Photo provided by Sylvia MacNeil
The first time I walked by a MAC store, I was in awe. There was something so magical about it. All the makeup artists appeared flawless. They were dressed to perfection with perfectly styled hair and makeup meticulously painted on their faces using a technique I didn’t even think was possible. Although I’ve always been inspired by cosmetics, I can remember that this moment defined, and set in motion, my dream of becoming a makeup artist. It looked like the most glamorous job in the world. I’d be able to look fantastic at work every day, and practice makeup on peoples’ faces. How could that possibly feel like work?
I didn’t know how wrong I was.
After five more years of walking through makeup counters in big cities, and staring in wonder at the glitzy women working in department stores, I finally signed up for a makeup program at MC College. The experience and training gave me the confidence to pursue a career in the cosmetic industry. But how does one begin to become a makeup artist? Well, it’s just as scary and vulnerable as any other job market.
“I’d be able to look fantastic at work every day, and practice makeup on peoples’ faces. How could that possibly feel like work?”
My first attempt at breaching the world of professional makeup was through employment at Sephora. During this stage I was very insecure and didn’t think that a company like MAC would ever consider hiring someone as inexperienced as me. I went through the gruelling interview process at Sephora feeling hopeful and recharged. But to my disappointment, they called back only to let me know I wasn’t the “best suited” candidate. At this point, I still didn’t give up. I decided to push harder and mustered up all my courage to walk into MAC with a resume. A couple of months went by and my dreams of makeup artistry started to feel increasingly small and impossible. That is, until the day I finally got a call from MAC for an interview. I ended up getting the job, and my passion for makeup artistry exploded.
When I mentioned how wrong I was about the job being easy, I didn’t mean that it was labor intensive or difficult to fulfill any duties. Everything that was required of me was easy to accomplish and I was performing way above my sales expectations. The difficult part was the toll it took on my confidence as an artist and on my own self-esteem. Constantly studying the newest products MAC offered to make women look perfect only made me start to overanalyze myself in a way that wasn’t healthy.
“Feeling pressured to look perfect at work every day was not as fun as I first imagined”
I have struggled with problematic, acne-prone skin since I was a teenager. As a result, feeling pressured to look perfect at work everyday was not as fun as I first imagined when I spent dreamy afternoons admiring the pretty women behind the makeup counters. I grew obsessed with comparing myself to my coworkers. I agonized over the thought of never looking as good as them. I figured that if I couldn’t exemplify the flawless skin MAC boasts to my customers, I wasn’t actually good enough as an artist to serve them or to offer an expert opinion.
Getting ready for work in the morning became a personal brand of torture and more of a massive, exhausting struggle. I picked apart every flaw I could see in myself and would consequently be in an awful mood for the rest of the day. As a result of my low self-esteem I quickly started losing passion for the artistry involved in my job that had initially sparked my interest. If customers weren’t happy with an application, or were critical of something I suggested to them, I instantly took it personally. After such comments, I assumed I must be a bad artist. Maybe I just wasn’t made for the job after all.
The makeup industry always looks fabulous on television and from the other side as a customer. It is supposed to look fabulous. But trying to maintain that perfect skin, hair, or trend consistently was mentally and physically fatiguing. It took me too long to realize that even though I study beauty, and inspect what people see as “perfect” images in magazines to replicate them on other people, people don’t always have to conform to ideals of perfection. It took a gradual understanding of this in a broad sense for me to begin to apply it personally.
I forced myself to remember how excited I was when I got my first callback from MAC with a job offer, and I thought to myself, what exactly made me so excited about getting the job? Was it that I would get to dress up every day and not have to mop any more floors? Yes, partially. But in all honesty, if I really dug deep, the real reason I was excited to start working at MAC was because it was a place in which I could express my creativity. It was a place in which I could play with colours and textures, and create art. It was also an environment I could learn in, that I would be challenged in, and an environment that was changing everyday. That’s what excited me the most.
“Getting ready for work in the morning became a personal brand of torture and more of a massive, exhausting struggle. I picked apart every flaw I could see in myself and would consequently be in an awful mood for the rest of the day.”
After some serious reflection, I started to wake up with a different attitude each day. Before work I would do my makeup to the best of my ability, with the skin God gave me, and I went to work without giving it a second thought. I decided to focus on the moment. I got to relax and enjoy painting the canvases of my clients’ faces. Then I got to watch them be so ecstatic about my work that their whole demeanour would light up in a way that completely fulfils me.
Dealing with different types of people from all over the world for eight hours each day is an experience in its own right. Everyone has their own definition of what is beautiful. I soon began to learn that some women prefer wearing foundation that is five shades too light for their skin tone, and a lovely, mature grandmother may want to rock a fluorescent pink lipstick. These things seem crazy to me, but that’s okay. Every person will have differing opinions since beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. I realized I am not capable of making every single person that walks up to the makeup counter happy, and that is not a reflection of bad artistry, but simply of differing opinions.
Of course, I still struggle with perfection insecurities. I have to bring myself back to reality a few times a day and be aware that the products I am working with create an illusion that is not real. What is real is underneath the product, and I hope that my love and passion for artistry will continue to develop with each passing day. I hope I can accomplish what I really, truly set out to do, and help to make other people feel their absolute best and most beautiful.