Zendaya’s Makeup Artist Sheika Daley on Her Profession in Splendor

Welcome to Significant Split, wherever some of the most influential figures in the beauty field reflect on the times that built them — from the superior to the bad, and all the things in among. Here, veteran (and self-taught!) make-up artist Sheika Daley shares how she went from performing make-up at the major gentleman’s club in Miami to being a make-up artist for some of the most significant names in Hollywood, which include Zendaya and Beyoncé.

Immediately after slipping into the ballerina pink tutu, but in advance of the curtain drew to a legion of mother and father, 7-yr-aged Sheika Daley would wait around backstage for the finishing touch: purple lipstick. Her mother, a painter, rapidly turned everyone’s go-to for makeup at dance recitals. She could get 20 to 30 girls all set with a solitary Vogue Truthful eye shadow trio.

“I was fascinated with how she held the brush, how she painted on the shades,” Daley stated. “In some way she would make us all look diverse, and I would just observe her as she worked. When she set on that purple lipstick I was like, ‘Wait a moment. This is a full ‘nother entire world for me.'”

That fascination lingered properly into college or university, in which she was finding out mathematical science on a complete-ride scholarship. Her existence trajectory was in simple sight: professor, actuary, mathematician. Nevertheless, “as much as I was attempting to excel in that environment, my thoughts was nevertheless on make-up,” she explained. “In my to start with calendar year of school, I used most of my time in my dorm home acquiring persons completely ready for pageants. It was my matter. I understood then that I by now realized what I really wished to do with my everyday living, and that was not it.”

By the conclusion of freshman calendar year, Daley was headed back home to Florida to start a job hunt that would get her foot in the doorway. Before long, she got a gig at Victoria’s Mystery — “that was the only business I knew that had make-up and skin care” — and ended up performing as the head of the splendor counter. Without formal cosmetics coaching, she began to train herself anything there is to know about make-up. “I was a college student yet again, reading through almost everything I could get my hands on. Even though they have been selling panties, I was reading up on shade correction and pores and skin tones and solution formulations.”

All around that exact same time, MAC Cosmetics was just emerging on to the beauty scene as this “hip, new, enjoyment, energetic make-up line that was all inclusive for everyone,” she explained. “As a lady of color, that was enormous, simply because back again then there were not a whole lot of makeup strains that experienced a full array of color for absolutely everyone.”

Useless to say: Daley desired in on the magic — and after two many years of frequenting the retail store every single solitary month and asking the store manager for a opportunity, she lastly landed the work.

Studying the Methods of the (Make-up) Trade

Once there, she was like a natural beauty sponge, soaking up as much data about the globe of professional make-up as she could. About the up coming few yrs, “MAC taught me how to construct my portfolio, that I required to construct associations with photographers, that I needed to obtain an agency,” she stated. “I realized, This is just the starting the first move. There was so a lot left to do, and I was receiving more mature.”

Over and above that, operating 20 hours a 7 days at a attractiveness counter also was not bringing in much money, and Daley understood she needed to branch out in purchase to change this profession into a occupation. Then, in walked her chance: a freelance make-up artist who rotated nights accomplishing the glam for girls at a area strip club known as Tootsie’s in Miami.

“A person day she advised me how significantly revenue she produced in one evening, and I said, ‘You have to have to signal me up. Quickly.'”

And signal up, Daley did. Two months later on, she secured a situation performing anyplace from two to seven nights a 7 days at the gentleman’s club. “The girls ended up loving me,” she recalled, including that this was where she seriously got to enjoy. “That ended up currently being the place my creativity just exploded, simply because I had the freedom to literally do whatsoever I preferred.”

You could also say it was the initially time she received to put her makeup mastery to perform on the major stage.