We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ariana Padro a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Ariana thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Ultimately I think everyone has their own definition of success. My definition of success for Ariana is to be appreciated for the art I create. As much as I love providing services for clients I absolutely love teaching makeup. I love helping, I love guiding, I just love to share a little bit of me with others. In the long run my long-term goal is to create a school that offers classes that teach how to achieve every single type of make up. I want to be able to provide a class on everything from beginner beauty all the way to the Prosthetic making & the business that goes behind all of this. I know this has been done before but I don’t feel like the schools that are out there are providing enough for an artist like me and I want to be able to create that as well as a place that is open and acceptable to every single walk of life. I want a space where people can freely be themselves & create whatever makes THEM happy. I think being successful means doing whatever helps you grow & be a better person. Regardless of what it is.

Ariana, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Ariana Padro. I am 22 years old from Brooklyn, New York. I currently live in Florida and work at universal studios as a makeup artist for events like Halloween Horror Nights, Grinchmas, Mardi Gras,Etc. The art of transformation has always been so mesmerizing to me. I started doing spfx makeup in my room at 13 years old. Without schooling & before YouTube tutorials became huge. I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew nothing had ever made me feel like that before. I sat and experimented until I got decent. Once I turned 16 beauty makeup came into my world. I didn’t start with much of interest for it but as time went on I began appreciating the amount of work & true artistry that goes into beauty & figured It wouldn’t hurt to try it out. I never had any help nor schooling, I just relied on the little information I was able to find on YouTube and honestly just created what I liked even when I knew most people wouldn’t. Truly being myself has been difficult at times but it’s so freeing and important to me. Makeup is my form of expression and I feel so grateful that I get to do my favorite thing in the world as my job.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The makeup community isn’t as kind and as inclusive as i’d hoped it would be. For as long as I can remember I’ve been overlooked & treated like an outcast simply because I do makeup a bit different. On top of that Social media can get really stressful at times. Trying to get brands to see your work, not getting “enough” likes, & always being treated differently makes social media very overwhelming to the point where I’ve definitely wanted to quit. I sometimes hate how attached we’ve all become to it. Everytime I’ve wanted to quit I always just remember the small little community of people I have reached, who do appreciate my creations & my aesthetic. That’s what makes it all worth it.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Artistically I am a perfectionist & am really hard on myself so I tend to take my time when I work because I want to do the best job I physically can. I definitely had a snap back to reality once I began working jobs that required me to do makeup. Now that I had short time limits I completely panicked and had no idea what I was gonna do because I’d never needed to work under that much pressure before. I had to unlearn all my previous ways and somehow teach myself an entirely new way of working quickly & effectively. Like anything else in life change is scary but it forces you to grow. Until this day time limits always make me a bit nervous but I do the best I can with what I got!      

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/ariana__mua?igshid=MmIzYWVlNDQ5Yg==
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/arianafx/?wtsid=rdr_08uzxo5knPBDRciov
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ariana__mua
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@ariana__mua?_t=8dvojM5vt9S&_r=1