DEEPICA MUTYALA
On How a Viral Beauty Hack Led to a New Life And Business
“I grew up in Texas with a love for make-up and skincare, and a lack of role models in mainstream media who looked like me. I began my career in the business of beauty, and launched a YouTube channel hoping to reach out to other women like me, who wanted to learn what products work for skin tones that fell outside the ‘standard’ we saw in magazines and commercials. The second video I made for my channel—where I shared how I colour-correct my under-eye circles with red lipstick—went viral. I learnt about this beauty hack on a shoot, where the make-up artist used a colour corrector on me, and I was curious about the difference between a corrector and a red lipstick. She provided a technical answer, but as someone who has always wanted to simplify the complex world of beauty, I learnt that there was no difference. This changed the way I covered up dark circles, so I went ahead and shared it. The response to that video and the feedback from my online community made me feel as though I wasn’t alone in feeling left out of the beauty narrative. Later, I quit my job to become a beauty influencer—I was featured in every major beauty brand campaign. It was a wild dream come true! But I also learnt that some ingredients used in the formulation of lipsticks could be harmful for the eye area and skin, overall. This made me want to come up with a clean solution with a high level of pigmentation that would work on a wide spectrum of skin tones, from
