After being laid off from her publishing company job at 30 years old, Danessa Myricks seized the opportunity to follow her dream of becoming a makeup artist. She had no formal training, just makeup books by Kevyn Aucoin and Sam Fine, and a $200 cosmetic kit she bought from the supermarket.
Still, Myricks started booking freelance makeup artist gigs across the country, fine-tuning her skills along the way. Thanks in large part to photographer Eric von Lockhart, she broke into magazines. Curious hairstylists she was working with asked her to create tutorials so they could figure out how to do makeup. In 2004, well before YouTube catapulted beauty vloggers, she introduced a series of instructive DVDs that caught the attention of beauty brands, including Benefit Cosmetics and Kiss, which brought her on to consult and develop beauty products.
Simultaneously, Myricks began making and selling her own products. The cosmetics landscape back then was decidedly different than it is today. “There wasn’t this much access and, as a pro artist, it was literally impossible to find diverse shades colors that work on every single skin tone,” she says. “You really had to know where to go, learn from other artists if they would share the information or you needed to be a mixologist to do beautiful work on everyone.”
Myricks set out to fill gaps in the market. “I would buy pigments and, then, match it up with something that I would purchase private label and put it together and sell, it but it wasn’t really special,” she recounts. It wasn’t really special because Myricks couldn’t devote her full energy to the products. In order to do so, she stopped lending her expertise to other brands in 2015 and focused on her own. A year later, Danessa Myricks Beauty launched.
The brand debuted with four loose powder highlighters specifically designed for deeper skin tones. “That was the first gap that I saw,” says Myricks. “Every highlighter you pick up, you put it on somebody with deeper skin, and it would look gray or it would look ashy.” She gradually added to her brand’s offerings, entering into the complexion, color and glow categories. Nearly five years later, Danessa Myricks Beauty has more than 450 stockkeeping units priced primarily from $18 to $42 and, on Friday next week, roughly 100 of them will be available on Sephora’s website.
Danessa Myricks Beauty is an authority on versatile products intended for consumers and professionals. Three of the brand’s cult-favorite items that will be sold at Sephora are foundation-concealer hybrid Vision Cream Cover, the highlighting and hydrating Dew Wet Balm, and Colorfix, bestselling long-wearing cream color. There will be an exclusive compact size of Vision Cream Cover at Sephora.
“Colorfix is the product that I always dreamed of having as a makeup artist. It does everything.”
“Colorfix is the product that I always dreamed of having as a makeup artist,” says Myricks. “It does everything, you can use it everywhere: eyes, lips, face, body paint, lashes, brows, mascara, you name it.” It was the hardest product out of all Danessa Myricks Beauty’s products to bring to life. “There are certain things you can only use on the lips and certain things you use on the eyes,” says Myricks. “It took a while to just figure out that perfect balance in texture and performance.”
Myricks wanted Sephora’s initial assortment to tell the story of her brand. She landed on the product picks with help from the retailer, which she says has long followed Danessa Myricks Beauty. “Their merchants were actually customers of the brand, so the conversation was really easy,” shares Myricks. Sephora also understood the brand’s limitations.
“Being in a store like Sephora it takes a lot financially, it can really tax a small business, but they understood what kind of support that we would need and they were really committed to our long-term success,” says Myricks. “It was nice because I felt like they really knew who we were and, for me, that’s super important because you never want to just be another product on the shelf in a corner with the hopes of somebody discovering it, you really want the commitment of the space that you’re in to support you and make sure that your presence is known, and Sephora has committed to doing that from day one.”
Myricks has had to make business pivots over the past year. “I don’t even think you can call it a pivot anymore because it became the norm,” she says. “You’re constantly changing every day.” Most notably, Myricks had to ground the masterclasses she taught worldwide that kept her on the road for 300 days in 2019. “I was literally in motion and really didn’t have the time to sit with the brand,” says Myricks. Forced to sit with the brand, she initiated Danessa Myricks University online in September last year with mini courses, how-to videos and tutorials taught by makeup artists like Katie Jane Hughes and Timothy Hung.
“We’re in 25 countries, and I really want us to be in 50 countries, and we can totally do that.”
Myricks took advantage of social media, too, conducting Instagram Live sessions and webinars and recruiting fellow beauty lovers to be part of her team of Angels or brand ambassadors. “I was able to mentor the artists that are part of the Angels program, and they actually gave so much back to me in terms of how they enjoy and experience makeup and how they see themselves in beauty,” she says.
Along with nearly 800 million users worldwide, the brand has joined TikTok, though Myricks remarks it isn’t for her. “It makes you have really fast conversations, which is cool, and it works for some people, but, for me, it’s so opposite of how I do things and how I like to connect,” she says. Myricks prefers 60-second Reels posts that allows her to show a process from beginning to end. “But I know it’s important to embrace it all,” she says. “My hit list is to master it all.”
Another goal on Myricks’ hit list is fostering brand awareness. Danessa Myricks Beauty received a boost in the summer of last year when support of Black-owned business took off. The brand garnered magazine mentions, opened a new office location and expanded its personnel. “I operated the business out of my home until very recently. It was important for me to manage debt so we could sustain our growth,” says Myricks. Her self-funded brand’s sales have increased over 100% annually and, despite the pandemic, it managed to have a strong 2020 due to the spotlight. Danessa Myricks Beauty is carried by 50-plus retailers around the globe.
“People figured out that we were here, and that’s really cool,” says Myricks. She’s quick to add a lot of the interest was performative. “It got really silent afterwards and, so, there’s still a lot of work to do, but I think we’re moving in the right direction,” says Myricks.
Quarantine gave Myricks a moment to concentrate on products. She created products she adores, including Balm Contour and Colorfix Nude Glazes. “I was able to come up with so many ideas, I was much more thoughtful with my launches and the shades and the SKU counts,” says Myricks. “It just really refined my thought process.”
Now, Myricks, who turned 50 years old last year, wants to slow things down and nurture the assortment Danessa Myricks Beauty already has as she elevates its retail presence. On top of launching at Sephora, the brand is premiering at Cult Beauty in the United Kingdom this month, and Myricks plans to extend its international reach further. She says, “We’re in 25 countries, and I really want us to be in 50 countries, and we can totally do that.”
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