Daily Inspiration: Meet Chelsea Carreira of CCBeautymark

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chelsea Carreira of CCBeautymark

Hi Chelsea, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I am Chelsea Carreira (CC), the proud owner of CCBeautymark Aesthetics or just CCBeautymark for short! I have been in the beauty industry for over 12 years now! I have a beauty studio located in San Luis Obispo County, but I travel far and wide for some pretty cool opportunities in the beauty industry!

Recently I just worked on a film down in Hollywood & currently gearing up for the bridal season!

I provide makeup services as well as facials and other beauty treatments.

Here is my story on how I got to where I am today!

To start, I was raised in a beauty salon. So beauty was already in my blood! My grandmother was a hairdresser and owned her own shop for 40+ years. My mother was a nail tech at my grandma’s shop. I was always brought to work with my mom and though as a child I found those times to be fairly boring, because I was just “at my mom’s work” and did not have all my personal things at my disposal, I still would go home and play beauty salon. There are photos of me blow-drying my dad’s hair at a very young age (not well I’d like to add! lol) I also would sneak into my mom’s makeup vanity and apply her lipstick… One time smearing RED lipstick all over my face in the time she counted down for me to put it away and get out of her stuff… 1…I took the cap of, 2…. I screwed the lipstick up, preparing for application, 3…I applied it really really fast and slapped the cap back on, put the lipstick down and ran to my mom to hug her (was a big believer in asking for forgiveness and not permission LOL!) and when I hugged her, I rubbed my newly applied red lipstick all over her white pants… yes, we were getting ready to go out somewhere. Other times, my grandfather would let me brush his hair and spray it with three thousand gallons of water (as I seen my grandma spraying the hair before she would do certain things).

My grandfather, with his dripping wet hair, endured my pounding of the brush against his skull as I performed his beauty services. He also let me apply “fake nails” on him which were always 1 of two things, play dough in the shape of nails or sunflower seeds TAPED around his fingers! LOL!!! He also provided the same beauty service back to me. Please keep in mind my grandfather was a baseball playin’, tire shop-owning mans, man… He just loved his girls! My mom and grandma would always go all out for Halloween for us kids as well. My makeup was always done and my costumes were handmade by my grandma. I think it’s possible that’s where my love for Halloween stems from. I remember always being so excited to get all dressed up and have my makeup and hair done up to become some character or princess or spooky witch! I was READY! I still am forever ready for Halloween. My mom and grandma always loved makeup as well. I remember always checking out my grandma’s false eyelashes. She helped me acquire my first false eyelash collection as a teenager. And I would casually stop in my moms room while she did her makeup and hope that I’d get some of the goods she was forever donating makeup to me from her own vanity. It was like shopping…. at moms (I still do this now with various other home items I may need LOL!)

From a young age, I always liked makeup. When I was growing up, I remember having a billion lip glosses, lip balms, cheap little kid makeup palettes and I loved to play dress up. When I was going into 7th grade, I finally got my chance to wear real makeup. My mom started me light. A lightweight face powder, a blush, a skin tone shimmer eyeshadow and some mascara. By mid-7th grade, I begged my mom for BLACK eyeliner! ALLLLL the girls were wearing it in a raccoon-inspired way and I wanted to as well! By the end of 7th grade, she allowed me to have an eyeliner, but it was not black. It was brown. It shut me up briefly from harassing her as I learned to apply it “properly”. By the beginning of 8th-grade year, I was ready for that black eyeliner though. So off I go again to bother my mom with my pitiful begging. I continued and never let up… Finally, mid 8th-grade year, she gave me a new eyeliner color. If you think it was black, you are wrong. It was GRAY!!! Ya… gray. Again, it shuts me up momentarily, and I didn’t really question the gray thing, but today, I often wonder where she even found gray eyeliner. By end of 8th grade, she finally handed me the holy grail I had been so desperately desiring. The old-school pencil eyeliners that you used to have to heat up with a lighter! IN BLACK! And let me tell ya, I wore my eyeliner EVERY. SINGLE. DAY!

High school was a trying time for me. Though I enjoyed beauty, fashion and makeup, I never really saw it as a passion or a career. I wanted to go into dance back then. Become a choreographer. My entire life was centered around dancing (still love it to this day!) I was a cheerleader and on the dance team, even dance team captain, my senior year. But I was bullied pretty badly. Now, I was always a little bit of the outcast growing up, even in elementary school and middle school… but high school took on an entirely new form in the bullying department. Kids were mean. Though they were mean about EVERYTHING from head to toe, personality and beyond about me, they were all mostly focused on my looks. Letting me know how ugly they felt I was seemed to be more important to them than their own grades and finding their own hobbies, I guess. I had no real friends other than a few girls, who to this day I still adore. Other than that, I had my mom who fought tooth and nail beside me. She was my rock, my hero and my best friend (still is to this day). Aside from my mom, I started to find comfort in learning new ways to play with my makeup. I would sit for hours at a time, trying new looks and looking into new products. Youtube was very new, so there were not the tutorials there are now! However, I managed to find two people who did makeup that I started trying to emulate. From there, I realized I felt so much better about myself after I put on all these new looks. I started to sadly, resort to makeup as a mask and I used it as my war paint when I walked into school. So whenever someone called me ugly, I could laugh and tell myself they had no real idea what I looked like beneath my armor! It doesn’t make logical sense now, but back then, when I was sad and had such low self-esteem, it made perfect sense.

From then on, I started to dabble deeper and deeper into makeup. Venturing into fun colors, SFX and more. I started doing a few people’s makeup for fun, for tryouts and school events at my new school (yes I left my original school and had a much better time at my new one!) Right out of HS, I booked my first paying client. From there I worked freelance and unpaid to get more experience and build my portfolio. One day I booked my first bridal party! From there, things just started to fall into place! I went to beauty school and acquired my esthetician’s license and opened my own shop where I now offer makeup for all occasions and events, as well as makeup for TV, film, photoshoots, etc. and ALSO facials, waxing and so much more! I have continued my education and have many certifications. I plan to continue to learn more and add more services to my service menu! I also run a bridal beauty company under the same business name and have a few people working under my as my teammates!

Despite my hardships growing up, I wouldn’t change how I was treated. It made me who I am and helped me to discover my passion. Had I never been bullied so badly, I would have never realized how much I really loved makeup! I wouldn’t have realized how important it was to me to help other people feel confident and beautiful in their own skin. Sometimes all you need to feel like a badass is a little lipstick!

Alright, 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?
I wouldn’t say it was smooth or jagged. I worked slowly but consistently. I worked other jobs while I built my business up. I also had many years of downtime, wondering if I would ever make it past having a few clients a month wanting makeup. Wondering if I was actually good enough to continue to pursue this career! I struggled often with imposter syndrome. Sometimes it still feels so surreal to me that I am making a living doing what I love! I had jobs I hated waking up for, but I never fe that resentment and sick feeling when I get up for work now! Anytime you are a business owner, you have really good times and then not so good times with traffic. Especially in the beauty industry… it could be feast or famine. There are slow times/seasons where you have to be more creative to keep foot traffic walking through your door… and there are other times where you have no free time and all you’re doing is working! I am grateful for all of it because even when things are slow, I remind myself that even that is a gift because I am doing what I really want to be doing and it just comes with the territory. If it wasn’t for the hard times, we wouldn’t become who we are meant to be!

No matter the obstacles I face, I never take my career or the amazing opportunities I have been given for granted! (my resume can be found on my website! https://www.ccbeautymark.com/resume if you’d like to read about some of my awesome work history!) On top of my previous work history, So many new and awesome things are in the works for CCBeautymark! Please follow me on social media to stay in the know! Search CCBeautymark (all one word) on all social media platforms!!!

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a licensed esthetician and makeup artist. I specialize in ALL makeup, from natural beauty to high glam and all the way to SFX/gore/horror/fantasy/etc. I offer facials and skincare treatments as well as other beauty services. I am most proud of how far I have come and how no matter how hard things got, I never gave up on myself or my dreams.

I truly believe that what sets me apart from so many others is that I genuinely CARE about people. My main goal is for each person, after they walk out of my shop, is to feel better than they felt when they first arrived. Building people’s confidence and helping to boost their self-esteem is important to me. I get to talk deeply with clients and hear about things they have been through and encourage them to keep going and remind them how beautiful and strong they are. I want to INSPIRE. I want to help build a league of strong, confident people who at one point, did not think that confidence would be something they could ever possess.

Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Please do not give up on your dreams. There will always be people who do not support you or refuse to believe in you and sometimes, you may feel that those unsupportive people outnumber the supportive ones. However, the only person you need to be supportive of you and believe in you is yourself. Outside support is a wonderful and beautiful bonus but believing in yourself is the only way you will succeed. Do the things no one thinks you can do. Prove people who doubted you wrong. Use your trauma, your pain and your sadness or rage to fuel you in a positive way! Trauma can make or break someone. You can only go one of two ways, downhill and allow yourself to be conquered, or uphill where you conquer all of the things set out to destroy you. There are so many cliches that do speak volumes that you can live by: Do not become bitter, become better. What others think of you isn’t your business. What others speak of you isn’t your business. What one says about another says more of them than the person of topic. Don’t believe you’ll never achieve much because you won’t. I always tell people life is going to pass by anyway, whether you spend ten years in sorrow and lacking ambition or spend ten years slowly figuring out your path and destiny, those ten years are going to go by regardless, so make a CHOICE to stumble along the path that challenges you to eventually feel better…. even if it takes ten years (or more!). The payoff is worth it in the end. There will always be someone or something trying to throw you off course, just learn to roll with the punches!

I hope both my story and my encouragement help to light a fire in your soul to go get whatever it is you desire! You’ve got this!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.CCBeautymark.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/ccbeautymark
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/ccbeautymark
• Other: https://linktr.ee/CCBeautymark

Image Credits
Main photo, No Eyes Horror Photo: Kiss My Aperture Photography – Sara Dechance Red Dress Model Photo: Almerina Photography Action Shot Model With Blue Eye make-up: Randy Pena White Lab Coat Headshot: Motion City Films – Tim Lopez Mirror Photo – Inov8ive Photography – Ken Saunders Bridal Hairstyling: Marissa Ribeiro