Ashunta Sheriff Redefines Ageless Beauty and Solo Work (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: You have a beauty company and you were a celebrity makeup artist for how many years?

[00:00:04] Speaker 2: 31 years now.

[00:00:07] Speaker 1: And you are a solopreneur. Have you always been a solopreneur?

[00:00:10] Speaker 2: To some level, I think as a makeup artist, you are a solopreneur, definitely. You're a one-woman show. You show up with your makeup kit to your various clients' hotels or their homes. Not many really want you to have assistance because they don't want additional people knowing where they live or their homes. So yeah, I've been a solopreneur, so to speak, for a while, but I'm a real solopreneur now.

[00:00:35] Speaker 1: And what's a real solopreneur to you?

[00:00:37] Speaker 2: A real solopreneur now is I have an actual corporation, I'm running a business, you know, I'm hiring. It's a whole different type of thing, whereas with being a makeup artist kind of solopreneur, you're like a one-woman show. You may have an agent, you may not, you know, it's not necessary.

[00:00:53] Speaker 1: What to you is the difference between a solopreneur or like the word founder, entrepreneur, all these words that we're much more familiar with?

[00:00:58] Speaker 2: A solopreneur is someone is really, they're wearing all the hats. And I know a founder would say, hey, I'm wearing all the hats too, but that's not necessarily always true. There are some founders who have a partner or they may have a team. But when you're a true solopreneur, you are wearing pretty much all the hats in your business. You're working almost solo all the time. And so for me, having a beauty brand, people, I think, find that to be very interesting because beauty is such a global thing. Like, why would I be alone doing it? But I am.

[00:01:32] Speaker 1: There you are. And do you feel lonely doing it alone?

[00:01:36] Speaker 2: I was really lonely, to be honest with you, Naima. I was really lonely until I had my graduation at Tory Burch Fellows this past early June and got to meet, you know, almost 300 fellows who are founders like me and many solopreneurs in that group. And so I got to see I'm not alone. You know, I'm not by myself. I'm not, you know, wrestling these things like, oh my gosh, it's only me. And why is this only happening to me? And after I sat and listened to so many women speak, I'm like, oh my gosh, I needed this because I really saw myself in them. I immediately identified.

[00:02:11] Speaker 1: Yeah. And did you feel a similar way about being selected for the Zoom Solopreneur 50?

[00:02:17] Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, Zoom is and this is not like a shameless plug, but like Zoom has been like a major win for me in the pandemic when work stopped for me as a celebrity makeup artist because, you know, we couldn't work. Everybody was, you know, kind of quarantined. I started doing Zoom makeovers for people and that caught on to Good Morning America. And they brought me on via Zoom and did a whole lesson on how do I get ready for Zoom meetings, you know, to the world. And so that started all the way back in 2021. And when I was selected, you know, all I could think about is that Zoom has really helped me grow my business, you know, outside of my skill set of being a makeup artist.

[00:03:02] Speaker 1: You've worked on a lot of celebrities and you've also worked with a lot of people over Zoom. You were famous for having given these Zoom makeup tutorials starting in the pandemic. And I wondered if you could maybe give me one today.

[00:03:13] Speaker 2: I totally could. Absolutely.

[00:03:15] Speaker 1: Really? Over Zoom? Do I need, like, what do I need? I mean, what I don't think we can do the whole face, Ashunta. I don't think we have time for the whole face. But what I would like is, I feel blush is really having a moment.

[00:03:28] Speaker 2: It's funny you would say blush because I have my award-winning blush right here. It's called Thermal Blush.

[00:03:32] Speaker 1: Okay.

[00:03:33] Speaker 2: And it's a color-changing, pH-adjusting blush oil serum. We're the first on the market to have a blush oil serum. And the way this works, you know, like if you were to say, I would say on Zoom, like, for example, we may not have the time to do, like, a full makeover. But, like, what could be, like, two tips, you know, that I can give someone on Zoom who's, like, already made up? One would be, you know, powder yourself.

[00:03:56] Speaker 1: You think I'm already made up? I woke up like this, Ashunta.

[00:03:59] Speaker 2: You're beautiful. What did you say? No, you're stunning. But, like, you know, if you wanted to enhance your blush a little bit, you could. And so the way this works, I have a lot of blush on.

[00:04:10] Speaker 1: See, if we weren't on Zoom, I would be like, pass it to me, but I can't get it.

[00:04:13] Speaker 2: Exactly. And then, you know, you see how it changes right on my face because it goes off your body's pH. And it's a serum and you just pat it into the skin and boom, like gorgeous cheeks that are glowing and radiant.

[00:04:25] Speaker 1: Ashunta, one of the things you talk about in your beauty brand, in this beauty brand that you've made, you talk about ageless makeup, ageless beauty. What is that? What does that mean to be ageless?

[00:04:37] Speaker 2: Ageless beauty is a coin that I didn't, you know, create. I heard it somewhere before, and I was like, hmm, that's a good term for us. Women 40 plus are ageless beauties. Women are aging backwards. Women are looking younger than ever. I'm in my 50s. No one believes it.

[00:04:56] Speaker 1: Girl.

[00:04:57] Speaker 2: Yeah. I have eight kids. No one believes it. Eight? No. Yeah, I have eight kids. I have a blended family. I had some myself and some I didn't, but they're all my kids because I raised, yeah. So, so for me, yeah, I think ageless beauty is a, is a specific group of people who are 40 plus and they are so overlooked because women 40 plus are marketed to, to only use anti-aging products.

[00:05:23] Speaker 1: So you're just, you're just saying like, wear this blush.

[00:05:27] Speaker 2: Yeah. That, well, we're not even told to wear the blush. Not even that. If you look at the recent years, the last four years.

[00:05:35] Speaker 1: Oh, it's all around skincare, not around cosmetics. It's all around. That's what I'm saying.

[00:05:38] Speaker 2: Everything is anti-aging. Everything is anti-aging. Nothing is color cosmetic focused.

[00:05:42] Speaker 1: But can blush be anti-aging? You just gave me some youthful blush.

[00:05:45] Speaker 2: Well, thermal, thermal blush is. It's actually a serum, has hyaluronic acid, squalene, neem seed, a bunch of botanical ingredients. So it's actually a certified serum. That's a blush, but yes, makeup can be skincare oriented, serum oriented. It can, you can have all of those things in your products. I just feel that this particular age group. Who's looking, look at JLo, JLo's mid fifties. You know, look, look at so many, look at Tracy Ellis Ross, you know, look at, look at Regina Hall. You know, we can keep looking at people. People look good. They're, they don't look, Cheryl Lee Ralph, she's 70 plus.

[00:06:21] Speaker 1: I have this theory that like in the next 30 years, like what's going to be really beautiful is a face that hasn't been touched.

[00:06:27] Speaker 2: It all depends on your genetics. And I do think there is some beauty to a character being left to your face. I do believe that.

[00:06:34] Speaker 1: I interview people for a living and I, you know, I made documentaries. I have a show, I'm constantly interviewing people and I love faces that are expressive and I love older faces, faces that have lived and they have that kind of science of life all over their face. I think that's the most beautiful thing, actually. You know, you see someone smile and their eyes really crinkle and you see like the thing that they're smiling about in their face.

[00:06:54] Speaker 2: I love imperfection in the face. That's what I love. I think that the striving to have perfection is overrated. I think of Mary J Blige when I worked with Mary, Mary has a scar on the side of her cheek. And if you look at any of her album packaging, she's never hit it. You know, she always shows it and she talks about it coming from when she was a child. But it's the most beautiful warrior scar ever.

[00:07:21] Speaker 1: Who can actually wear red lipstick?

[00:07:24] Speaker 2: Everyone can. Really? Yes. There's a red color for everyone.

[00:07:29] Speaker 1: Next time we do a Zoom, I'm going to bring like 18, like I brought three brushes and 18 red lipsticks.

[00:07:34] Speaker 2: No, I'm going to bring all my reds from my brand because I already know which red you need a cool red and it's called classic and that's the red from my brand. A cool tone red. Yeah. You don't need an orange red because you already have olive skin tone. So you want to have a cool tone, which is the blue undertone.

[00:07:50] Speaker 1: It's amazing what you can do over Zoom. That's amazing.

[00:07:53] Speaker 2: This is why I was a Zoom educator.

[00:07:56] Speaker 1: I love it. Thank you so much, Ashinta. It was so nice to meet you and thank you for spending some time with me. By the way, every time I meet somebody in Zoom and I haven't met them in real life, I love to know how tall they are. I love to guess how tall they are.

[00:08:06] Speaker 2: Guess how tall I am.

[00:08:09] Speaker 1: You give me tall energy. I'm gonna give you five, eight.

[00:08:14] Speaker 2: Five, one. I'm a mini me.

[00:08:18] Speaker 1: You want to guess my height?

[00:08:20] Speaker 2: You look like you're five, three.

[00:08:22] Speaker 1: What? I'm five, six. I'm so sad. I got to quit. Gotta go do some calf extensions at the gym or something. You're five, three.

[00:08:32] Speaker 2: Five, six. I would have never thought that.

[00:08:34] Speaker 1: I'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much. Take care.

[00:08:37] Speaker 2: Great talking to you.