Zombaes, I don't know why that became a thing.

today we are going to talk about the question

I get more than anything else and I know what you're thinking. It's Mikey

How are you so naturally tan?

But that is not it. The question that I get more than anything is

How to get started in makeup as a profession, what advice would I have to start it as a career?

Should you go to school?

How did you get started yourself stuff like that it's–ok, so that's a lot of questions

But you get the general gist I think in telling my story of how I got started

A lot of my advice will kind of come through in that a lot of people tell me that watching my videos helped

Start their passion for makeup and wanting to create a career out of it

So I hope that this helps some of you who are wondering what to do now that you have this sort of

Basis of knowledge where do you take it from here? How do you take it from a hobby to a job?

I also have something very cool to share with you at the end of this video

So make sure you watch till the very end or else or else you just won't see it

But, whatever

Ok let's get started. I have a dog hair on my nose and on my hands

What's going on?

So my first technical job as a makeup artist was on the set of a short film for a friend of mine while we were

In film school together he was doing his senior thesis he needs some 60's style makeup

He thought that I was good at my own makeup so he asked could I do it on someone else

which I had very little confidence in but I practiced on a friend I decided to do the makeup for the short film

I did it for free because we're all broke students that just helped each other out and that was technically my first

step into

Being a makeup artist, though I would not have called myself that at the time

My first paid job was when I get hired at a Mac counter and a Macy's Williger of Pennsylvania

What's up, and that felt like a fluke?

I kind of got suggested to interview by a friend who worked at the Clinique counter across the way and

They they asked me if I'd interview at the Mac counter which I thought was really nice

But that I wouldn't get the job because I didn't really know what I was doing on anyone else

except for myself I knew how to do my own makeup

Although my eyebrows were very questionable back then they're still questionable some days

But you know but back then I did not think I had the skill set to be a Mac makeup artist however

I rarely turned down opportunities to challenge myself, so I said I'd love to interview

I had a two-part interview where after the first one the manager at that counter was like I want to see

What the regional trainer thinks of you because even though you're very new to doing makeup

I think that he's very good at judging whether someone has the ability to pick up the skill quickly so I did a second interview

with him both interviews

I had to do makeup on a model

And I was so fresh to makeup at this point that I actually

Asked the manager of this Mac counter if I was allowed to touch my models face to do her makeup

Because I wasn't even sure if there was some kind of unspoken rule

That when you are the makeup artist applying makeup to someone else if you're allowed to physically touch their face with your skin

I thought maybe you had to do all the makeup using only brush to skin contact

And she was like oh

No like if you need to raise their eyebrows or something or touch anywhere on their face to get the makeup done

You can do that. That was foreign to me. That's how green I was so again

It's amazing that I ended up getting the job

But the regional trainer said that I learned very very quickly and that he saw a lot of potential in me

So they gave me the job and and that was the beginning of it

so I have a lot to actually thank to the manager their names Liz Bonnie pile is thank you so much for giving me a

Job and believing in me when I how many other people would have but that that vote of confidence from them

Helped me so much then I worked at Mac for three years

I learned a lot there just by observing and repeatedly working on customers over and over and over

They all had different skin types skin shades they all had different

Requests some people liked very little makeup some people wanted full glam so I really got the gamut of what?

People were looking for at least when they came to a Mac counter while I was working at Mac

I also applied for my first FX job at Eastern State Penitentiary, which if you don't know is this really?

massive

Old-ass abandoned prison well its not abandoned, now it's the thing it's like a historical site

But it's no longer a functioning prison in the middle of Philadelphia like it's like row homes businesses

giant block of castle walls and

Prison stuff it's really cool. Actually if you're ever in Philly. I highly recommend

You go see it because it is creepy, and it's cool

And it's really old and Al Capone used to have a cell there, and and it's just crazy

And they say it's haunted so if you like ghost hunting maybe try that out

But I mean I worked there for a couple years

And I used to walk the cellblocks alone by myself

And the dark at night same like "come at me bro" to the ghost and nothing

Maybe they were just intimidated by me, but I don't know I'm not really sold anyway

I got a job there as my first job doing special effects makeup and

For that that was another tricky thing where I'm really happy someone took a chance on me and hired me

I had some pictures of Halloween makeup

I had done on myself years prior where I did gory stuff, but it was very amateur. It was very um

It was very amateur. I wasn't taught in any formal sense at any point

so it was always just what I experimented with I might have fudged my

My application a little where I lied and said that I had worked with

There was like a section mix play. There's a section that was like have you heard of or used skin illustrator?

third degree

bondo

gelatin

latex prosthetics and

Truth be told I had only really worked with latex prosthetics. I didn't know what bondo was or pros-aide or skin illustrator

but

So when I applied and it said that I essentially needed to know these things to get the job

I said that I knew all of those things that I was familiar with them that I'd used them before and

Then I did a ton of research to figure out exactly what those things were

So that when it came time for the in-person interview

I

Could actually respond in a way that showed that I did know what I was talking about I knew that there was an opportunity for

beginners to get this job

So I knew that it wasn't vital that I knew the ins and outs of everything that they teach you they trained you there

However, I did yeah

so I kind of kind of lied that I knew some stuff that I didn't and then I learned it so I feel like that's

That's fair sometimes you have to do

What I'm trying to say is don't think that just because you are not

prepared for a job

It doesn't mean that you can't learn to be it doesn't mean that you shouldn't still try it because someone might take a chance on

You and then they might be able to teach you in that job

I was very fortunate that that happened for me twice in a row both for beauty and

Effects that I found people that believed in me. Shout out also too Ruby

who's the one who hired me at Eastern State Penitentiary for terror behind the walls because

She really took me under her wing and really kind of mentored me in that job

I'm very fortunate that I'm a fast learner because I think in both these instances that saved my ass

So if you don't know everything it's okay if you are observant and you're willing to

Work really hard what's going on with this? Oh, sorry about that. I look crazy

my foots asleep

uhhhh

Can't feel that at all this is not product placement for dr. Scholl's

I swear not sponsored so I worked at terra behind the walls for two

Years, I visited on year three, but I learned a lot there because again. I had to work on so many faces. I think there's

200 actors at that haunted house that would come into the make up chairs and be split between something like ten make-up artists

So we constantly had people coming in the chair getting them out as fast as possible

We got to experiment we had general guidelines like this actor needed to have bruises and cuts in blood this actor needs to have

Infections so I got to again practice a range of things and I had to do it very quickly under pressure

Which really tested my ability to be creative

So those jobs were really invaluable to me as my starting points. I spent almost the entirety of my mac paycheck in mac

products to start building up a beauty kit Ruby from tower behind the walls was nice enough to put together a small FX kit for

Me to take home with myself

after the first year which

To this day is still one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me and something that I am

Eternally grateful for I still have some of those things in my kit that haven't expired that she gave me and with those two small

kits with the knowledge that I built from both jobs and being directed by someone who said

We need this look for this thing for the haunted house

Having to deal with real world people. That said I want this in my life. Gave me a good mix of

Just just training life training on how to do makeup for a variety of things all the while for both of these jobs

I was going to school for film and when I finished school I

Had a job as a cocktail waitress for a couple years

Just to make money to save up to go to LA and I also did jobs in

Philadelphia on set I did some work for print

I did some work for short films things like that and then I moved out to LA after I'd saved up enough money and when

I got here

I just picked up any set job that I could get and by that I mean not just makeup

I was the production designer and something I was the art director and another thing

I was second second which is a camera

Department thing it was a DIT for something which if anyone's in film

You know that is a stressful job, but I did make up on a lot of things too, and it kind of sucked

I'm not gonna lie because unless you're in a union out here in LA jobs pay very poorly

I was working something like $100 a day for 12 or 14 hour days so that is

below minimum wage for a skilled job

That was if I got a kit fee on top of it

So I'm using my makeup out of my kid while working very long hours, and it's very inconsistent scary work

I was very grateful to get every job that I got but it is a tough industry and this was years ago

I mean all of these things

I'm not even sure how much they would really apply to today because it was a saturated industry before and it's just getting more

saturated I think because of social media really hyping up the interest for a lot of people in makeup a lot of people look to

Social media phones as a prerequisite for getting a job now in makeup

Alexa shut your face, which really is

Unfortunate I think because I don't think that your following should determine how qualified you are to do makeup on a face by face

basis anyway

so I don't know if just

Hoping that someone will take a chance on you the way that they took a chance on me will be sound advice however

That is how it started for me the best advice I can give you starts to deal with how I went from doing

makeup on set on clients on people to

Doing the YouTube thing actually. It's true that they say that out here in Hollywood

It's a lot about who you know, and I I knew that I didn't know anyone when I moved out here

So I wasn't getting jobs based on connections that I had

Personally I was only getting jobs based on my work and at that point in my life. I didn't have a very big portfolio of

Especially beauty makeup I had more of a portfolio from Tara behind the walls

I took a lot of pictures of my work there, but I didn't take hardly

I don't think I took any pictures of clients that I did at Mac which was a mistake so one big piece of advice I

Can give you is to

Always take pictures of your work because that is your calling card that is your business card in the sort of industry also

Experiment as much

you can try to work on as many different faces as you can like I said that was something that I got to do a

Lot just through the kinds of jobs

I picked up initially and that helps me learn so much YouTube wasn't really a thing back then in the sense that it was

full of makeup tutorials

I used to watch Kandy Johnson and

Michelle Phan way back in the day on like how to curl my hair with paper bags and stuff

But a lot of what I learned is just through experimenting on myself on

Clients on other people on people that I could experiment on like if a client asked for something

I gave them what they wanted obviously

But if I had any room to experiment if they gave me leeway I would try something that

Was a little newer to me the more you can experiment

The better you will get at something don't just keep doing what you're used to doing don't just keep doing what you're good at doing

Any chance you get to go outside of your comfort zone?

You need to do because that's how you grow as an artist it is possible to learn how to do makeup without makeup

tutorials because that's a big way that I learned but on top of being able to learn on your own naturally through experimenting and