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Today we’d like to introduce you to celebrity makeup artist and entrepreneur, Kimberley Bosso.
Hi Kimberley, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
It feels just like yesterday when I graduated from makeup school in Los Angeles and was working with Popstar magazine a few years after. But it was more than 20 years ago!
Since then my makeup career transitioned me on a wild ride working with some of the biggest celebrities in Hollywood. Soon after, I created a unique intensive makeup course in Beverly Hills attracting students from around the world as far as Dubai. In the midst of all this I had an itch to create my own makeup line “Bosso Beverly Hills” which has been seen on The Doctors tv show, Hallmark’s Home and Family, Women’s Health Magazine, MSN, LA Confidential, InStyle, and an array of other magazines and shows. My makeup line retails not just in the U.S. but also expanded to Hong Kong, Dubai, and Canada.
All the while my classes were in demand, so I decided to broaden to the Tampa Bay market and offer my makeup training around the Gulf Coast.
Upon completion of taking my course, graduates are invited by me to work Miami Swim week, NYFW, LAFW, and Paris Fashion week when the opportunity arises, so it’s a great perk for attending my course! The mentoring never stops.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I feel no career path is ever a smooth consistent ride. We all must endure bumps in the road if we are to learn and grow and build any kind of character.
Some of those “bumps” finding me were not warranted nor did I deserve to go through them, but I came out on the other side stronger than before.
One in particular is going viral on Tiktok for an absurd reason that had nothing to do with my makeup business. A babysitter committed to work the week for me, then broke her contract and decided to work 4 hours total. Instead she took another job which left me stranded simultaneously with a young child and clients. Saying it messed my entire schedule is an understatement, and yet she irrationally still wanted to be paid for her tortious interference. When I declined to pay her, she decided to make a delusional post full of lies and slander coercing Gen Z to jump on faster than a bullet to “cancel” me without them knowing the full story. It was described that I just didn’t feel like paying $40 because I’m “entitled” which couldn’t be further from the truth. Accountability is a lovely attribute, but so many are lacking that quality nowadays and resort to excuses and fabrication. It’s sad.
That was certainly a time of adversity for me and made me open my eyes to how gullible people really can be on social media believing an instigators spin on the real story all for the sake of attention and views. Social media desperation is one of the biggest turn offs.
Being a single mom and building my corporation from the ground up on my own has been a feat in many ways. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth like most misconstrue when they hear “Beverly Hills”. The ignorance gets rather annoying, so as a result I’m unapologetically tough because I have to be. If someone disrespects me they’ll get it right back. Respect begets respect. My Northeastern roots keep me grounded. I’ll never really be able to fully articulate how challenging it’s been at times since the 18 years of Queen B Makeup Corp’s birth, but such adversities transpire into beautiful eye opening epiphanies like deeply appreciating the simple life without the convoluted messes human relations can bring. We can strive everyday to be a kind and fair person, but in the end, life is messy and you can’t control everything that occurs. We just don’t know what goes on inside peoples minds. People have agendas you know nothing about. Evil can spill into your life at any given moment and you just have to roll with the punches and handle it as you see fit. Or in the infamous TikTok case, as my attorney and I saw fit.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My obsession with beauty begun as far back as seeing Brooke Shields in Blue Lagoon and watching Charlies Angels every week mesmerized by Farrah’s or Jacyln’s beauty. I was fascinated with their features, makeup, hair, clothes, bodies, the way they moved, and their fierce strength and intelligence. I was drawn to models and performers with confidence and independence. Don’t even get me started when Madonna came along!
In our home, my mom put a huge emphasis on “looks” and made me feel I couldn’t be anything less than perfect. It was a lot of pressure on me growing up. There was judgement where there shouldn’t have been. Even my father was guilty of bestowing this on us girls having us seeking his approval. He was a tough nut to crack. I can’t say I ever succeeded in doing so.
It was inevitable that I’d end up as a performer (acting, singing, dancing) where there’s such a paradox of ego and insecurity striving to be loved and seen. While judgment was prevalent, my mom also gave me a lot of confidence, always being so interested in my life. She was a really good listener and made me feel like I mattered and was loved. That does a lot for a kid. So there were contradictions in our house too.
I always wanted a career in anything beauty whether it be fashion, performing, or esthetics. At first I thought I was going to become a fashion buyer so I can attend all the runway shows around the world. That appealed to me very much early on, but then the money was blah… not enough for my taste.
I remember my Mom mentioning makeup school to me in my twenties while I was auditioning. I didn’t hesitate and enrolled the next day. That’s kind of always been my style, to not dwell and to act immediately if it even slightly piqued my interest.
In my class was Vidal Sasson’s daughter Eden and an array of Hollywood’s nepo babies. Luck would have it I got connected to my first movie to work makeup and it sort of spiraled from there. I landed gigs with celebrities and Popstar magazine, and from there my name became word-of-mouth in the industry. Publicists/assistants would hire me for the likes of Paul McCartney, Al Pacino, Scooter Braun, Taryn Manning, Marissa Tomei, Jackie Jackson, BBC documentaries for Janet Jackson, David Foster, Weird
Al (yes it’s true lol) along with red carpets and press junkets that spun into a full career.
Next, I designed an exclusive makeup course certifying students from all over the globe that blew up and took over Los Angeles being THE elite makeup school. The buzz was real. There was nothing like it at that time and I was proud to be the pioneer of this type of makeup training.
After the birth of my son Brooklyn, I produced a full range of paraben and cruelty free makeup that eventually transitioned into a vegan makeup line. That’s the time I was contacted by producers of The Doctors tv show (Universal) and Home and Family (Paramount) to be featured on them as a beauty expert which focused the Bosso brand. Then a trickle effect happened and several news stations like Fox and NBC and publications internationally were interested in having me as a guest or interviewing me and featuring Bosso products.
As if I didn’t have enough on my full plate as a single working mother, I expanded and brought my training to Tampa Bay since the Southeast was in demand for me as much as Los Angeles. During this time a fashion designer I met at Paris Fashion week connected me to Ilaria Niccolini a fashion producer for NYFW who invited me to lead my team of Bosso grads for several seasons at her shows, which one season in NY I was lucky enough to work backstage at the Ralph Lauren 50th anniversary gala. Next up was LAFW which was a blast to be a part of at the famous Peterson Automotive Museum opening for Peru’s “Christian Dior” Noe Bernacelli with designs that were simply stunning.
Currently the completion of my online makeup course is just about done and will launch across the internet by the end of 2024.
As I’ve trained students from various countries, there are countless students that want the Bosso makeup education from me personally but cannot make it to Los Angeles or Tampa Bay. So to have the same course be accessible online to artists in Dubai, Turkey, Hong Kong, Korea, South America, Africa, U.S,, all over the world, is something I’ve always wanted to do for them. Now they can take my course for a quarter of the cost compared to my in person class at their leisure and at their home. They’ll get certified and have access to me for mentorship and the makeup community in my private Facebook group afterwards.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I’ve been one of the luckiest people I know. Even with bad luck came good luck. It’s wild. In the moment when bad luck strikes, you can’t see past than what’s happening in that incident. But give it some months or years something wonderful will occur to correlate back to the original misfortune and only then will you smile and say ahhh that was God’s divine magic or the universe working the way it should leading me “here” to this good thing I’m experiencing now. Hind-site’s 20/20 right?
Without the social media attack on me, I would have never invested in purchasing more properties and found my love of renovating. Sometimes a change is so good and well needed. I’ve been in the makeup biz for so long that the burn out began to be all too real, so this was God’s way of shaking me and saying it took this to get me to step back and find other things that make me feel alive. It also got me back into consistently training in ballet again. All “bad luck” is beautiful if you fully open your eyes and embrace it and not let it cripple you.
Of course my makeup business is still thriving after the hiccup in 2021, but now I pick and choose when I want to work and focus on passions like dance that I’ve always loved the most and not letting makeup work dictate my every move. I’m now heavily focused on ballet training and certified in PBT (progressive ballet technique). It’s safe to say music and dance have always been my obsessions.
As far as good luck, well it’s been with me the majority of my life. For example: Meeting the right people when I needed to. Being protected in dangerous situations when I first moved to LA. Landing amazing projects as a performer and artist. Always making buckets of money fairly easily. Brainstorming creative ideas that turn into successes. Having a sunny disposition on life. Blessed to have a phenomenal kid. Having the ability to manifest what I desire. Having natural talents. Being gifted the intellect I have. My makeup school having publicity and success. My makeup line being exported overseas upon its launch. Having tremendous focus and willpower on many fronts. The list is endless because I see how lucky I’ve been and will continue to be. It’s all a mindset. You have to see what’s before you, not the lack of, and have gratitude.
Pricing:
- 6 day intensive makeup course $7500
- 4 day intensive makeup course $5000
- 2 day intensive makeup course $2500
- Online Makeup Course $999
- Online Makeup Course Live Zoom $3000
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.Kbosso.com
- Online Makeup Course: https://www.kbosso.com/online-makeup-school
- Tampa Makeup School: https://makeupschooltampa.com/
- Bosso Makeup Products: https://bossomakeup.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bossomakeupbeverlyhills/
- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/bossomakeupbeverlyhills/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/bossomakeup
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bosso-intensive-los-angeles-makeup-school-beverly-hills
Image Credits
Tobias Meier, Director and Fashion Photographer
2b+photo | www.2bplusphoto.com
Home and Family Universal Studios
The Doctors Paramount Studios
