Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Shalyn Galindo. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Shalyn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s go back in time to when you were an intern or apprentice – what’s an interesting story you can share from that stage of your career?

A story about my apprenticeship that will always come to mind will be my very first microbladed eyebrow on skin.

I just wanna start off by saying that my husband is always been my biggest cheerleader and support system and so of course on my journey in permanent make up he had to be my first eyebrow.

My mentor wasn’t with me and she gave me permission to kind of go for it and the placement ended up being on the front of my husband‘s thigh.

I was so nervous and I ended up wiping away my stencil halfway through and kind of making it up as I went, which I should not have done.

He may have said it was uncomfortable, but he had me to finish the project. No matter how good or bad it looked.

Shalyn, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

When I first got into the industry, I started to work at a tattoo shop in Temecula.

I went in and met with one of the owners at the time and he told me flat out “We do not want a tattoo apprentice”. He offered me the shop help job, which was cleaning, breaking down and setting up stations, working with clients and booking appointments.

Along with that, I could learn how to pierce, and that wasn’t quite my plan, my goal once I got in there was kind of just get the foot in the door show them that I was a hard worker that I was here that I was drawing every day and just trying to be present and push forward with art. But for what job opportunity I had as the shop piercer I wanted to be the best that I could be.

My goal was always at two years I would ask them if they could take me on as an apprentice. Coincidentally my piercing mentor started doing permanent make up a few years before me and she had offered to teach me, and I kind of never really looked back into tattooing.

Watching artists work for sometimes hours and sometimes days on a drawing and having a client come in and want to change it fully or get something brand new, which they have the right to, can just be a huge stressor in your day. So when permanent make up was an option I really geles in love with all aspects of it.

Even though permanent makeup has his own types of stress and its own types of clients to work with, It’s not the same. I feel like that take away and bring home with you type of work is very hard and that’s been something that I have been thankful for. I get to come in and try and leave work at work.

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I think what I most proud of is that I really have built my own business out of permanent cosmetics. I have a good following and great supportive friends and clients that have been with me for years and just getting to meet new people is an extremely amazing opportunity. Like, you chose me over the possible hundreds of people in the county that we live in and I really don’t take it lightly at all.

My brand had kind of morphed through the years and the COVID lock down gave me a lot of alone time to kind of restructure how I wanted to present myself.

I went from Babe Body Piercing to a merger with my permanent make up and started to go by Babe X Brows. Now with my apprentice under me and she is also a “Babe” we go by Haus of Babe.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

I think being able to tell when it is not good to take every client. That is probably one of the most difficult things that I’ve had to come across, I want to make everyone fall in love with their eyebrows and be happy and walk away smiling but there’s a lot of different factors involved and one of them is being realistic with results. And if I feel like I won’t be able to give someone the results that they’re wanting and I do a service for them and it is nothing like what they’re envisioning then I should be able to know as the artist to tell that client that I don’t think it’s a good fit for them. Even if they continue to tell me, they have faith in my abilities. I need to know that I can or can’t do something.

Do you think you’d choose a different profession or specialty if you were starting now?

I feel like I would still want to choose a profession in this industry, it’s brought me so much joy and love from people around me.

I originally wanted to go to college and become a forensic toxicologist, and that would’ve been an absolutely different career path, so I feel like I’ve already kind of pivoted from there to this.

But the freedom that being your own boss gives you is something that I feel like you can’t get out of any other type of working system unless you do work from home, and you’re able to go around and bring your laptop and function that way.

Contact Info:

• Website: Hausofbabe.com
• Instagram: Babexbrows

Image Credits
@ravenberlinphoto Instagram @jessicareesephotography