Desiree’s passion for permanent makeup was alway there. Even while working her nine to five job, she was interested in trying something new. She gave up her corporate job to slowly start taking steps to make her dream a reality.
“I created Slayy Beauty shortly after quitting my 9 to 5 job in corporate America and dropping out of Florida International University. Though at the time it seemed like a crazy thing to do, it was the smartest decision I’ve made thus far, and although it was not always easy, it was well worth it. I started my journey with costume makeup; I was able to record a halloween segment on Univision teaching parents how to paint their kids faces. Soon after that, I worked part time at the mall inside of MAC cosmetics and began going to school to become an esthetician. Luckily, I continued to try new things and eventually I found myself doing permanent makeup. Even today, I continue to learn and invest into my business so that I can become the best version of myself and the best educator for my students,” Desiree explains.
Despite her passion, Desiree explains that resources were low and she had very few other people to rely on to teach her. Being your own boss and trying to figure out your career alone is a huge hurdle for anyone to overcome. However, Desiree made the best of it. This difficulty, despite posing huge challenges for Desiree, also made her realize that she had to invent her own path and become her own type of boss.
“When I started in this industry resources were low and mentors were practically non-existent. After taking a training, I would go home to unanswered questions and self doubt. This led me to want to be different; I knew I wanted to help other women become their own bosses, I knew I could help mentor women and create a training program that would allow them to continue to learn even after they had gone home. Today, I am able to equip our students with the best tools and resources so that they can flourish and take their businesses to the next level.
We run an in person and an online permanent makeup academy and an ecommerce shop. I travel the nation teaching my permanent makeup techniques and we also have over 3000 students worldwide registered in our online Academy as well as an ecommerce business where we sell supplies like our own tattoo machines, student training kits, pigments etc. so that our students can purchase permanent makeup supplies for their own businesses,” Desiree details.
After mastering this obstacle and fully launching her businesses, a new problem was posed to Desiree: a global pandemic. Like many of us, covid-19 was a huge change for Desiree. This was yet another concern that she had to figure out, but she was ready to solve it. Thankfully, Desiree’s online platform made the past year easy to handle.
“The biggest obstacle that my business had to face was in 2020 which was trying to figure out how to keep our business afloat and our academy running without being able to travel. I teach throughout the US and when Covid became known, I had to quickly think on my feet and figure out a way to be able to still teach my curriculum from home. See, before covid, I had dreamt of creating an online academy, but I just could not find the time to make it happen; when covid hit and I was forced to cancel all of our in person training and close down my salon. I knew that this was the perfect time to put everything I knew into an online training program! In a matter of two weeks, we recorded, edited and transferred our curriculum into an online platform and began selling our courses online and we were able to sell record numbers in just one month. We did so well that it has become one of our main focuses today. It’s crazy to think that the hardest year our business faced, quickly became our best,” Desiree states.
With these difficulties behind her, Desiree is continuing to do what she does best and growing her business to reach new heights. In addition, with the new year, she has a few other surprises to keep her company ahead of the curve.
“My next projects are to continue growing my online academy, we are focusing on growing our LATAM students. We are in the product development stages for new products that will hit our store this year and we are planning on opening up a physical location within the next 2 years. Our new location will be a permanent makeup salon, as well as a training academy & we are hoping to revolutionize how students will be able to train for permanent makeup techniques in the future! So stay tuned! I still have a lot of knowledge to share and I can’t wait to be able to give back to my students,” Desiree says.
To find out more about Desiree, you can follow her on instagram here and check out her website here.