From cocktail server to YouTube star: How a Halloween costume launched the career of beauty influencer Desi Perkins
For mega-beauty-influencer Desi Perkins, it all started with a last-minute Halloween costume that went viral in 2012. Back then, Desi, who has always been an artist, never imagined she’d now be sitting in the lobby of the Beekman Hotel in New York City discussing the Dior Backstage Beauty Pop-Up she hosted this past weekend. “I think Dior is such a cool brand that brings fashion and makeup together, and I love both categories,” she tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “I love their products and vibe, so it was a perfect match.”
Desi is in town with her videographer-slash-manager husband, Steven Perkins, and admits she never meant for “all this” to happen. But her 3.1 million YouTube subscribers and 3.7 million Instagram followers can’t imagine a day without daily updates of her dogs, family, and of course, all things beauty. “I had so many things that I was interested in, and I was all over the place,” she says of her creative passions. “I thought maybe one day I’d be an actress, maybe be a singer. I had big dreams, and I loved art.”
As a talented fashion illustrator, Desi figured she’d end up designing for a brand, but six years ago, Halloween came along, and her husband needed a last-minute costume.
A post shared by D E S I ? P E R K I N S (@desiperkins) on Oct 10, 2017 at 6:49pm PDT
“That’s when I fell in love with YouTube,” she says. “I didn’t know people were doing tutorials online, and I watched a special effects [makeup] video and thought that using my background in art I could do it on Steven.” The costume, a skeleton complete with artful black-and-white makeup, served as publicity for her skills — and, little did she know, it led her to a career in the beauty industry.
Soon after her husband attended the Halloween party and proudly posted a selfie of his skeleton makeup captioned, “Thank you @desimakeup it’s gonna be a good one,” the requests started pouring in. Desi began fielding inquiries for her special effects makeup rates, and her schedule quickly filled up. “I just said yes. I didn’t have a kit, I didn’t have anything, but I hated my job as a cocktail server and wanted a way out.”
It was, indeed, “going to be a good one,” because booking a few makeup gigs soon turned into a full-fledged career.
“It snowballed into this social media career,” she says. “Steven forced me to join Instagram, which I didn’t want to do because I didn’t want another app.” Perkins reluctantly downloaded the app and began posting, thinking it would support a steady flow of freelance work, but it turned out to be the launchpad she needed to become the influencer she is today. “I thought I was just going to do makeup, but here I am.”
A post shared by D E S I ? P E R K I N S (@desiperkins) on May 31, 2018 at 8:39pm PDT
Today, she boasts millions of YouTube subscribers and Instagram followers, a Dose of Colors makeup collaboration with her best friend Katy Degroot, a sunglasses line with Quay — and that’s just the business side.
Anyone who follows Desi or her husband, who has become an influencer in his own right, on social media knows how important family is to the couple. The couple’s two adorable dogs, Cannoli and Harper, and Desi’s “International” great-aunt, lovably nicknamed La Tía, are known to make cameos on her Instagram feed and in her YouTube videos.
In fact, the whole Desi Perkins brand is a family affair: Her husband is in charge of videography and managing, her brother is her photographer, and her sister-in-law is her assistant. “We all hang out together every single day,” she says, adding that the team tries to separate work and personal activity after a certain time each day. “It’s hard, though, because we love what we do, and we do it all the time!”
A post shared by D E S I ? P E R K I N S (@desiperkins) on Aug 16, 2018 at 1:20pm PDT
In a recent YouTube video, Desi enlists La Tía as her model and does the entire tutorial in Spanish. Her aunt, who moved in with the Perkinses, is a constant source of laughter and made filming a video in Spanish much easier. “My Tía is amazing — she has the best personality, and I love that I get to do this with her.”
Desi’s followers have long been asking for a Spanish language tutorial, but the Mexican-American had been on the fence about going through with it for a while. “I’ve been so terrified to make a video in Spanish for so long,” she says. “I felt like people would judge me or tell me I’m not Mexican enough, which is always such a heartbreaking thing to hear because there’s no such thing as that.”
The social media star grew up in a Spanish-and-English-speaking household, and like many young people with Latin roots, she would combine the two languages when speaking. After reading the thousands of comments on her first effort, which are filled with words of encouragement and support, it’s safe to assume there will be more bilingual beauty content coming to her social media channels. “To see everyone is excited and encouraging me to do videos in Spanish makes me feel more empowered to do tutorials in Spanish.”
While her fans are a source of support for Desi, her growing success has been empowering beauty-loving Latinas everywhere. “It’s really exciting when people send me messages letting me know that I make them feel proud to be Mexican,” she explains. “Everybody should be proud of who they are and where they come from.”
A post shared by D E S I ? P E R K I N S (@desiperkins) on Apr 15, 2018 at 6:11pm PDT
From her own background, the southern California native says she can relate to feeling like the outsider. “I definitely understand where they’re coming from,” she says of the messages from followers who finally feel represented in beauty. “Because as a young kid I went to a school that was predominantly white, and I always wondered things like, ‘Why isn’t my hair like that?’ or ‘Why is my skin so dark?’”
Perkins says she’s also glad to live in a time when beauty brands are embracing diversity. “We’re in this place right now where we have so much power and influence over what brands are doing,” she says. “And I think now brands are seeing that we’re pushing harder for inclusivity, and I think it’s the start of something major.”
Speaking of the start of something major, at 31, Desi talks about her career’s future with the utmost confidence — and she continues to dream big. “I want to have this empire where I could go back to doing everything,” she maintains. “Everything” includes beauty, fashion, and anything that stimulates her creativity. “I would love to have the freedom to design and create,” she muses.
She points to a tattoo on her right arm that reads “Create,” which she got before her career took off. “I got this because as long as I am creating, I will be so happy, and it’s all I know that I want.”
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