I have been a lover of makeup since I was a little girl. I always played with makeup, which sometimes annoyed my older sister because I was always breaking into her room to put on her crimson pink lipstick and blue mascara (gotta love the 80’s!). When I got old enough to start wearing makeup my mom took me to the Clinque counter at Macy’s, I was instantly in love. From that point on I knew I wanted to be a professional makeup artist. However, I didn’t get my start professionally until I was 20 and got my first makeup job as a counter manager for Benefit cosmetics at a Macy’s store. Kind of ironic. ;-) After 2 years of working in what I call the retail trap, I left in search of bigger and better opportunities. I wound up working at a salon with the intent of going to beauty school. Soon after starting in the salon world I realized that it was a pretty toxic, negative and caddy aspect of the industry and it wasn’t for me. I know all salons aren’t like this but I soon realized that I didn’t want to “work for the man” and be constrained to where my creativity took me. Around that time was when I met my now husband who recognized my talent and pushed me to pursue starting my own makeup artistry business and thus WarPaint International was born!