A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

I suppose I should start with a name, a story, some background information, and the like, however I'd rather start with a quote. "Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." -Confucius. Take that however you'd like, but what it reminds me of every day, is that it is our purpose in life to make the world more beautiful than we started the day with.

Onto formal introductions, for those of you that don't know me already... My name is Jessie Marie, an aspiring yet professional makeup artist in California. Over the years of being almost psychotically obsessed with makeup, makeup blogs, youtube tutorials, etc, I notice the how to's of makeup itself are what drives this niche. Where does that leave everyone who wants to make this a career? That's what I'm writing about, and you are who I'm writing this to. I'm not looking to be an inspiration, I'm not looking to be your hero or your idol, I'm looking to show you through my experiences how I've gotten where I am today, and show you how I get to the place my dreams come true. Call it crazy, call it mundane, call it whatever you'd like. I call it The Misadventures of a Makeup Artist.

I'll get into specifics later, but for now I'm going to briefly give you my background. I'm 19 years young now and I have technically been a makeup artist since I was 16. Yes, at 16 I was doing weddings and proms and homecomings. Yes, I mostly did it all for free on my best friends, but those were the stepping stones to get me where I am today. Now I have business cards and a website. Doesn't that make me feel fancy! Now, I've worked with quite a few photographers on various different events, from weddings to photoshoots. I really enjoy what I do, especially those 10 hour long shoots where my feet want to melt into the ground. I feel like I spent my time doing something I love, and making this world a more beautiful place.

I've gotten to where I am today with a lot of hard work, good luck, bad luck, perfect timing and practice. There is not right and wrong in the beauty industry, it's all about finding that place where your abilities shine. Getting to the top is the hard part. In the beginning, I would Google "how to be a professional makeup artist" and everything but the right answer would pop up. My goal with this blog is to show girls, and boys of course, how to make something you love into your dream career. Maybe it's hair, maybe it's makeup, maybe it's something else, but in the end, this blog will hopefully be something to help you along the way.

xo, jm