The Future of Jen Damminger Beauty…

It goes without saying that with every chapter in life, there is a certain amount of growth an individual may experience. For me and my business, this has happened in the past couple of years.

One of the most common questions I get when I’m working with clients or meeting new people is, “so, how did you get into makeup?” And the answer is this: I didn’t really “get into” makeup. I am an artist. I was born with a stronger left brain than right; it’s in the ‘makeup’ of my genetics (see what I did there?). My background is actually severely split between science (e.g. Biology, chemistry, microbiology) and traditional art (e.g. drawing & painting). If you looked at my high school and college transcripts, you would clearly see the divide between two different worlds. However, I tried to pursue one and it resisted me. I fought and fought to become something that wasn’t meant for me.

When it was time to pick a college major to hone in on, I couldn’t do it. Ask my mother, I probably drove her crazy the most with the ever-changing focus in my studies. I couldn’t do it because I now realize that I wasn’t supposed to pick just one thing.

The majority of you know me for my beautiful makeup skills. The ones that have put me on the map, the ones I’ve been able to create such a beautiful career out of. The ones that have allowed me to support my family, make my own schedule, heal so much as a human, and my goodness… it brings tears to my eyes to think about how grateful I am for the opportunity to bring something to so many of you: beauty, confidence, and love. But it hasn’t gone amiss that I’m starting to feel the resistance again. Fighting against something that just isn’t working out.

For example, I see so many artists getting big jobs and publishing their work and making it into magazines, or on the cover of magazines. Doing makeup for celebrities and watching their little community of followers grow along with their ever-evolving career. I wouldn’t be a human being if it didn’t bother me. Am I happy for them? There is no one in this world who is more thrilled than me to see some of my peers grow their careers in such beautiful ways! However, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little upset for me, because here I am again, fighting so hard against something that just won’t seem to work out. And by fighting, I mean trying to seek opportunities that seem so readily available to others, yet not to me.

This realization has been ever-so-growing for the past couple of years. It wasn’t until the summer of 2022 that a lot of this had changed and things started to become a little clearer.

I received a call whilst outside doing a workout one evening; the call was from Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. I immediately ignored it, thinking it was a spam call. But when I looked at my phone a few minutes later, I had a voicemail from a very eager woman. Her name was Suzanne Carter, and she was the CEO of MYO Cosmetic Cases in Vancouver, British Columbia, oddly enough. She wanted to talk to me about my recent order and if it was okay to refund my money and send the product for free in return for some content on Instagram and such. This left me speechless, yet I called her back immediately and we talked for over an hour. This call eventually leads to a zoom call, leaving us both in tears because Suzanne just thought I was such an inspiration and amazing at what I do, and I mean, come on… how do you not cry happy tears from that?!

After those original few calls, Suzanne asked me to be a part of the MYO team and help create content for her (mostly reels for Instagram & TikTok) and to also be that person she can call and brainstorm with when she has new ideas for products and such.

Fast forward nine months and I’ve officially been a team member with MYO for almost a year. These last nine months got me thinking about so much of my creative journey. I can paint, I can draw, I can do makeup, and with my digital creations for just MYO alone, I racked up just under 500k views in not even a year (and have really enjoyed doing it), this isn’t the end of the road for me.

In addition to a lot of this information that I’ve come to realize over the past year or so, I now know why I could never pick an area of study in college: I can’t be put in a box. I don’t like it. It makes my creative soul extremely claustrophobic and that’s when things start to become resistant. Being a makeup artist is great, but I don’t only want to do makeup. That puts me in a box. That makes me feel really small and incapable of so many things when in reality, I am capable of so much. If I had a nickel for every time someone said I had an “eye for it”, in any capacity of the statement, I’d be a very rich person.

So now what? What’s in the future for me? With the realization of so many things the past couple of years, Jen Damminger Beauty will become just Jen Damminger. I will continue to take my namesake and I am currently working with another creative to help me rebrand my entire business. Will I still be offering makeup? Yes. But there will be the addition of creative services. For example, content creation and creative director. Individuals, corporations, etc. will be able to hire me as a full blown creative and artist to help them execute their visions for whatever projects they may need help with, and I will be the creative director to help bring those visions to life. Whether it’s creating deliverables such as mood boards, or being on set to help navigate and execute a creative shoot, I will be the go-to creative that others can come to for help in a not-so-creative situation. I’ll be able to be the one that looks outside the box and bring new perspectives to those who are struggling.

Now, this is all a very watered-down sense of my future right now. We are in the beginning stages of something big and so much can change (I mean, we’re creatives, everything can change because that’s what we’re good at!). However, I felt I needed to explain myself a bit because I didn’t realize how many of you actually followed my story and career. Every time I meet up with a client, they always ask me, “so what’re you doing now that you’re not doing weddings?!” It wasn’t until recently that I finally realized I have so many organic followers, followers who actually care about me and my career and life and what I’m actually doing with it that I felt as though I needed to give you all an explanation. I know in reality, I owe nothing to nobody, just myself, as we all do, but I want you all here for the ride. I need you all here for the ride. It’s the support of not only my family and friends but of my clients and followers that keep me going, that make me strong. I never would’ve have gotten to where I am today without any of you, and for that, I will never be able to thank you all enough for. I need you all to know that your support, your love, has pulled me out of some really dark places; it quite literally keeps me going and I lean on it from time-to-time.

There will be more on the evolution of the Jen Damminger empire, but for now, this is where I’m going and I’m really excited and I hope you all continue on the journey with me, because without you all, I am nothing.

All my love,

Jen xx