For Danessa Myricks, It’s About So Much More Than Just Makeup: ‘For A Lot Of People, I Represent Possibility’

Welcome to “Unsung Heroes,” my column that asks beauty brands about their respective hero products—their bestsellers, and often a product that embodies the brand’s identity—but also dives a little deeper into, as the column’s title suggests, its unsung heroes: products that may not be as out front and in the spotlight as others, but still pull their weight and deserve recognition. In this column, we’ll also delve into brand ethos, the why behind beauty brands and what’s next for the company.

To hear Danessa Myricks tell it, she considers herself an “accidental makeup artist.”

Myricks—not only a self-taught makeup artist but also the founder of her eponymous brand, Danessa Myricks Beauty —is someone that Allure calls “your makeup artist’s favorite makeup artist.” But her long and impressive career didn’t start in makeup, actually.

Myricks, a native of Queens, started her career as a sales and marketing director for a company that published hair magazines. She’d often see makeup artists come in for photoshoots and marvel at their creativity. Suddenly, the owner of the company announced it was closing, and Myricks—a single mom of two—had 30 days to figure out her next move.

It was a pivotal demarcation point in her life—one we all have: the before and the after. She decided to go for her dreams of becoming a makeup artist. She hit the books to learn all about the makeup industry. According to Allure , her former employer’s connections led her to her first gigs (which were unpaid), which turned into paid opportunities. This eventually turned into a masterclass taught by Myricks, and, in 2015, it led to the creation of her namesake brand.

“I wanted to be excited to wake up every day and be passionate about what I’m doing,” she told Allure . “Freedom was always something that was this carrot in front of me—just being free with my time, with my lifestyle.”

Ahead of starting Danessa Myricks Beauty, she worked in development for brands like KISS and Benefit Cosmetics, where she served as a director of product innovation. But, as she said, “there always seemed to be a limit as to what I could create. I was always creating for somebody else’s vision. I wanted to be able to tell my own story.”

As Myricks explained, she started by developing “one product at a time. And that’s what led us to where we are today.”

“Every moment I thought my whole world was falling apart and I was the biggest failure was the breakthrough to the next phase of my life,” Myricks said.

In addition to makeup artists using her products, the average, everyday person can, too, which is so gratifying to Myricks. The brand “is known for its extra-vibrant colors and its waterproof and long-wear abilities, which she personally tests out in dunk tests, underwater shoots, and sleeping in her makeup for days,” according to The Cut .

“My collection has to work for everyone,” she told the outlet. “I am the most obsessive tester. I test for every age group, every skin tone, to make sure it really resonates.” She also knows that “Makeup has nothing to do with makeup,” she added. “It’s all about emotions and how we show up for people and how they make people feel. It’s not about a powder, a cream or silicone. It’s about the person on the other end of it. We are here to touch the hearts and lives of people.”

Myricks once heard a quote that said, “Sometimes you have to see it in order to be it.” That, she told The Cut , is “what really drives me to get out of bed. There are more people who need to see it, experience the life they dreamed of and know that it’s possible for them.”

The journey has not been without obstacles. But, as Myricks told crwnmag , “In those moments when things are falling apart, my first thing is always, ‘How can I be of service?’ Because I know I’m here as a result of people who are cheering for me.”

“I’ve learned that my presence is important to a lot of people,” she added. “I see the value of being here and staying here. I go to an event and somebody walks up to me and tells me their story or says, ‘Hey, I bought this and I’m letting you know that I bought it because I want you to understand what you represent to me.’”

Representation matters, Myricks told Cosmopolitan U.K. “For so long, the industry tried to narrow our presence, but now Black beauty is expansive,” she said. “It’s culture, creativity, resilience and power. It’s the boldness to be seen and the softness to simply be. And it continues to evolve as we celebrate pivotal moments, like the rest of new brands that are breaking barriers.”

A major milestone for Myricks was her brand’s entry into Sephora in 2021. “I never imagined a brand like mine would be there,” she told InStyle . “What really matters to me was how well it resonated across skin tones and levels of expertise. Before Sephora, we were more pro-focused. Sephora brought us to the everyday consumer, and seeing them embrace the products changed everything.”

As Myricks told Essence , “My whole journey has been about having the audacity and the courage to just take one more step.” And she wants to show through her own life that anyone can have that courage, too. “Trust your gut and don’t underestimate your superpowers,” she told Glamour . “Women are often the underdog, even in industries built around us, and funding conversations are still largely dominated by men. Your ideas are valuable, even if no one agrees at first. History has proven that time and time again.”

Above all, she told Essence , “I want to prove to this brand that you can create a space where everybody sees themselves and can participate—all the time,” she said. “I want this brand to be a safe space for beauty. If you have experienced wanting to consume something and knowing for sure that you weren’t considered—once you feel that, you can’t unfeel it.”

I had the pleasure of chatting on Zoom with Myricks, and we spoke about everything from how important inclusion in beauty is to her, how her work is far deeper than just makeup, how critical education is to the company, her desire to build a legacy brand and how she and her team are “just having a good time just seeing how many barriers can we break,” in her words.

Rachel Burchfield:When you founded the brand, what was your why? And how have you stuck to that in the years since?

Danessa Myricks:I think one of the things for me that always comes to the top is I heard this quote one time and literally I never let it go—it said that we’re most equipped to serve the person who we once were. When I heard that, I held onto it so tight because it’s really true. And when I go back to when I think about why I started, I really think about who I was at that moment and what was that burning desire inside of me, that problem that I needed to solve. And there were actually three things for me. I think one was I know how I felt in the beauty space, how it made me feel. It didn’t feel good. I never felt like I was a part of the conversation. I doubted my own beauty, honestly, so much where it hasn’t been until recently where I really just learned to fall in love with myself and how I look, because I never saw myself presented back to me as a standard of beauty.

And then to also not see yourself as part of the conversation and products that you were really searching for to solve problems for you. And so the one thing that I was innately super close to was that feeling—and the very first thing that I wanted to conquer is just that, not wanting anybody to feel this sense of exclusion to beauty, because it devastated me. It changed me as a human. This is tons of therapy later, trying to undo the damage of just living in that space. So that was No. 1 for me. And that includes not just the conversation, but also having the products to match. If you’re really thoughtful about everyone seeing themselves, you also have to be thoughtful about wanting to solve problems for everyone and to be super intentional in the process of doing that. So that’s that No. 1 bucket for me—that idea of inclusion, but on a broad scale. Not just about a shade, but the broad beauty conversation and just how I wanted people to feel.

Secondly, when I started, I was a self-taught artist. I was a single mom of two who changed careers at 30. And at that point, there was a big disconnect in terms of you were either just a consumer of beauty or you were a professional. There was literally nothing in between, and there was actually no way to get from here to here unless you had one-on-one mentorship. There was no landscape like today. There was no YouTube, there was no Instagram, TikTok, none of those things when I started. And so it was really hard to get from here to here. One of the gaps that I saw right up front was the lack of beauty education. And that actually was the first thing that I leaned into as a brand. I sold education before I sold anything else.

Across the board, to kind of bring these two worlds close together—the consumer and the pro—haivng a customer understand the why behind all the products that they’re using and how does it really relate specifically to them and their needs. And then also bringing the pro closer to the consumer in terms of the products that they’re using and having them feel like, “I can use these products, too. We can share the same product—it can achieve both of our goals.” So that was a big white space for me, and just changing the conversation around beauty products, which is why so many of our products are multi-use, because they really aligned with my artistry and it just made sense for a value proposition for a customer.

So one, it was how we make people feel, this idea of inclusion. Two is that white space in terms of that education, and then three being bringing the products together, too. So that’s really where I was in the beginning. As we’ve grown, it got a little deeper because when I realized when you actually put those formulas in place, we were actually connecting people in a different way. And so that philosophy really turned into, as a brand, we’re connecting heart to mind through beauty. We’re bringing people together in a different way with beauty as a vessel. And that’s really the driving force for where we are today and how I create today. Everything I make–how is it bringing communities together? How are we bringing people together? How are we leveraging this conversation to allow people to see themselves differently and see other people who are different from them in a different way?

I want to make amazing things. We are always going to lead with education. We’re always having this inclusive conversation, but the bigger picture is just making sure that everyone sees themselves so that can happen. We can connect hearts and minds to beauty. That’s how I think about our brand.

RB:What would you consider your “hero” product to be?

DM:If I look at the first decade of our brand, our hero product was ColorFix , hands down. It told the story of our brand. It was the most unique product. We were selling the most units of that. It was selling globally—it really was our brand’s ethos. That product changed the way that people saw beauty, and it really leveraged the total conversation that we were having around beauty as a brand.

Today, it’d be different. Today, I would say Yummy Skin Blurring Balm Powder is our hero product. It’s such a clear, differentiated product. There’s no one-for-one product in the industry—it was a first of its kind. It was a very unique way of looking at complexion, because it does everything. It is a primer. It is a setter. It is a coverage product. It’s all of these things. I think it’s a product that we really leverage science to the utmost degree. I’ve always created from a space of innovation and a new perspective on how to look at things, but this product, it was very science-driven.

It’s like we broke ground in so many different ways—and it just keeps on taking new life because people continue to find new ways of using it. And it is our No. 1 selling SKU for the brand.

RB:What is an “unsung hero” that you’d like to spotlight?

DM:I would have to say the first one would be Vision Cream Cover —and that is actually the very first complexion product that was launched by the brand. It literally was the catalyst for how people see complexion for our brand. This particular product, the way that it was formulated was that it was a complexion concentrate. So essentially, you have this concentrated product that you can turn into anything. It’s your concealer, it’s your coverage. You add your skincare to it. It’s a tint. It’s a full coverage foundation. You can mix paints in and color into it. It’s literally, honestly, to this day, it is the most flexible complexion formula that I’ve ever experienced in my career. And it’s still my favorite.

I feel like it’s a formula that was before its time. That formula launched end of 2016, early 2017, and a product like that really wasn’t very consumer-friendly, I would say, because the idea of a formula that can do a zillion things and can work for everybody on a consumer landscape wasn’t as easy to digest. I think now the consumer landscape is very different, and they would completely understand, because there are all of the hacks that people are doing right now to their existing formulas. So that’s No. 1, all-time favorite for me.

I think the second one would be Vision Flush . ColorFix was always that universal product that you can do anything with—high pigment, high color payoff, long-wear, use it anywhere, eyes, lips, face, body, whatever you want. But I knew that was a little scary for a lot of people. So Vision Flush was the answer to that. And it was literally a beautiful flush of color. It has a wand for direct application for your eyes, cheeks, lips—and it’s literally foolproof. You cannot make a mistake with this product. And I love that product so much.

But at that time, again, it was a new POV. Now there are so many products like that—direct application onto the face, a full pigment blush, what have you. But I still to this day feel like that formula is the most approachable way to experience an all over face product using color for people who are afraid to just go crazy with color. It’s easy, it’s buildable, it’s effortless, you can’t make a mistake.

I would say the last one would be our [Infinite] Chrome Flakes . So as an artist, one of the goals is, always, you want to create your own signature. You want to be able to do these unconventional things and you learn how to mix, match, layer to get these amazing effects. And I always wanted to take all of that artistry know how and just slam it into a one-step application. And Chrome Flakes was that.

When you use glitters and things like that, you always needed a mixing medium or a glue base that you can put some glitter and sparkle on and it doesn’t fall out on your face. And so I created a one-step solution to that. The most dynamic, multichromatic, multitonal, super highly reflective, dimensional, pearly flake that you can put on. And in one step—that’s it. Bold, full-on color. You look like the best makeup artist in the world. You don’t have to do anything. It’s one-swipe magic.

And at launch, it kind of went super crazy, because literally there’s been nothing like it. And to this day, there’s still nothing like it. That formula is very unique to us. So I’m super proud that we were the first to market with an experience like that, and it still has not been duplicated, although many people have tried. It’s really special.

RB:What drives the work the brand does?

DM:I love that question. I would say it’s two things. I think the No. 1 thing would be people, the community we serve. There’s no better feeling than you getting on a plane and you’re walking down the street and somebody runs up to you and says, “Oh my God, you’ve changed my life.” I’m always shocked every time it happens. I’m always like, “Who, me?”

There’s no substitute for that. And it’s like, even on a day where I’m tired, when somebody tells you something like that, you stand straight in your purpose all over again, when you know that you’re literally affecting people’s lives. But also, I think what also moves me a great deal is the comments that are outside of even the physical makeup, it’s like what my presence in this industry at this time in the world means for so many people.

I know we’ve all heard this saying before—“Sometimes you have to see it to know that you can be it.” And for a lot of people, I represent possibility, and I can’t disappoint those people because I know for me what it means to see someone that gives me hope. I hear way more of those conversations, to be honest, about just seeing a woman, a single mom with two kids, just being able to dream about something and bring it to life and to still be in it this many years later is a really powerful statement. And then as a Black woman, we know where we sit on the totem pole in the world and how we are considered, or not considered—and how few of us we see in positions of power to create change or how few of us we see in just an industry because of the barriers that are in front of us.

I think it’s important that I’m not just here—that I’m here, I stay here, that I’m winning and doing things that are above average. I literally lose sleep about this. I really feel like there’s a statement that needs to be made with my presence in this industry, and it has to have a happy ending. There’s such a huge sense of responsibility for me to be great, to do my best possible work and to show up great and be recognized for really putting in the work and disrupting industries, building in places, going places that we haven’t gone before, making new discoveries. It’s important that I do that, not for me, but for everyone who looks like me, whether it be a woman, someone entering into this entrepreneurial space, whether it’s a person of color who has a story to tell, who has something they want to bring and their future investment may rely on my success. So I have a huge sense of responsibility in that space, too.

So I think more than anything, more than just this brand, it’s the people that I affect—not just today, but future forward, people who are coming behind me. I feel such a strong sense of responsibility. So, I mean, that’s what keeps me up at night, that there’s somebody waiting to see what I do to know that it’s possible for them.

RB:How will you keep that driver in mind going into the next year of the business?

DM:I think for me, we’re living in the future right now. This building is full of dreamers. My innovation team—we are living in the clouds. We are so far in the future just with our imagination on what beauty can look like. So we’re actively digging into 2028 right now.

One thing about us—we’re not a trend-focused brand. And for me, that’s really exciting. When I look at the landscape of where beauty is right now, it’s super crowded. I feel like with that in mind, it’s important that we’re super clear on our direction and super clear on who we are. For us, innovation sits at the top.

And so we are so deep in, so drilled down into innovation with new technologies, new approaches—you can’t help but be excited. We’re definitely not rinsing and repeating over here, so it’s really hard to get bored. And I think how we’re leaning into science is really the most exciting part of it. It’s a throughline through our brand, but we’re doubling down because, to that earlier point, we want to be here forever. We want to be a legacy brand. We want to be the cream that rises to the top. And so we know that we have to be different and we have to be super razor sharp and super clear on the direction that we’re going. So we’re honestly not looking at anyone else. Innovation for us is fast forward, it’s 10 years from now, what does the beauty space look like, and how are we showing up there? That’s how we think about things.

And so that is nothing but fun. That’s how we stay excited, just living in the future, honestly, living in the future. We’re just having a good time just seeing how many barriers can we break, what are the new frontiers and [what] no one’s considering and how can we make that magic work in the coming years?

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

This article was originally published on Forbes.com