After graduating from makeup school, I did the odd jobs working on shoots with celebrities. It was a fun and great experience for me. I was just amazed and couldn’t believe I was living this lifestyle with the rich and famous.

Meanwhile, I had started to date someone in LA who ended up moving to La Jolla. La Jolla was a beautiful and quaint town. It was like paradise to me. I did the back and forward thing. Then one day decided I wanted to live in La Jolla. So I ended up leaving LA and moved to La Jolla. Life wasn’t much better, I still didn’t have a car and I was still poor and broke with no money. I took the bus to work and worked my ass off to save enough money to buy a car. The only saving grace living with my boyfriend is I didn’t have to pay for rent or food. So that helped me.

I would hussle calling every producer, director, photographer or like I said in the beginning, anyone that would hire or need a makeup artist. Mind you this was in the mid ’80s. No cell phones, no internet, or social media, nothing. I felt like a walking salesman going from door to door trying to sell myself. I would send letters, call back every week, drop by every week. Haha, I know it sounds crazy that I had to do that back in the days. The crazy thing is there were only a small handful of makeup artists back then, now there are thousands and thousands of makeup artists and unfortunately not that much work anymore.

Persistence paid off. I eventually got my foot in the door and from the first job I did in San Diego, I would meet other people and get referrals from them and then get other jobs because of that and so on and so on. Eventually, I made a name for myself. I knew I made when people were talking about me and say they’ve heard of me and glad to finally meet me. That made me feel special especially coming from a new makeup artist trying to break in. They would say, all they heard was my name. In some ways it made me feel kind of famous.

I got to the point I was really busy and had to turn jobs away, then I got smart and thought why turn work away when I can build my own empire of makeup artists to work for me. So that’s what I did. I took on all the young makeup artists that wanted to break in the business but couldn’t, so I helped them. At the peak of my career, I would have many as 12 makeup artists working for me. From that, I bought my first panoramic ocean view house in La Jolla. I was doing so well that I ended up buying and flipping homes in La Jolla, all panoramic ocean views. I’m currently living in my 5th home and in the process of getting ready to buy the 6th one. Not bad for being a freelance makeup artist.

Doris Lew

Expert makeup and hair styling for film, TV, Video, photography and special events—flawless looks, every time