Naila King-Tay­lor is a self-pro­claimed make­up junkie who holds a Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in Man­age­ment Stud­ies from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies St Au­gus­tine and an In­ter­na­tion­al Mas­ter’s de­gree in Strate­gic Mar­ket­ing from Arthur Lok Jack GSB. Naila has man­aged to bal­ance her ca­reer as a brand man­ag­er in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals di­vi­sion while still be­ing a pro­fes­sion­al make­up artist.

Her love for make­up has been a life­time af­fair but a jour­ney that she re­al­ly start­ed pro­fes­sion­al­ly in 2017. “Make­up is both an art and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to tell a sto­ry,” says Naila since each face is unique and every woman that comes through her doors is look­ing for her in­di­vid­ual way to ex­press her beau­ty. The make­up junkie con­fess­es that the re­la­tion­ships forged with new and loy­al clien­tele is one of the best parts of the job and get­ting the chance to share her craft with oth­ers makes it worth­while.

With an un­ques­tion­able pas­sion to de­vel­op her brand Live­Cre­ateGlam Artistry in­to a house­hold name and ex­tend in­to mul­ti­ple make­up stu­dios across the coun­try, Naila is work­ing to­wards build­ing a team of tal­ent­ed and pas­sion­ate make­up artists who will work to­geth­er to pro­vide ser­vices to clients from all walks of life. Naila shared some more about her­self and her jour­ney as a make­up artist in an in­ter­view with the WE Mag team and we are hap­py to share her sto­ry with you:

What is one thing that your clients can re­al­ly count on you for and what are you best known for in your pro­fes­sion?

I tru­ly be­lieve my clients de­pend on me to bring out the best ver­sion of them­selves. We’re all queens in our own light and I’m def­i­nite­ly grate­ful to be able to help that ra­di­ance shine through. My cus­tomer ser­vice is an­oth­er in­te­gral part of my busi­ness and that ex­tends from the first point of con­tact when book­ing ap­point­ments to get­ting glammed up at my stu­dio and the ad­di­tion­al af­ter-ser­vice of rec­om­mend­ing qual­i­ty and af­ford­able prod­ucts for their every­day make­up.

Who or what are you in­spired by?

I’m in­spired by my clients (as cliché as it sounds). In my pro­fes­sion, I’m of­fered the op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet women from all back­grounds. We share ac­com­plish­ments and strug­gles as I work on en­hanc­ing their beau­ty. They push me to be a bet­ter ver­sion of my­self dai­ly, in my per­son­al life and in ex­e­cut­ing my make­up tech­niques. I be­lieve we nev­er tru­ly stop learn­ing and each woman has her tes­ta­ment and method of pro­gress­ing to share with oth­ers.

Tell us about three best achieve­ment/mile­stones in your life or pro­fes­sion.

First­ly, my biggest ac­com­plish­ment would def­i­nite­ly be over­com­ing fears that were bla­tant­ly neg­li­gi­ble. In sim­ple terms, I got out of my own way. I start­ed my make­up busi­ness while I was pur­su­ing my Mas­ter’s at Arthur Lok Jack GSB and I can hon­est­ly say there was so much ap­pre­hen­sion about whether or not I’d be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly or if I’d be able to af­ford prod­ucts for my kit et cetera. I took the leap with the sup­port of loved ones, put my best foot for­ward and two and a half years lat­er, I have no re­grets since I get to cre­ate mag­ic with these make­up brush­es.

Fin­ish­ing my Mas­ter’s de­gree would be a close sec­ond.

An­oth­er huge ac­com­plish­ment I’d say I trea­sure in my oth­er ca­reer choice would be suc­cess­ful­ly land­ing my dream job this year at a com­pa­ny I hold in high re­gard for their core val­ues and ex­cel­lent treat­ment of staff.

What’s a 2019 beau­ty trend you ab­solute­ly love and why?

I love the fact that we’re now heav­i­ly fo­cused on skin­care and more open to the im­por­tance of en­sur­ing the ac­tu­al can­vas is ready and pre­pared to be en­hanced by make­up. I feel like in the past, women may have been more fo­cused on cov­er­ing up their prob­lem­at­ic ar­eas with make­up and were not able to tru­ly val­ue their beau­ti­ful fea­tures (for what they are). Now, with prop­er skin­care and treat­ments, a lot of women are more com­fort­able in their own skin.

What is the biggest chal­lenge you face as a make­up artist?

This is not just my biggest chal­lenge but I think this is one all of us face - not los­ing sight of my own ideals in a con­stant­ly evolv­ing in­dus­try with beau­ty trends lit­er­al­ly chang­ing every few days. It was im­por­tant for me to be con­fi­dent in my skill set as a make­up artist and con­tin­ue to build and im­prove at my own pace. You get a lot of re­quests from clients, es­pe­cial­ly when you’re new and up­com­ing. Some are in­tim­i­dat­ing and may make you ques­tion your work. How­ev­er re­it­er­at­ing to my­self that God will nev­er give me any­thing I can’t bear, al­lows me to build my em­pire.

What are four make­up tips that you can give to us?

Tip 1. Fo­cus on skin­care be­cause it is im­por­tant to hav­ing a flaw­less face. A ba­sic skin­care rou­tine of cleans­ing, ton­ing and mois­tur­is­ing is es­sen­tial. Ex­fo­li­at­ing at least once week­ly and al­so mask­ing one to two times a week based on your skin type, ef­fec­tive­ly as­sists in prepar­ing your face for a flaw­less make­up look.

Tip 2. For my oily girls, set­ting your primer with some translu­cent pow­der be­fore ap­ply­ing foun­da­tion helps fur­ther keep the oils at bay. A good primer for oily girls would be Revlon Pho­tore­ady Primer (drug­store) or Bec­ca Ever Mat­te Primer (high end), while a good translu­cent pow­der to set your primer would be May­belline Shine Free Loose Pow­der (translu­cent).

Tip 3. Con­tour­ing isn’t es­sen­tial for every face shape, es­pe­cial­ly in the case of women with stronger fea­tures and al­ready es­tab­lished cheek­bones. A soft bronz­ing with a pressed pow­der, one shade dark­er than your reg­u­lar shade, and some blush helps to bring back the warmth to your skin af­ter foun­da­tion and high­light­ing.

Tip 4. Mat­te lips can some­times be dry and un­com­fort­able. By ap­ply­ing a lit­tle vase­line over mat­te lips, you will al­le­vi­ate this is­sue and the lip­stick will still dry down to a mat­te look.

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