When did you first fall in love with makeup?

Wow. I fell in love with makeup the same time I fell in love with the theatre...Backstage! My mother was putting my costume on in the dressing room at the Beacon Theatre. I had butterflies in my stomach and a big kool-aid grin for 2 reasons:
1) I was getting ready to dance my little heart out on Broadway again which would turn into an annual 10 year run from the time I was 3yrs old.
2) It was the only time I was allowed to wear makeup and feel glamorous like a celebrity. My mother only allowed it because we were onstage and everything about it as a young girl was a big deal. In my house the rule for my sister and I was no makeup until we were 18, which in my mother's language meant "not 'till you're grown." I use to dream about wearing makeup as I watched my mom get dolled up to go out with my father. She had 2 makeup kits Charlie & Fashion Fair and they were full of all these colors and I would watch her do her face in the bathroom and just be in awe.

I knew that for one night and one night only she would transform my face too. I was 8 yrs old and it was the 3rd Sunday in June. After getting my costume on right she then would take out her makeup kits for me. I proudly tilted my face forward and she began to fill my eyelids with color to match my costume, then she would put blush on my cheeks as she made me make a face like a fish to contour my cheeks lol. She then would turn the tube of her favorite lipstick and get the lip brush, because it last longer she would say as she told me to part my lips, she brushed on the color of burgundy swoop to the right then to the left same on the top lip. I would rub them together and make that sound like pah (smile) as I've seen her do many a nights. As a finishing touch she stroked my eyelashes with the brush wand and say," a lady just isn't a lady without her mascara." She would dip this big brush in some powder and dust it over my whole face and stand back and look at her work saying,"That's my baby".
She let me look in the mirror and with all the wonderment in my eyes all I could say was,"wow, I am as pretty as you."
Ladies and Gentlemen... A Star was born.

These experiences before my infamous senior prom transformation was truly what gave me the passion I have for makeup that infuses my professional and technical training.