How Barbie’s eyeshadow led me to my passion and dream.

Why I started my business?

In brief, I want to offer what I needed. To unlearn that there is only one definition of beauty. To unlearn the brainwashing that marketing does to everyone, over time, by being exposed to it constantly.
I believe that everyone is beautiful and that makeup and skincare only enhance what’s already there because you are the beautiful one. Just as you are, Naturally You.

Here is the longer version. Let’s see where this takes us.

I watched online, a speech given by Steve Jobs at the 2005 commencement of Stanford University. He said: “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.”

Let’s connect the dots.

I remember being fascinated by makeup by the age of 3 years old. I was looking at my barbies and trying to understand why they had all the colours of the rainbow over their eyelids … and my mum didn’t. I remember going through the four or 5 makeup items that my mum owned and putting MORE makeup on my barbies… and getting in a whole heap of trouble for it.

I had an auntie who always wore nail polish and eyeliner, and she owned lots of makeup, she used to curl my hair whenever I would go for sleepovers, and she was the only person in my life who didn’t make me feel less for wanting to be beautiful, for feeling more beautiful with ringlets in my hair. She told my cousin and my sisters off for making fun of me. She also got me my first lipgloss.

I remember people commenting on how pale, and fair my skin is. On how I didn’t (and still don’t) tan. I remember buying my first makeup palette at the age of 12 and experimenting with the blues and the pinks from the barbie rainbow… and my mum not being impressed. I remember walking through department stores, trying to figure out how to ask for help and guidance among the overwhelmedness of all the magic potions that each celebrity I admired said would make my life better.

I remember watching “femme de couleur” a music video by Shy’m and drawing my first ever face chart (map of a makeup look, drawn of paper which covers products and placements) of the silver makeup when I was about 15. I remember being told that beauticians and makeup artists aren’t real jobs but that they could be a hobby.

Since they couldn’t be a job, I decided to try and combine my passion and an acceptable job. After my gap year in New Zealand, I signed up to business school, in hopes to be one day the head of a department in charge of import/export of a luxe cosmetics group in Europe. But I hated math in Highschool, and I still hated them at university so I decided it wasn’t for me. I swapped, and I did two years in journalism and communication, in the hopes of working in PR in the cosmetics industry. I hated it too, dropped out and signed up for beauty school.

I thought beauty school was going to be “easy peasy mac’n’cheesy” like my toddler says. As soon as we hit histology, the study of skin, I was proven wrong. There is and was a lot to learn. I am not going to lie, going over my mental barrier and fighting to actually get off my ass and study took my everything at the time.

When we started to practice on people other than classmates, all of a sudden, my mum was happy to oblige, and so were my sisters. Questions kept coming: what product, what skin type, which ingredients, how to choose x,y,z. What’s the difference between a moisturiser and a serum?
You name it, I was asked it.
Not just by my sister and mum, but by all kinds of people in my life who hold university degrees and often used to look down on me when I pursued my passion.

My makeup teacher in cosmetics school told me at every lesson, “you’re so beautiful with makeup on; why don’t you wear it more often?”. I didn’t like looking orange nor looking like a different, 50-year-old version of me. I hated the makeup take of cosmetics school.
When in cosmetics school, My skin became over-sensitized. I reacted to 90% of the products I was exposed to, and I developed contact allergies. This is when I slowly, started to move toward clean beauty.

My sisters kept asking for makeup lessons, when they needed to wear makeup. They don’t wear it on a daily basis. But when they do, they want to look like themselves but better. After doing the lessons a couple of times and them just not remembering anything, the idea came about to record it on video and edit it, like I used to edit the makeup tutorials I filmed for YT at the time (no need to look for them, they are all offline now).

My best friends still send me links to ask me what I think of skincare products etc…
So I put the skincare and makeup needs that I had when I was a teenager and that my sisters, mum, friends, … have as adults together. I channelled all these to fix it, with the skin and makeup 101 offerings that keep evolving.

I hadn’t connected the dots when I decided to launch my business, moving to New Zealand and becoming a mum all in the same year turned my life upside down and it simply felt like the next move. But when I did connect the dots, it just made sense. I want to be, for you, the person I wish I had in my life…aka my amazing auntie, but with much better knowledge on the matter.

To tell you that you don’t need to buy fake tan, cellulite-reducing creams, push-up bras, or anti-wrinkle creams.
To tell you that if you want to wear blues and pinks barbie rainbow on your eyelids, go for it.
To tell you that, if you’re male born and want to wear a dress, eyelashes etc… go for it.

To educate and empower you, so that when a counter manager in a department store approaches you with dollar signs in their eyes, you feel confident to say: I know exactly what I am looking for.

Because there is an entire world between full glam and “I am a mum, and I sort myself out last”

You’re the only one who decides how much or how little you do when it comes to your skincare and makeup.
If you have to choose between the two, because of time or finance, chose skincare. ALWAYS.
Your skin is going to represent you for a long time.
SO…

What’s the bare minimum in skincare?
Double cleanse, moisturize, SPF.

What’s the bare minimum with makeup?
What you’re happy with, there’s no rule

Just remember that you are the hero of your life.
You create your own definition of beauty, and you are beautiful, just as you are. Naturally you.

Hugs,
Amélie