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

Jasmine, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

I came up with the name “oohjazz” for my cosmetic brand “oohjazz cosmetics” from my personal Instagram which is “oohjazz” But I got the name actually from Highschool listening to bad n boujee by Migos on repeat! In the song Lil Uzi is featured in it and he goes “ooh ooh now she want fw my crew” and I loved the “ooh ooh” part and my personal instagram at the time was just “jazzzay” or something so I changed it to OOHJAZZ and when I started my brand I just added the cosmetics after It so here we are! oohjazz cosmetics! Its pronounced “Ooo” alot of people always say “oh jazz” haha.

Jasmine, 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?

Hi! my name is Jasmine I am a MUA and the owner of “oohjazz cosmetics” / @oohjazzcosmetics, an online cosmetic business in Phoenix, Arizona. I got into the beauty world when I was very young. I’ve always loved everything beauty and art. my dad is an artist and he definitely passed down the artistic gene to me and my mom is beautiful and use to model so they combined that and now theres me! My parents met in high-school in photography class and later when they had me in college all they use to do was take pictures of me and use me for art/acting projects. As I got older I got into makeup really young, I was in 1st grade actually trying to wear makeup and got in trouble by my teacher for it. Youtube started to get big and I was watching beauty creators like andreaschoice, itsmyrayeraye, sunkissalba, and dulcecandy! I was so obsessed with makeup that I would wear it in elementary basketball to my games and the other girls would make fun of me, I didn’t care tho I knew I looked cute playing and they were hating! I did end up uploading a few makeup tutorials but later deleted them I think I just did not have the courage to go through with it. In high-school I use to do my makeup and take pictures and do a lot of photoshoots. I did makeup for some of the ladies in dance and prom as well. I use to customize my own lashes because I hated the ones they sold in stores and one day my mom suggested I sell my own. I waited until I was done with high-school in 2018 and started building my business and launched in April 2019. I sold lashes and I made a buzz around Phoenix! I then branched out to more cosmetics and launched brow pomade in 10 different inclusive shades along with a double angled brow brush. I went from “oohjazz lashes” to “oohjazz cosmetics” in 2022 when I officially launched my nude buttercream gloss and cream lip liner collection along with creative directing my brands photoshoot “Nude beauty” campaign. I showcased my beautiful models and touched on confidence within yourself. I used the most perfect and diverse models that I feel fit my brand/shoot/campaign beautifully. In Arizona I feel like brands do not use black women in their photoshoots and I definitely wanted to change that. I take pride in my black and latina owned brand on being inclusive. I most definitely strive to set an example and making my mark in the beauty industry. I want everyone to come onto my site and see that there are products just for them that they will find themselves using for a lifetime! The purpose of my brand is to provide confidence within yourself. I do feel like its so easy to push the self-love movement but no one ever talks about what qualities you have to have within self love which is confidence. You need confidence in everything you do and I found myself gaining a lot of confidence through beauty which helped me form confidence in everything else that I do from speaking in front of crowds, completing tasks or jobs, knowing my ideas are solid, and being sure about myself! Betting on myself every. single. time. You know the saying? “when you look good, you feel good” it is true. I hope to inspire everyone especially girls and women that it is okay to find confidence within beauty products especially my beauty products! I now started accepting clients for my makeup artistry as well which an be found under @oohjazzbeauty.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy for growing my customers/clientele I think is definitely from doing popup shops, Tiktok content, instagram reels, and just putting myself out there more. This is something I am still trying to get down as well. I have been getting into beauty and lifestyle content creating and I have been experimenting with different kinds of marketing but nowadays for your business to gain recognition, Tiktok and instagram reels is the way to go! I also use facebook/instagram marketing ads too!

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Something I had to unlearn was thinking that I had to be nice and understanding within my business and that people are just as professional as me in business. I take my business very seriously so when I am working with others like in brand/product photoshoots, content creators, etc.. Its definitely disheartening because I find that a lot of people do not take their craft seriously. I had some troubles along the way with some photographers especially. I just find that even if you pay lots of money for their services, they will still slack on you and give you the runaround which just shows me they don’t take their business seriously so they aren’t going to take mine serious. I use to be very lenient and understanding but I am learning that you cant be a lenient business owner, this is my baby and I am putting my all in to it so I cant be the understanding one IM ON A MISSIONNN!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.oohjazz.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oohjazzcosmetics/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oohjazzcosmetics/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oohjazz-cosmetics-27323a250/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@OohJazz
• Other: MUA instagram @oohjazzbeauty