, an incredible artist and voice in the beauty industry. He introduced me to The Makeup Show. He saw me teaching at a school in Baltimore and he was like, ‘You need to be in bigger spaces and on larger stages. People need to know who you are.’ He opened up a whole new world for me., who’s an incredible makeup artist who works with Zendaya — she’s always been an example for me of what’s possible as an artist.
“I was creating products very ignorantly in the beginning, because I really just had no clue. But consulting ended up being the best masterclass and hands-on experience. I was traveling all over the world to different labs, learning how products were made, who was making them, who was making those decisions, and even learning about how to present to get them distributed.
“The way I discovered beauty, personally, helped me define what I want my brand to be. I had really severe acne in junior high school, and I was already a really shy girl, so I was bullied a lot. My mom took me tostore to find foundation [to cover my acne] and there wasn’t a shade for me anywhere. In the end we had to go to a costume store and buy stage makeup, because that was the only place we found my shade of foundation. And even then it’s not like it was a perfect match.
“So now, I’m always thinking about that person when I create products. If Danessa Myricks Beauty is the first place they come to try and get an answer, I want them to be able to find it here. I need people to feel like they can come to us and feeland see that there’s something that represents them.
. But those four quickly turned into 11, because I was like, ‘There are people who are missing from this conversation.’ And the from there I developed the complexion products and then everything else.”“First of all, 100 shades is confusing for a customer. Even 50 shades can be very confusing. And when all the shades are a millisecond away from each other, you know that brand just wanted to tell a story and wasn’t really thinking about the consumer.