By Akola Thompson

As a child, now 21-year-old Tennecia Garrett dreamt of following in her grandmother’s footsteps and working in the hospital. As the years went by however, Tennecia realized that while she still cared about helping people, she could not stand the sight of blood and as such, would not be able to care for anyone who was injured or bleeding.

Throughout most of her teenage years, Tennecia was not sure as to what exactly she wanted to do but the answer became increasingly clear after a while.

While she began dabbling in the art of makeup at the age of 16, it was not until she became 18 that Tennecia began to take it seriously.

“When I began, I had no intention of doing it as a business; I was just doing it for fun.

“Art has always been a part of me my entire life so doing makeup helped me to freely display my creative side.”

Often, Tennecia would try out makeup looks that she saw online for the fun of it and then post it on social media. Eventually, people began to ask her whether she would do their makeup but because she was very shy and felt that she was no professional to be entrusted with someone’s face, she would reply in the negative.

The first time she did makeup for someone was for a wedding.

“It was a school friend who asked me to do her sister’s makeup and I felt comfortable because I knew her and all, but I was still a little shaky because it was her big day. After that, I realized it wasn’t as bad as I thought and making the client happy was the best feeling ever; it gave me so much confidence and then I starting taking appointments.”

Before long, Tennecia had a steady stream of clients who not only loved her makeup but loved her personality as well. Tennecia makes such a mark on her clients that several of them have flown her to various destinations so that she could do their makeup. The Philippines, New York and Los Angeles are just a few of these places.

“There’s nothing better than doing what you love while making a living from it; work never feels like work,” said Tennecia, “I really enjoy being creative and having challenging looks to try; satisfying my customers is priceless and at the end I look back and think did I really just do that, with a big smile on my face.”

While she is well known for her work as merely being someone who does women’s makeup exceptionally well, Tennecia has another side to her make up skills, one that she enjoys more but does not get the opportunity to do as much as she would like.

When she first started to play around in makeup, said Tennecia, it was the special effects side of it that caught her attention, “I was not able to do much back then because the equipment and products weren’t available in Guyana, so I just focused more on the beauty aspect of it.”

While passion and talent is good, often it is not enough, as being a special effects artist in Guyana was not something she could earn sufficient money from as not many movies are done here. As such, it is only around times such as Halloween that she would be in high demand.

She says that while she hopes Guyana will start filming videos which require special effect makeup, she also hopes to someday soon work in Hollywood and have her own makeup line.

Commenting on the pitfalls new makeup artists face, Tennecia said that when she started four years ago, it was a lot easier as Guyanese weren’t that much into makeup.

“I was self-taught, so I wasn’t that good at the start but at the same time the client didn’t know any better; it was easy for me to get away while knowing my own flaws but now, pretty much everyone is into makeup and they will know what you did wrong and call you out on it.

“So for the beginners, please make sure you do a lot of research before you apply any product to a client’s face.”

Conscious of the challenges in their way, Tennecia urges young makeup artists and others to invest in their passion and to give it their all.

“Try to stand out and make people remember you. There will always be competition, someone fresh, new and different, but who likes you will stick with you.

“Just be kind to your customer because nothing goes together better than awesome work and a great personality.”