“THEM THAT’S GOT shall have/ Them that’s not shall lose/So the Bible says and it still is news,” Billie Holiday crooned many moons ago.
“Mama may have, Papa may have/ But God bless the child that’s got his own.”
Leandra Goodridge has the support of close-knit family and famous friends. Instagram followers catch vignettes of a charmed lifestyle. And while she acknowledged life behind a desk was not the one for her, Leandra is adamantly pursuing the goal of becoming a self-made woman.
Make-up artistry is her first foray into this dream. Starting almost two months ago, Leandra has begun to build a name for herself in the field.
“It was an idea of one of my best friends. She knew how much I loved makeup and how I loved doing my own face, and asked me if I could do hers. I had never done makeup on other people before . . .,” she told EASY magazine in an interview at Lucky Horseshoe in Warrens.
A fan of the over-the-top look, Leandra took to Instagram for inspiration as she sought to make her hobby into a career. This was where she found Maryland-based makeup artist Renny Vasquez and eventually undertook a two-day intensive training.
“ . . . My best friend Rihanna flew him out to New York for two days and we set up [the] class in the hotel. We started from there and it was very productive. He was impressed that I was the only student that he had that was so good right off the bat . . .”
From the sessions, the budding professional learned how to work faster and create both natural and “loud” looks. She proudly reported that because of her class, Vasquez was also able to increase his business and ended up hiring her to do make-up for a photo shoot.
“I must say I am very grateful for the way things have been working out since they have been happening. It’s not only like a job, it is also like a hobby, because I enjoy making people feel better about themselves.”
The aspiring entrepreneur has been enamoured with make-up since she was a secondary school student.
She recalled being “annoyed” with her friends’ habit of washing their faces with soap after school.
“One evening in Speightstown I went and bought my first make-up powder. People [told me] I was going to ‘mash up’ [my] skin [but] ‘I told myself I can try this’,” she said.
“At first I was dirtying up all of my clothes, but I always had a love for make-up. Some people love certain things. I always loved fashion, dressing up and make-up.”
After stints at the Barbados Community College and the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Leandra chose to improve natural talents instead of being enclosed in a classroom.
She got her first break when friend Melissa Joseph offered her the chance to be the make-up artist for a photo shoot. Leandra knows not everyone understood the lure or importance of make-up, but added there was a science to the art: “. . . You have to be able to blend your colours and make them look clean and finished. If not, you will definitely look like a mess.”
Leandra posts tips and tricks via an Instagram page which is dedicated to make-up.
“. . . I give people make-up tips about how to remove their make-up and I also post makeovers that I do . . . [ and give] ideas to inspire make-up artists. . .”
Leandra also shared her gift with lucky patrons at the recent Girlfriends Expo, held at the Barbados Concorde Experience. She worked in partnership with Make-Up Doll Cosmetics.
“They have beautiful make-up . . . . I did not do it for money or anything, I just did it for the exposure . . . It was two very tiring long days and everybody was coming to me and . . . it was very overwhelming.”
Leandra was also aware of the negative perceptions about herself and image, but asserted that what you saw was not always what you got.
“ . . . Generally, people are very judgemental. They would see that I am loud or wear a lot of make-up. I like dressing up and I take a lot of pictures, so people might misjudge me because of what they would see on Instagram or [what they hear] from people who don’t like me . . . . Even if you are doing something right, people will talk. It felt good to know that people genuinely appreciated me [at Girlfriends Expo] and how much people came to see me.
“It is easy at the end of the day to say that you don’t care what people say about you, but you live in a society with other people and you have to care about what other people think about you. So [it is good] knowing that some people like you.”
The frank woman also took that attitude towards those who would say that she “used” friendships to become upwardly mobile.
“I think that because of the position that my best friend is in, people tend to get jealous. She was my friend before she was Rihanna . . . Something about that friendship has to be right . . .,” Leandra asserted.
