Miss Oreoluwa Akindejoye is a makeup artist, and she has been an inspiration to many youths like her. In this interview with BLESSING OSAYAMWEN, she speaks onthe unique operation of her makeup business, what it takes to survive in the business among, other issues.
What inspired you to become a makeup artist?
As a youth and a young Nigerian girl, I feel mostly obsessed with makeup beauty of a thing and when I see people doing makeup that doesn’t match with their skin tone, I feel it’s not right so started my makeup business by having more and more aspiring people to learn to do makeup to make people more beautiful.
How do you develop your skills and ideas as a makeup artist?
By developing my skills, I started early enough and I actually went for makeup classes.
Even when I’m not in class, I look for youths like me to do my practice makeup on them to make my makeup more stable.
What is your favourite type of makeup look to create?
I mostly prefer natural look makeup that makes people look natural and that is not too much, it makes the skin tone look so beautiful and I prefer that.
Can you share a particular memorable or challenging makeup project you have worked on?
A particularly challenging makeup project I have worked on was working on a dark-skinned person to get the foundation of a dark person in the market.
It is very alarming these days because we do not mostly get them on time.
Most makeup artists make the mistakes of using a light-skinned foundation on dark people and it is not always giving.
So, that is one of the problems I usually have.
But at the end, when I Google search and check my vendors, I usually get the most efficient product and the natural look they need.
How do you stay up to date with the latest makeup trends and techniques?
I stay up to date with the latest makeup trends through Google, Instagram and Twitter. I check for new makeup looks to make my customers look glamorous.
What’s your favourite makeup product or tool to work with?
We have so many favorite makeup poducand, I do have Nigerian makeup that I tried for example; glam beauty jay makeup products and others that I can’t even remember now, but there are much more of it.
How do you work with clients to understand their vision and preferences?
I make sure I understand what the client needs. It’s not a process of the popular Nigerian saying, “what I ordered versus what I got”, I ask the clients to choose what they want, I show them pictures of what they think they need and their preferences.
Can you share tips for everyday makeup routine or common makeup mistakes to avoid?
For Nigerian youths and most especially for the girls, we have these common mistakes of lip lining, they mix it up really much, most of them put mascara on the lips trying to line the lips and also they put black mascara but mainly for that I think that’s what every Nigerian youth does.
So, the lip lining is mostly the major problem which is not supposed to be a problem and mainly they can also learn it from YouTube to make it better on them.
How do you handle high pressure situations like working in a photo shoot or with a celebrity client?
It’s really stressful working on a photoshoot, most customers are so annoying and not even that the pressure and, let’s talk about time, probably you are meant to be at an occasion by specific time and let’s say you didn’t get there on time because of Lagos traffic and you get there some minutes to the event and the pressure is so high that they start complaining that you need to be fast and you need to hurry up on this but you just need to calm down, cool your mind and everything will be fine.
What is your long-term vision for your career as a makeup artist?
My long-term vision for my career as a makeup artist, I would love to expand my business, also I would love to make my makeup brand to be known far and wide in both international level and beyond my imagination.
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