Her Story
About Tina
I've been passionate about cosmetics since I was a preteen, but I became a serious professional makeup artist about 10 years ago. My husband and I co-founded Fable Cosmetics, a small indie makeup brand where we both have different roles. I handle everything product-related including product development, product testing, and social media, while he manages the website and all the technical aspects. No day is the same for me - it really depends on what we're focused on, whether that's filling customer orders, launching new products, or providing customer assistance. I love talking to customers and getting their feedback because it's so important to me. We graduated from an art school in Center City, Philadelphia in 1992, and that's where we met. I melded my love of cosmetics with my artwork, and creative makeup became a passion of mine, though I also love everyday makeup. I apply the same principles of art into my makeup work - my background with color theory and studying anatomy and all the things you need to be an artist helped us develop our brand. The best canvas you could have is your face and your body. After years and years of working with cosmetics as a medium, I've learned what works and what doesn't work. We've been in business for a year now, and getting our business launched and getting through that first year feels good. We have those milestones behind us, but we also feel like we're moving into an area where we have a little bit of experience and we've gotten a lot of good feedback. Our mission as a company is to create clean cosmetics for people - we're luxury, but we're not unaffordable. We wanted to create cosmetics that were within the reach of people that wanted luxury but couldn't afford the top-tier luxury brands, but also wanted to use clean, conscious cosmetics without the exorbitant price.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Tina
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think it takes a lot of fortitude. Once you find your path, I feel that I've been driven to follow through. You kind of know, at least I knew what was in my heart, what my dreams were, and once I kind of found that path, I wanted to follow through. I wanted to see it to whatever conclusion. It's important to have that drive to see things through once you discover what you're meant to do.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice for me is that you have to use your passion and let it fuel you. I think that's the most important thing - to follow your own path, be authentic, be unique. Despite the fact that there's going to be days where you don't feel that road under your feet, you have to trust it. You just have to be faithful in all things. Even that translates into everyday life. You're not feeling 100%, but if you're faithful in what you've been shown and where you belong in life, I think you will find the ground under your feet. My suggestion to anybody that's struggling or not really understanding where they're meant to be is that you have to be faithful as to what your mission is in life. We all have one, we all have a purpose. You have to trust that and look inward for where your passion is. Whatever gifts you've been given is kind of a clue to where you belong.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Certainly, know your worth, know your value. It's good to seek advice from people you trust, but also follow your heart, because you know what you're capable of, you know what you can do. I think it's important to gain wisdom from other people so you don't have to make those mistakes, but ultimately, it's going to be you that's going to do the work. So you have to rely on your wisdom as well as others.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think the opportunities are that there's so many things that are coming up, there's room for everybody as a company, as a brand, as a woman in business, or even just a person in business. What is important to do is to find where you fit and also what means something to you - your mission, how you fit in - and then find a place that is kind of like a hole in the market, wherever you feel like you could build that gap, something that you don't see out there that you could provide for people. I think that makes the most sense - to look for a place that maybe for us, it was we wanted to create clean cosmetics for people. We're luxury, but we're not unaffordable cosmetics. For us, we wanted to create cosmetics that were within the reach of people that wanted luxury but couldn't afford the top-tier luxury brands, but also wanted to use clean, conscious cosmetics without the exorbitant price. That was our purpose as far as what we were looking to do, that was kind of the hole we wanted to fill in the market.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think integrity is very, very important to me, but also making people feel confident in themselves. Our mission as a company is to not just have people feel confident in their own skin, confident in themselves, but as a company, as a brand, to feel integrity in what we do, and what we present, and who we are. Whenever we present somebody with something, people can feel confident in knowing that we have researched it, we are making our cosmetics with the utmost care and quality. But also, once you have them in your hands, that's a tool to make you feel good about what you're putting on your body and also the way you present yourself. So, not a change, but a transformation to a better you.
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