Meet Jacqueline Mgido

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacqueline Mgido.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jacqueline. So, let’s start at the beginning, and we can move on from there.
I am the first black African makeup artist in the local 706 makeup union, In Hollywood and still the only one. I started a makeup brand nine years ago that catered to all women that we’re having a hard time color matching their skin.

Zimbabwe was the perfect country to start, I knew I was going to get the support that was going to enable my brand to excel. This brand was a climate influenced brand. I needed the product to adjust to hot climates, and it was perfect. The Zimbabweans understood the importance of the brand itself, so the pressure of having the gimmick packaging was not there.

The first two years, I started with branding but quickly realized that the factories were not interested in a brand that catered to the vision I had so seven years ago we found a chemist that believed and saw my vision. The vision was to educate and custom make a brand that had multiple purposes, climatically influenced and economically friendly.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth ride. Finance is the number one problem. Without money, you cannot perfect the product. Custom making anything involves a lot of experiments and with experiments comes a lot of unpredictable moments — product adjustability, container comparability, time all these things.

Another thing was when we first started we were named Vault cosmetics due to another company that had the same name this cost the company into rebranding because we could not afford to fight for the name.

Three years ago, we rebranded to Jacque Mgido, and that was a cost we had not anticipated because we were confident that we were going to keep the name. With the rebranding, this comes with loads of expenses like packaging, marketing, website changes, etc. The other struggle was to market in Africa, Europe, USA.

I am an African woman trying to cater to all Shades ages with no discrimination. Africa had become a specialty because the big brands were not catering to darker skin and my social media is full of darker skin women, and I am trying to show universal unity which makes it difficult because I want everyone to know I am representing every woman.

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
We are an educational makeup institute that helps women or men understand why they are wearing makeup. Each product is designed with purpose. Our Everything foundation is everything. It has the ability to expand by just using a drop, and the expansion comes with using moisturizer or primer.

The pigment allows it to still give you coverage even if it dilutes to a liquid form. Our eyebrow pen lasts for 24hrs this was created for a woman like myself that has no eyebrows and was always paranoid of only having one eyebrow at the end of the day or leaving my eyebrows on someone’s shoulder. It has a needle-like point that allows the brow enthusiast to have that precision in the brow.

I am mostly proud of the fact that each product can be used for multiple purposes. This helps clients save and most importantly it is for the everyday woman. I am proud of our education. This has converted clients into makeup artists. In Africa, we have created jobs and empowered loads of women by injecting more confidence and inspired young girls.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Kindness and being humble. To know that I am an ordinary person that took a chance and most importantly understood what luck meant to be. Preparation meets opportunity.

Pricing:

• Brow pen $12
• Foundation starts at $20
• Highly pigmented eyeshadow $20
• Highly pigmented Lip-stain 9grams $18
• Loose powders $20
• Liquid liners $11

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jacquemgido.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: Jacquemgido
• Facebook: Jacquemgido
• Twitter: Jacquemgido

Image Credit:
Jackie Mgido

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.