, which I was in my 20s, and I started putting in the work purposely to figure out how to do makeup more full time, part of that was speaking with an agency represented artist here in Toronto, and I got referred to an agency, and not to repeat this story a hundred times, but from there, I had the opportunity to do more work with the agency. And that was the reason why I quit my full time job to do makeup artistry full time. I immediately started a relationship with an agency here in Toronto, and at that time, for me, because I really didn't know the ins and outs of the industry, I was just down for whatever, and I really wanted to put I put everything I had into the agency, and when you leave the comfort of a full time job, you really, [00:05:00] you have no choice but to go all in. I was very eager to do whatever was required of me by the agency, and when you start working with an agency, you have to play the game. You have to do the favors they want you to do. You have to also respect. The vision that they have for you at that point. I didn't know anything about anything Really?
I had a lot of Experience I was doing makeup since I was 16 and I was now at this point, you know 29 30 31 So I had tons of experience. I never stopped doing makeup tons of repetitions at the at the retail level Doing makeup for friends and family. I was doing weddings part time events. Just anything I could do in the meantime I was working 7 days a week for years and years, so I had tons of experience with people, and because I worked in retail, my people skills had been very developed, so sliding into this agency ecosystem was easier for me to [00:06:00] do.
I just didn't know about the business side of things, and I didn't really know a lot about the industry from that perspective, because it's slightly different than if you're just freelancing on your own. And I had what I thought was a ton of experience. I think I was with the agency for about five years. It took me a while to get on the board as an emerging artist and then I eventually got represented with all the other artists. At the beginning, of course, I was doing whatever they needed. I was trying to work as much as possible, meet as many people as possible, assist where they needed me to assist, be a second artist where they needed me to be a second artist, I was just doing all of the things, and I was not happy with how my career was progressing.
I didn't feel good about the type of work that I was doing. They were pushing me for a lot of editorial work, and it's not, editorial is not something that I am overly interested in. I can appreciate a good photo when I see it. I like nice clothing when I see it, but I wasn't really vibing with the people.
And, [00:07:00] In the editorial side of things in the city. Just I knew right away. These were not my people I Gave it a solid effort, but it's just something I really didn't care about all that much I don't care about fashion as I'm sure you can tell I don't care to be seen with certain people at certain restaurants.
It's just not the lifestyle for me and I felt a huge disconnect and I talked to the agency about it and they were just kind of like, you know, well this is what you have to do and if you want to work with these people you have to do this, but there was something that was just not connecting for me. The other thing that was happening, and I have spoken about this many, many times, is that it's I had a ton of experience but technically, I was not solid on a lot of things because I had never had any formal training and it was all trial and error for me and that took a lot of time for me to figure out.
And keep in mind, the information available to makeup artists is not even close to what it is now. Biggest difference is that you, you couldn't really see, um, other people doing makeup unless you were attending a master class or a trade show. And as soon as I got around [00:08:00] more senior artists who had been doing makeup artistry full time with some of the best clients in Toronto, I was like, oh my god, technically my work was just not there.
My work just looked so amateur It wasn't looking like everyone else's work around me And it was kind of a moment where when I got signed by the agency I felt like okay. I made it now like this is it and it wasn't it. It was not The thing that made me quote unquote. I'm doing air quotes right now.
It's not the thing that made me It's not the thing that changed my career. It's not the thing that skyrocketed me and made me tons of money I made very little money for a long time.
That was a huge disappointment, but very eye opening. At that point, I was not really loving the work I was doing. I didn't care about editorial, I was being pushed in that direction. I knew that my work wasn't as good as the artists around me, and I'm Very competitive i'm a very competitive person. So it was something that I had to figure out.
That's why color theory i'm always telling you Make sure you have good technical training in color theory because it really is the basis for everything that we're [00:09:00] doing Especially if you want to do work where it's all beauty focused your technical skills have to be 10 out of 10 or else you're going to have a really rough time So at that point I wasn't enjoying life You As an agency represented makeup artist and I hung in there for a little while But I had to do something different and that's when I said look, you know what?
I Really want to focus on beauty work. I started asking for more beauty focused creatives. I spoke with my agents This is around the time where I started doing more YouTube stuff I just was trying to figure out where I fit and The other thing that I realized about editorial in Toronto is that it would just never pay me enough I was never gonna be cool enough to for me, it was a huge disconnect on every level and I could see that there was promise in beauty focus stuff because when I posted pictures on my instagram of my work just to face Bridal clients would reach out i'd have people reaching out.
From different Areas of the industry so I [00:10:00] knew a beauty focus there was something there. I didn't know what at the time.
Something that has always served me well in my career is just to trust my gut and trust my instincts and I went against everything I knew about the industry what my agents were telling me and I Wanted to try doing more beauty because it was just what I was more passionate about what I enjoyed more it went back to The whole reason I got into this in the first place was because I just love makeup.
I voiced this to my agents and I was trying to get in the creatives that I had already organized or any work that I was doing for the agency, I was doing my best to make sure I got good photos of just the face of whoever I was working with. If I was doing a creative or TFP, I would ask for some beauty focus shots when we were in the planning stages.
Sometimes I would get them, sometimes I wouldn't.
I was just trying to put the focus on my work and make. my social media just about my makeup application skills and natural beauty and that's [00:11:00] just the thing that was Instinctually something was telling me to go in this direction there was a photographer that Had previously I think was I don't remember it's so long ago. There was a photographer that I had been trying to work with and was just You Not interested in working with me or had a other another team I can't remember the full details, but she was doing more commercial work and It had come up that she was interested in doing more beauty work as well and my agency connected me with this photographer and we did a beauty shoot and I still remember the shoot and I still have the photos it was the simplest thing. We had a beautiful model with really great skin The photographer was very adamant that we get someone with Great skin and this photographer was more connected and experienced than I was in the industry in Toronto at the time So it was easy for them to accommodate her and this photographer just told me Angie just do whatever you want I want to do looks with different colors, and I think we settled on jewel tones or something like that So as long as there's a different color story for each [00:12:00] look Let's do three or four or five looks whatever we have time for and I remember I just did what I thought was pretty and something she said That is important to know about me.
I learned to do makeup in the mid 90s. For me, Kevin Aucoin, that was the aesthetic that I obsessed over. Coming from retail, I would look at advertisements in magazines all the time because that's all we had access to. I would go to trainings from the brand seasonally and just see these beautiful images and everything was pretty and beautiful I think the closest thing you could compare it to now would be Some of the campaigns that charlotte tilbury is doing tom ford beauty like just really You Luxurious pretty beautiful makeup. That's what I grew up wanting to do and that's what I learned to do So my wheelhouse is that I don't do weird stuff.
I'm not into all the brights I'm, just really into natural or I guess you would call it more soft glam makeup applications now And that's exactly what I did there was nobody [00:13:00] telling me I had to do makeup one way or another on the shoot and I did these looks and I love the photos that Came out from the shoot.
I still look at them and I remember after that shoot That's the happiest I had been after a creative for a really long time. I'm telling you all this because this is the beginning phases of what got me to where I am now.
And it was a lot of trial and error. It was a lot of me thinking I had made it and it was my big opportunity and it wasn't. It was a lot of work. It was thinking I knew what I was doing when I really did not. It was just a big rollercoaster. It still is a rollercoaster. It's just different. It's just different.
But all of these things happened, and they started pushing me in a direction that I think is more authentic to who I am as a person and who I am as an artist. Those photos came out, I love them, the agency was very happy with them, and they were like, okay, we'll put them up on your book and we'll just see what happens. And then my agent called me one day and said there was a Lash brand, a very small Lash brand from Toronto. They were looking for a makeup [00:14:00] artist because they had just partnered with Sephora and they didn't have the budget to really pay for the top tier makeup artists that were at the agency.
And I was the only other one that had photos in the style that they were looking for, so they ended up booking me for the job. That lash brand was Velour Lashes. And I went from really not feeling connected to the work that I was doing, to all of a sudden filming, I guess it was a campaign, , it was stills and video for Velour Lashes So that they could have everything they needed to be on the Sephora website and be in stores at Sephora.
Let me tell you, I freaked out. I was so excited about it. The looks that we did were so simple and I started building a relationship with The woman who started the brand, her name is Mabel. And I just became their kind of go to makeup artist. And it started because I had images in my book that spoke to them that were in a style that they wanted [00:15:00] to work in.
The style I wanted to work in and the style they wanted to work in aligned. And that's how we started the relationship. Was this an easy client to take on? Absolutely not. It's still to this day one of the most challenging clients that I have, because there's a new challenge every time we work. But it's been ten years of me doing lash applications and beauty campaigns for them, and I do their e commerce, and I think in the whole ten years there was only one time during the pandemic where I couldn't do that.
Make it to a shoot. That is how this whole thing started. As a result of doing more beauty work with them I had more opportunities to take photos of natural makeup applications. I was on set I now became associated with a brand that was in sephora it just kind of built from there But this is 10 years of work that you're seeing and in that 10 years It would be it's so hard for me to explain The learning process that happens when you decide to focus on beauty and you start working with people who are also shooting beauty And it stills in video.
It's a huge learning curve. If you [00:16:00] want to end up doing beauty actually Doing beauty work. There's a lot to it. Well, i'll talk about that in just a second, but at the end of the day What it comes down to is if your technical skills are not there regardless of what you want to do in the industry It's going to be extremely hard For you to get where you want to go if your work does not look good and it starts with color theory and if you're doing work where Specifically there is a beauty focus you have to really understand this because there is nowhere to hide in video and you could really make the argument that the cameras now are so good Everybody's taking video your work just has to look good.
We're in a super competitive market You If the makeup doesn't look good, you can't build a career. And this is why I go on and on about the fundamentals about color theory because it's the basis of everything. When the focus becomes just the makeup, which is the case, not only with Velour when I work with them, when I do a jewelry campaign and we're focused on the face, when I do anything where there is a beauty shot, People are looking at your work [00:17:00] under a microscope if one section of the face and that's two millimeters wide is not blended You're gonna see it on camera.
Working With clients who were more beauty focused was my goal I worked towards that I did that shoot and I did many other shoots during that time To get stronger at doing makeup applications that were just beauty focused When I tell you I was working seven days a week for years and years and years.
I am not lying I was balancing full time jobs. I was doing as many creative shoots as I could I was also taking makeup clients on the side weddings events commercials. I was doing all of that with my full time job When I left my full time job to work as a makeup artist full time, the hustle has to increase even more because you have no money coming in if you're not working.
Once I figured out where I fit, it was like I was almost starting over. So now I was on the hunt for Finding photographers who were aligned with me at my same level of experience that were willing to work with me and shoot more beauty So I could get better and stronger and technically I could become better And I could really [00:18:00] understand how the products I was using and the application techniques I was using would transfer onto camera and video and this is not something anybody can teach you This is something you have to experience for yourself firsthand.
I was going hard for a very very very long time Just to build my book up to the point where I could confidently say yes My expertise is beauty and I can do macro beauty, which is very close up beauty And velour was a big part of that because that's all we were doing every time we shot for 10 to 12 hours Multiple models and then not only that then you had to deal with the lash application I went from not doing a lot of beauty stuff to really pushing on that and my work was Under a microscope and we're talking massive Transcribed monitors Five people looking at it looking at every detail every hair every brow hair Like everything was under a microscope and we still work like this now.
That was a huge learning experience for me I did have to go back to the drawing board It hasn't always been smooth sailing. I've had to adapt my application techniques to work for [00:19:00] What velour wants and what my other clients want as well? i'm constantly learning and that's what I think I like about beauty work as well There's just nowhere to hide.
So it's so challenging and I don't do perfect work all the time I have days where I'm really off. I have days when I have to apply makeup on camera and my hand is shaky it's just all around very challenging Once I figured out I wanted to do more beauty work then it was okay Who can I find that wants to shoot with me because I wasn't I still wasn't really known Yes, I was associated with an agency, which is helpful, but i'm like on the lowest rung of the agency I'm like bottom of the barrel at the agency I couldn't compete with other makeup artists at the agency because they had celebrity clients in their book and they were doing all this crazy stuff I was just like the worst at the agency I had to find people who would take a chance and work with me So I was doing a lot of just finding photographers who were very new where I like certain elements of their makeup application And we ended up learning together doing a lot of creatives together to get better I think I have told this story before If you have been following me for the last few years if you've been someone that's been with me [00:20:00] from the beginning There was one photographer.
Her name is carolina. I'm going to link you to her work She was working as a retoucher at one of the e commerce clients and just one day we were talking and she showed me a self portrait That she did and I love the aesthetic of it and she was saying she wanted to get more into beauty And that started A long term relationship of us doing beauty creatives every weekend Then it was like when we both got busy, it would be two or three times a month We were just hustling we would shoot anytime we could at night on the weekends and that really helped me build my beauty book And that's what?
Help me attract more clients. If you want to be doing beauty focus work, you have to have a book that supports this, that shows that you can do this. You need to show video, you need to show stills, you need to show unedited photos of your work on Instagram. You need to prove that you can work in beauty in any situation.
And you also have to have a developed style. I'm all about natural. To a lot of people, this is very boring. To me, I love it. Making makeup look natural on camera is something I've practiced for years and I'm always [00:21:00] learning something new and it's just great So this is what your book has to show part of the process is finding people who you can grow with because really when you're getting started and even if you've had a bunch of experience I had tons of experience in makeup application, but in the industry in Toronto, I was new and And when you put me in a situation where I'm now, my book is now being compared to artists who have been working full time as agency represented artists, I am at the bottom of the barrel because I just don't have an extensive book. I don't have celebrities in my book. It's just, it's different. When you get signed with an agency, yes, we're still working in a competitive industry, but now I have to be in direct competition with the other people who are signed with the agency. When photographers look for a makeup artist to work with, who do you think they want to work with? I don't know. It's also hard to break into teams, so you have to find people who are at your level, who are relatively undiscovered, and it's just about building and growing together and a lot of trial and error.
I have done some terrible shoots, I have [00:22:00] tried things that have worked, some things haven't. It's just the process, and it takes a lot of time because not only do you need to build the relationships, find the people, put in the work, you have to make sure the photographer is actually giving you photos that you can use, you like the photos, there's just so much that goes into it.
And it's a very slow process. Is something that kind of simmers in the back because you still need to be doing work that makes you money When you work as a makeup artist, you got to have a lot of things simmering at once or Your work will become stagnant.
You won't have new clients. Your book will become very stagnant you have to constantly be working away at things the position I was in for many years was I had this new interest in beauty I was trying to schedule creatives. I was trying to find new people when I ended up finding carolina We shot a bunch like we have done so many shoots together over the years I have lost count.
I was looking through them the other day and there's just so many things that we've done together over the [00:23:00] years So I was working on that. I was trying to find clients to keep my business going. I ended up leaving the agency.
I think this was seven eight years ago. I don't even remember but it's a very long time ago i've been self employed longer than I was ever with the agency at this point So then that was a new set of challenges. I had to reintroduce myself into the industry find new clients It's just a lot that goes on but everything that i'm doing, in the back of my mind It's like I want to do beauty.
I want to focus on beauty. I want to work with more beauty focused brands that's the process. What you have to contend with in this industry is the networking side of things. You have to make sure your technical skills are there.
You have to make sure you're utilizing social media. All of these pieces have to fit in order for you to attract the clients that you want to attract.
The part where I decided that I wanted to do more beauty focus work to attract beauty focus clients was the easiest part It's all the other work that I had to do over the years The amount of makeup applications i've done the amount of creatives i've done the amount of emails I've sent the amount of networking i've done to find people who are also [00:24:00] aligned with me I will be honest.
I feel personally it's just paying off now and I am How many years? 13, 14 years self employed full time as a makeup artist. I've been doing makeup for more than half my life at this point. That should just give you an idea of the amount of energy and Practice and work that is required to do this and I really do truly feel like it's just starting to pay off now and that could all vanish because that's the nature of our, of our jobs.
The other thing that I think is so important that I want to end on with this episode is that if you want to focus on something specific in our industry, for me it's beauty. There has to be a way for you to profit doing this or your efforts are going to be wasted because at the end of the Day, we're running a business in toronto.
There aren't a lot of beauty brands There are some people here that shoot beauty where i'm never probably going to be able to get that client I would kill to work for shoppers drug mart on a beauty campaign. That's where I started [00:25:00] my career. I spent 11 years working there but The photographers that shoot for Shoppers Drug Mart, the team that's there, it's pretty locked down.
They work with agency represented people. It's not like I'm going to be able to get that client and I'm okay with that because I have other clients that I like. But there's certain things that you're just not going to have access to. The other part of it for me was that with my beauty focus work, Early on I could see that I was getting bridal clients from this. I was getting more commercial clients from this So there were clients who were willing to hire me as a makeup artist because of the beauty focus work I was showing on my portfolio and just on my social so that Fit for me and it made sense financially and for my business A great example is if you want to be a celebrity makeup artist, you have to be in a region or a market where you are in close proximity to celebrities or it's not going to happen for you.
You're listening to this in Toronto and you really want to be working with celebrities, I recommend you move to the U. S., L. A. specifically or New York, where you're in closer proximity [00:26:00] to celebrities that make a lot of money.
There's not a lot of celebrities like that who are doing things in Canada. For Beauty For Me, Beauty work going after it showing it in my book means more bridal clients Which pays me a good amount of money more commercial clients, which there are a ton of in Toronto beauty focus clients like Jewelry brands skincare brands.
I have my lash clients and again this can all vanish But this is what I'm working towards and if it does all vanish I still have a very strong book and I have a lot of work experience where I can just pitch myself to You Other clients who are doing more beauty focus work or where people need to look like people and they're into natural looks and there's just so many clients here in toronto that Would hire me based on what I have in my book.
So it all makes sense
I feel like i've been rambling a little bit but I did want to give you a more honest account of how I got to this point in my career. It's been a lot of work. I've had a lot of failures, a lot of ups and downs. I've made a lot of mistakes. I have had my work [00:27:00] looked at under a microscope for more than 10 years, which is scary.
It's really tough. It can be really hard on you, but it's the best learning experience. I'm hoping that everything I shared with you today gives you a clearer picture of the steps you need to take. I'm hoping something clicks for you after you hear this episode. If there's one thing in the industry that you know you want to focus on, this, I hope, will help you put all the pieces together.
Regardless of what you want to do, if you want to work as a makeup artist full time, you want to be profitable. Even if you don't want to work full time and you want to do this part time and you want to make good money at this, your technical skills have to be there. It's also helpful to have a mentor or have somebody assess your work, because for me, this is where I grew and developed the most, is when I had people basically not, not tearing my work apart, but really going over my work with a microscope, having the opportunity to have someone else look at my work and say, here's what we need to fix, here's what needs to look better, getting feedback from, from people that I'm working with, whether it's a photographer or retoucher, whether it's just my [00:28:00] client.
All of that has been so beneficial to me. And that's why when I put together my courses, I try to Include content and education that will actually be helpful for you. So what I'm going to do in the show notes is put a link to my color theory course. This is the basis for everything we do.
I will say this a million times over. If you're not skilled in the fundamentals, if you do not truly understand color theory, you're going to have a very hard time. Hard time it's going to take you much longer than it needs to to get your work to a certain level Within my color theory course. I have the opportunity to have two of your makeup looks assessed for feedback I do a customized and personalized video for you. I will include a link to all this in the show notes, but I just want you to know Exactly what it took for me to get to where I am now if you're new to me or you're new to this account or whatever it is, it's been years and years of just chipping away At attracting beauty focus clients because that's what I love to [00:29:00] do Is it the most profitable choice for me based on where i'm living?
Not quite, but i'm able to support myself full time as a makeup artist, which has always been my goal And I think this is really everything that I wanted to cover in this episode I'm, hoping this was an accurate look at my career and how it's developed over the years and I do really hope you walk away With some clarity with the things that you either need to work on, improve on, what you want to do with your career.
If you have any questions, you know where to find me. Putting them in the comments on YouTube is the best place I can create more content for you. Just keeps everything organized. And that's it for today's episode. Please feel free to share this with somebody else that may need to hear it.
If you like what I'm doing, don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel, this podcast, the Artist to Artist Instagram account. And that's it for this week. Have a good one and I'll talk to you soon. Bye!
