From Hair Wars to fashion designer trunk shows, the competition between industries’ greatest talent has a rich history. But, for years, makeup artists were left out of the mix. That was, until 2005 when New York introduced The Makeup Show, an international beauty and makeup show where artists Danessa Myricks, Tisha Thompson, Kim Baker, and Ashunta Sheriff-Kendricks met for the first time.
And, last weekend, in the midst of Met Gala madness, the four iconic artist-entrepreneurs were reunited at the show’s 20th anniversary. The two-day conference included incredible vendor booths from brands like Ardell, Pat McGrath Labs and Mented Cosmetics, and makeup application demos from pros like Sheika Daley and Raisa Flowers.
“We’ve all been in community with each other from the very beginning,” Myricks, makeup artist and founder of Danessa Myricks Beauty, tells ESSENCE exclusively at the Makeup Show while sitting beside Thompson, Baker, and Sheriff-Kendricks. Unlike Hair Wars, however, community replaced competition with makeup artists building a new culture for beauty shows. Now, 20 years later, they’re celebrating the anniversary and commemorating the fight they all went through years ago just to eat at the same table.
Despite growing almost twice as fast as the beauty industry, winning a number of awards, and expanding her influencer network, Myricks founded her brand by accident. “I was told I was ugly my whole life,” she says. “I was not in the beauty space, but I was outside of it just watching it, just wanting to be a part of it, but never saw myself in it.” Between studying makeup through Sam Fine and Kevyn Aucoin books, and flipping through fashion magazines, she ran into Russell Simmons, founder of One World Magazine, at a nightclub. So, she approached him.
“I told him I loved the magazine and would love to intern,” she recalls, before being passed onto a role marketing hair magazines for a publishing company. “I had to work to eat,” she says, earning commission before her boss shut down the business to pursue real estate. She was left with nothing but the memory of everyday Black women being transformed by all-Black beauty teams, and even as a single mom with two kids, “it made me believe for a second that I could be a part of it.”
Moments like this inspired her to begin mixing her own pigments at home, leading her own makeup artistry workshops classes, and creating makeup application DVDs before she launched her brand in 2015. These days, you can catch her Blurring Balm Powder line winning numerous awards, and Myricks herself doing makeup for Aurora James, Mindy Kaling, and more.
Unlike Myricks, the Glamazon Beauty Cosmetics founder, Baker, started her career via modeling—with legends like Reggie Wells doing her makeup for ESSENCE shoots. Still, an unforeseen threat to her career loomed. “I stopped modeling because I had gotten in trouble,” she says. As a single mother in an abusive relationship, “my daughter’s father got locked up and I was facing 65 years to life in prison due to guilt by association.” But, makeup artistry saved her life.
Her makeup career has led her to work with the likes of Madisin Rian and Tiffany Haddish, and launching her brand, which became the first Black-owned beauty company to launch on ShopHQ, in 2022. As of late, she’s been working on an upcoming documentary with a major cable Network, in part fostered through her connection to Sheriff-Kendricks.
Baker wasn’t alone in not only surviving adversity, but also thriving after it. Ashunta Sheriff Beauty founder Sheriff-Kendricks can relate to her transition into makeup. “An experience that almost put me in jail,” to be exact, says Sheriff-Kendricks. “My first love was convicted for raping two girls, [so] I was visiting the DC jail instead of going to college.” After her mother pulled her out of school for it, she landed a job at MAC before opening the brand’s Herald Square counter at Macy’s in 1999—but then, she was fired.
“I was coming to work with split lips and bruises on my cheek,” she says, running late between Harlem, Brooklyn and Midtown twice a day to drop off and pick-up her daughter. “When he started threatening to kill us, I moved out of the house, moved back in with my mom, and my life changed.” Her career as a makeup artist later took off when she started working for Laura Mercier. By 2003, she had Alicia Keys under her belt, kicking off the Ladies First tour and doing makeup on Missy Elliott, Beyoncé, and Tamia. “I was the person that did Ciara’s makeup the day she was signed and performed in front of La Reid. I have that same story for Keri [Hilson],” Sheriff-Kendricks says.
“In 2012, I was up and down at the same time,” she says, due to a car accident that almost took her life. “I ended up not being able to walk for nine months,” she says, losing all of her clients, before founding her brand, Ashunta Sheriff Beauty, almost 10 years later. But she continued to keep her faith, and these days finds herself still working with the likes of ESSENCE, Keri Hilson, and Denzel and Pauletta Washington.
Like Sheriff-Kendricks, LYS Beauty’s Tisha Thompson, who won an ESSENCE 2024 Beauty Award in the “Brands That Give Back” category, also got her start at MAC. But, she admits her journey hadn’t been easy, either. “I was in my twenties before I even saw a plus side Black woman [in a magazine],” such as Queen Latifah in Cover Girl ads, Thompson explains. Growing up in a military household, makeup artistry wasn’t seen as a career, even though she knew that’s what she wanted to do. At her father’s will, Thomson graduated with a degree in Management Finance, landed a corporate accounting job, and did makeup on the side.
Although she became a master at scaling other people’s businesses, “I just always kind of felt empty,” she says. Then, in 2019, her father unexpectedly passed away. “He left me a little bit of money, not a lot, but enough to start [a business],” she says. Around that time, Thompson was brave enough to quit her job, which ended up offering to invest in her brand. But, just as they began the process, the pandemic hit and she lost their backing.
“It was kind of devastating,” she says. “[So] I just kind of let it sit on the shelf for a couple months.” After George Floyd’s murder and the rise of Black Lives Matter, a new [and eventually, performative] wave of support for Black businesses was the break Thompson needed to start up LYS Beauty. “I kind of drunk texted Sephora,” she jokes, not expecting a response to her long-winded brand pitch. But, “10 days later I got a phone call [back].” And she’s continued to make history since then—recently gaining Series A Funding for LYS.
With the beauty industry oversaturated with products, celebrity brands, and the latest trends, competition is often deemed necessary to stay afloat. But, for the past 20 years, however, these industry-leading makeup artists have proven this wrong. “Me and Danessa used to work in the same studio,” says Baker, for example. “I always admired her back then, and still do,” she continues. They’re setting a positive example for future generations, and staying bonded by their experiences, and communities, like the one that The Makeup Show has continued to provide.
“Makeup artists are truly the heartbeat of the industry,” says Thompson. “It’s just about being around other women that completely understand my journey and share my passion for beauty and makeup,” adds Baker. As they recall their individual and shared history on the show’s 20th anniversary, what’s to come is just as important as what has been overcome.
“The Makeup Show has been an open space for us when others weren’t,” says Sheriff-Kendricks. “It means a lot to be put on stages and to be celebrated for our work,” she continues. “I don’t think the makeup show will be a community that we will ever abandon or walk away from because of what it means to us. It brought us all together,” adds Sheriff-Kendricks. “We’re going to do this for another 20 years.”