We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gabrielle Estrella a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Gabrielle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
Ever since I was 13 years old I knew makeup meant something more to me. Following beauty influencers like Jeffree Star and Jaclyn Hill, watching their videos and wanting so badly to recreate their looks. Though this may be an unpopular opinion, I adore Jeffree Star and he taught me everything I know about makeup.
At first, of course I was terrible. It looked like I’d taken sharpie and drew it on my face. I would stay up until 3 or 4am just messing around and practicing until one day I wasn’t as terrible as before and so on. I took so much pride in my eyeshadow looks that were really so simple, but the feeling of perfecting the art of blending is just so empowering as a beginner.
Later when I was getting really good I would wear makeup to school and would experiment with different colors and styles of application. People started asking for tutorials and if I would do their makeup and I happily obliged. It brought me so much joy making clients (and also my friends) feel beautiful.
As an adult, it is definitely hard to make time everyday to do my own makeup. Although, anytime I do get a chance to do my makeup, I get an overwhelming feeling of happiness and I remember that this is what I am truly meant to do.
Gabrielle, 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?
As previously stated. I started in my grandmothers house in a tiny town in New Jersey. Once I was good enough at makeup application and technique to have clients, I put myself out there. I was posting ads on craigslist, instagram, and other social media platforms. I started putting out more videos on my makeup profiles and they were getting more attention. I eventually got clients mostly for events like prom and photoshoots.
I ended up moving out of NJ and lived in Philadelphia for a short time, then colorado and now Austin, Texas. Here I am hoping to expand my business from small events to big events like bridal parties. I have contracts already made and ready for normal and bridal requests!
Before our makeup application day, I like to set up a consultation to assess your skin tone, skin type, and any special exceptions we have to make for a flawless application. We will determine what color foundation we will use, the types of primers/powders needed to accommodate your skins needs and generally speak about what your vision is.
My goal is to accentuate your natural features and make you feel beautiful in your own skin, whether that means full glittery glam or a natural makeup.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Like I’ve stated previously, Makeup has been a big part of my life since I was an early teenager. Growing up always with this thought in the back of my mind that I want to make this into something bigger. I have always struggled with completing things. I always start a project and struggle with the thought of finishing it; overwhelmed by it.
When it comes to starting a business from the ground up, you just cannot have this mindset. You have to plan out every detail of how your business is going to run and what it takes to get to the next step in your journey. Truthfully, I’ve given up many times just from thinking about the hardships I would have to go through to get my business up and running. Of course, every time that would happen I would feel discouraged and ashamed of myself for not being a stronger person.
One day I woke up and decided that this time would be different. I know that sounds cliché, but its the truth. I started putting myself out there again and forcing myself to do the work. Unlearning what was so ingrained in me was extremely difficult and sometimes hard on my mental health. Although it was difficult, the payoff is amazing! The feeling of actually getting things done and being able to cross it off the digital -or real paper- list is unmatched.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Building an audience on social media for me was somewhat easy in the beginning. As someone doing makeup while still in highschool, getting people I knew from school to follow me on my journey was quite easy. After graduating, finding clientele on my own proved to be quite difficult. I would put out pictures and videos and ask people to share them but still didn’t pick up traction.
It was not until I started paying for ads on social media platforms and websites that I started gaining more clientele and getting more traffic to my social media pages. Putting ads out on platforms like Instagram and Craigslist seemed to work the best. I had clients reaching out within the first week of posting the ads.
My advice for up and coming entrepreneurs would be to spend money on those ads, it is definitely worth it. They are relatively cheap and gain you traffic and exposure without you even doing anything!
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