Makeup artist Sheika Daley knows all about the hustle needed to ascend in the creative industry. The Floridian math-wiz knew she had to start taking her natural talent in painting faces more seriously when on a full ride at college, she ended up doing more makeovers than attending classes. “When I flipped the script on my parents and said, ‘I’m going to do makeup,’ they said, ‘What? This is not what we thought that you were going to have to do,'” Daley recalls. Determined to make it, Daley went from the beauty counter at Victoria’s Secret to masterclasses at MAC where she learned about beauty masters like Kevin Aucoin, Billy B, Gucci Westman, and her later mentor, Pat McGrath. Daley was focused on expansion and when retail positions didn’t suffice, her entrepreneurial spirit pushed her to spend nights providing glam for a Miami strip club and her days building her book with directors and photographers. Now after a few chance introductions, she has been the go-to makeup artist to Hollywood’s elite like Zendaya, Jodie Turner-Smith, Kelly Rowland, Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, Serena Williams, Brandy, Lala Anthony, and many more. Models.com spoke to Daley on how the power of referrals got her epic start in the business, how she upped her celebrity clientele list, and how the beauty industry has evolved since she got her start.
How did you first get your start in the industry? When did you get that spark that you love makeup?
I realized I needed to take it more seriously when I went to college. I was away on a full scholarship but I ended up doing so much hair and makeup in my dorm room that I was barely going to class. I was a straight A’s and Honor Society and my trajectory was really to be an actuary or a math teacher because I studied math. When I flipped the script on my parents and said, “I’m going to do makeup,” they said, “What? This is not what we thought that you were going to have to do.” I ended up coming home and getting a job at Victoria’s Secret, working at the beauty counter. I was trying to build up my kit with the products that they had there because that was all I could afford. Then I ended up hearing about MAC and drove over there to one of their few locations they had at the time. I remember going back there every single week like it was my duty to get an eyeshadow, a lipstick, and a lip gloss until I built up my kit. Working at MAC, I started to learn more about the industry as a career. Learning about photographers, your portfolio, agencies, fashion trends, and fashion shows. That’s when I learned about Pat McGrath and that she was the queen bee of it all. Kevin Aucoin, Billy B, and Gucci Westman – that was when I was introduced to them.
Working there, I would do these master classes and they would teach you about putting your portfolio together. There were freelancers that would just come and work for a holiday weekend. One of them came in and she was going on about how she made so much money at this club that she’s working at and the girls let her do whatever she wants. She works there four or five days a week and she’s bought this house. “But it’s a strip club,” she said. I was , “All right. Let’s go over there and see what it’s about.” On a bad night, you were making maybe $800 a night and on a good night, you take in maybe $3,000 for the night and you could work up to seven days a week. I was making stripper money and I wasn’t even stripping!
How did you end up leaving Florida and building your network?
[The club] was great at first and I was able to create whatever I wanted but you get burnt out. I really wanted to get out of that circuit. I ended up meeting the comedienne, Sommore at the MAC store one day. She came in to buy some makeup and nobody in the store knew who she was. I talked to her and ended up becoming her salesperson then I would sell her whatever she needed. One day she said, “I’m doing this comedy show. I want to have you come out and do my makeup for it.” And I was, “Oh, okay.” She was my very first celebrity client. So I would do her comedy circuits with her, she would do comedy shows all over. The first time I went to LA was with her. It gave me the experience of being on the road, traveling, and packing a kit to work with celebrities. We were shooting her comedy special, using a particular director. This director, years later, calls me up to ask, “I’m about to shoot this video. I want you to come out and do it for me. Just do the makeup for the girls, for the backup dancers. It’s for Trick Daddy and his artists.” I get to set and Trick Daddy’s wife at the time, Joy, was there and said, “My cousin needs you.
From there on I connected with Nikki Nelms since we grew up in Florida together and both started out in the industry together. She came into the MAC store one day and asked, “I’m about to do a photoshoot with this photographer for some pictures for this hair magazine, would you come and do the makeup?” We both ended up assisting the glam leads on a music video for Kanye West‘s Golddigger shot by Hype Williams that was a three-day video in Miami on the beach. Kanye wanted a specific look and he was not shooting until he got what he was looking for. The two black girls had to come step in because they could not get it. In that whole time, I ended up connecting with Kelly Rowland because Kelly was in Miami and getting her hair done at my friend, Angela Meadows’ salon. She ended up telling Kelly about me and one day Kelly was going to dinner and called me to come do her makeup. I ended up doing it and we have been inseparable ever since.
How did you up your clientele list and what have been some of the most memorable projects for you?
Through Kelly I ended up getting a referral to Serena Williams. I did her book tour when she wrote her book for the first time. And she was doing a lot of appearances and things for Sony and Nike. Trina was having an album release party in New York and Lala and Trina are really good friends. Lala must have reached out to Kelly asking her, “Do you know a makeup artist in Miami?” They gave Lala my phone number and then that’s how she became my client. I love Zendaya, of course, as we’re always coming up with cool, creative looks and she’s really into makeup. So it’s good to share that energy with her. Kelly Rowland, she’s my everything.
“…I think the reason why I was able to do what I was doing is because I didn’t have anybody that looked like me coming up in makeup.”
How do you take what you’ve seen before and make it completely new? I imagine the practice of reinvention isn’t easy currently. So much has been done, so how do you challenge yourself?
I’ve had to change the way I do makeup from movies. There are things that I’ve had to learn, not just from other artists that are on the set, but from my clients as well, because they’ve used to being on set and using different looks in makeup to look a certain way. You can get to a certain point and still learn. Just because you’re at a certain level doesn’t mean that you know everything. And you should always be in that state of mind of wanting to absorb, learn and take in something new because there’s always new information out there.
Who have been some of your favorite creatives to work with and why?
Working with Pat [McGrath] was everything. Not only did I do shows, but I was actually her personal makeup artist. I would do her makeup for events. I helped her develop some of the products that she’s got in her repertoire right now. So that was a really eye-opening experience of being able to see a team really being run the machine behind who she is and why she is great.
You had a busy Met season with Anok Yai, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Imaan Hamman and even captured the behind-the-scenes creative chaos. Take us behind the lead-up to the big night and how you strategically prep to see multiple clients under a time crunch.
I don’t think many people even realize that I’ve been doing multiple clients for the Met Gala for the past 10 years. I think when people saw that and they thought, “Oh my God, you were so calm,” but for me that was really an easy day just three clients! The night before, instead of having one kit, we had three kits. I would go to the first one and my first assistant would be there. They would set up her skin and then I would get her done with details. As I’m finishing with whatever I’m using, they’re packing the products away and I leave an assistant with the client all day at the first location. The next kit is already at the second location waiting with my other assistants already there. Anok really likes to go there and I love that with her. It’s the Met Gala, so the designers are very particular on how she has to look but if they would allow her, it would be the Avatar Halloween moment every single time. Jodie’s skin is my new fave and I think the reason why I was able to do what I was doing is because I didn’t have anybody that looked like me coming up in makeup. I would test out different products to see what were good highlights, good contours, and shimmers.
I noticed you’ve only worked on Laquan Smith runway shows for the past 3 seasons according to your Models.com profile. Do you prefer editorials and advertising projects over the runway circuit, and why?
I do a majority of it, but I love the feeling I get when I see the pictures on a red carpet. I love knowing that we ground it out because you never know sometimes what you’re going to get when you see it on the red carpet. If we mess up, the public is going to tell us. I love music videos because I love the creative process and seeing it and having your work documented in that type of way, in a moving type of form for sure. I love editorials, in a sense of you have a story that you’ve created with a whole bunch of other people and you get to see it come to life and you get to work with these major photographers. I’ve been doing a lot of movies these past couple of years and TV shows and I’m really liking that process too. I just finished doing Spider-Man with Zendaya and the BMF show that I finished shooting with Lala. I do really like fashion shows because I love manning a team and seeing like-minded people like me shine. I like to see that spark in their eye when they get that model and they’re thinking, “Yo, I’m about to tear her face up.” We all came here to showcase our best abilities.
How do you think the beauty industry has evolved over time?
It’s definitely improved. There’s a lot more education now on black skin, our textures, and our tones and this is not just because there are more black artists. I hate to pigeonhole black artists as just black makeup artists. They’re artists just everyone else and they can do any skin tone. I get sometimes categorized as a black makeup artist because all of my clients are black, but I can do the same thing for an Asian woman or a white woman. I remember when I started working on Pat’s team, I realized that the majority of her team really wanted to get to know how to do black skin and understand our different nuances and flocked to me to find out what I had in my kit. They didn’t know how to do it, but they wanted to know how to do it. It just didn’t come easy for them because they didn’t have the right products.
What advice would you give to upcoming artists looking to assist?
I do feel that a part of the industry needs to be honed in a bit more. I feel a lot of people are learning the technique, but they’re not learning the industry. They’re learning how to apply the foundation and highlight contour, but that’s not it. I teach my assistants, the proper etiquette and dress, what to say, what not to say, how to be in the room, but not be in the room. Mind your business, you know what I mean? You can be a great makeup artist but if you show up and don’t even know the proper social cues to have in a room, you’re never going to get back there again. Not only are you not going to get back there, but you also might not work with anyone else because they’re going to tell everybody how crazy you are.
You’ve done so much but is there anything else that you’re dying to do? Places that you would love to shoot next?
Well, some of the things that I’ve been dying to do, I’m doing it right now. I’m working on this line right now that I will probably be launching maybe in a few months. I’m doing some more development for some other brands as well, which I’m really happy about. And it’s crazy enough, one of the things that I really do want to get into is education, and possibly opening up a beauty school that teaches the industry, not just makeup. I wanted to get into more movies and TV, which is what I’m doing right now, as I would ultimately love to be able to say I’m an Oscar-winning makeup artist, an Emmy-winning makeup artist.
