As strange as it may seem, beau­ty rou­tines can be­stow pow­er­ful cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits on the brain that can help you to get over neg­a­tive thought pat­terns, like over analysing sit­u­a­tions, feel­ings of anx­i­ety, or gen­er­al­ly feel­ing pes­simistic. Ko­re­na Bagaan is a 21-year-old, self-taught make­up artist and con­tent cre­ator from Cou­va, who opens up about the pow­er of make­up in her jour­ney.

Ko­re­na start­ed play­ing with make­up when she was just about 15-years-old while go­ing through some rough times. It was a cop­ing mech­a­nism and an al­ter­na­tive for what she had al­ready been do­ing that was self harm­ing. Fast for­ward some years lat­er and make­up has be­come her life. Ko­re­na tells the WE Mag, “It can be done, get­ting out of that hard place can be done and it isn’t easy but it’s a great feel­ing when you get there. I can tes­ti­fy to that.” To­day, Ko­re­na is not on­ly a pro­fes­sion­al make­up artist but she has be­come a con­tent cre­ator who pro­duces high qual­i­ty con­tent for make­up brands. If you think this in­tro­duc­tion isn’t enough, check out more about this young tal­ent be­low:

What is one thing your clients can re­al­ly count on you for?

Un­like most make­up artists, my main clien­tele in­cludes busi­ness­es and brands that have prod­ucts to show­case. They can count on me for clean pho­tos that high­light their prod­ucts - whether it be flat­lays, swatch­es of make­up looks done on my­self - I al­ways find the best an­gles, light­ing and com­po­si­tion to com­ple­ment the prod­ucts and high­light it to my au­di­ence through my own looks.

Who or what are you in­spired by?

I of­ten use my­self as in­spi­ra­tion. It sounds con­ceit­ed but I’ve found that the best way for me to do bet­ter and be bet­ter is to try and out­do my­self. What­ev­er I did last, I want to do some­thing greater the next time around. I al­so re­al­ly love Am­ra Ole­vić Reyes for her flat­lays and aes­thet­ics.

Tell us about your best achieve­ments in your life or pro­fes­sion.

First achieve­ment was be­ing able to work side by side and form a re­la­tion­ship with my favourite lo­cal brand; Am­brosia Cos­met­ics. Sec­ond­ly, be­ing fea­tured on a lo­cal news­pa­per twice; once in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Am­brosia and once on my own. And last­ly, be­ing added to in­ter­na­tion­al brands’ PR lists. I’ve re­ceived PR pack­ages from Anas­ta­sia Bev­er­ly Hills, Hu­da Beau­ty, Ju­via’s Place, Make­up Rev­o­lu­tion and a few more brands have reached out to me re­cent­ly. This re­al­ly helps with my con­tent cre­ation.

How do you stay abreast of the lat­est beau­ty trends?

For me make­up isn’t about trends as much as it is just an art­form and an out­let, so trends don’t both­er me as much. How­ev­er, be­cause I’m al­ways ac­tive on so­cial me­dia, it’s easy to see what’s trend­ing.

What is the biggest chal­lenge you have to face as a make­up artist?

My biggest chal­lenge was find­ing work. I had been en­cour­aged and hyped by a lot of peo­ple and when I fi­nal­ly opened my stu­dio, the re­spons­es got qui­eter and qui­eter. I be­lieve that Trinida­di­ans want to see you do well but nev­er bet­ter than them. Be­sides that, be­ing some­one who hates wast­ing mon­ey and time, I didn’t stick around and dig my­self in­to loss­es to see if the stu­dio would grow. I couldn’t af­ford to. The crash­ing econ­o­my doesn’t al­low peo­ple like me to be still and have pa­tience. I have to keep mov­ing and ex­plor­ing op­tions if I want to sur­vive in Trinidad and hav­ing to adapt to that was dif­fi­cult.

What make­up tips can you give to us?

Tip 1- A clean face = a clean base. Of­ten­times, peo­ple want a smooth foun­da­tion base but don’t take care of their skin to al­low for smooth ap­pli­ca­tion. Make­up al­ways looks flaw­less on flaw­less, blem­ish-free skin.

Tip 2- Mois­turise. This is for both dry and oily skin. Mois­tur­is­ing is im­por­tant and will al­low for long-last­ing make­up. Find a mois­turis­er that suits your skin type and you will have bet­ter make­up days.

Tip 3- Do what­ev­er makes you com­fort­able. Trends and guide­lines tell us what we should do to look beau­ti­ful to oth­er peo­ple but nev­er what we should do to feel beau­ti­ful for our­selves. Wear what­ev­er you want to wear and do it with con­fi­dence. Con­fi­dence makes the look, not the trends/beau­ty stan­dards. Be your own trend, be your own beau­ty stan­dard.