For Angel Merino, Make-Up is an Expression of Confidence

For beauty entrepreneur and influencer Angel Merino, wearing makeup gives him the confidence to show up as himself every single day.

“I started to express myself through makeup at a very young age,” Merino says on the latest episode of Storytellers.

Growing up in a Hispanic household in Riverside, California, he didn’t have anyone to talk to about being gay when he started to explore his identity in his youth. It wasn’t until he had his first job, at a kiosk at the mall, where he met an openly gay man for the first time. In him he saw himself.

“He was a little bit older than me, a Hispanic guy, [and] he was very much authentically himself. He wore makeup, he was flamboyant, very much loud and proud, and it inspired me to be able to do the same,” Merino goes on to say.

So, at 15 years old, he bought his first compact powder and started putting it on in secret. Eventually, he found the bravery to put it on at work. Later, at school, with friends. And finally, at home in front of his mom.

From the beginning, Merino used makeup to express his queerness, source his confidence, and blend the masculine and feminine sides of his character. And he turned that passion into a job.

Angel Merino in Storytellers

He was working as a makeup artist behind the counter at a department store when a colleague told him about a new app called Instagram.

“At first, I thought it was something I’d use for cool filters, but I had no clue it would literally be the brink of my career and what was going to catapult me to eventually start my own business and have my own brand,” Merino says.

He grew an influential makeup platform on Instagram that now reaches over a million followers. And as his audience expanded, so, too, did his understanding of the beauty industry at large. He identified missing pieces, the discrepancy of products, and launched his own brand, Artist Couture, to try and fill that gap.

“I felt like I had a lot of resources … and I said, you know what? I want to create a brand. I want to create products. I want to fill the void I feel is missing, and I want to be able to create something more tangible that I can share with my audience that’s essentially an extension of me, and my love and my passion for makeup,” Merino shares.

Artist Couture is committed to high-quality ingredients, formulas, and packaging—at affordable price points.

For Merino, it was especially important to him that his products were made widely accessible. Growing up, he remembers perusing the mall with his mom. She loved buying burgundy lipstick. It was a luxury and she couldn’t always afford it, but when she could, it made her feel beautiful; it brought her joy. Merino, grounded by these memories, is dedicated to providing affordable luxury to his consumer-base.

“I always say: you look good, you feel good,” he says. “Makeup has given me a lot of confidence throughout my career, and that’s what I wanted to give to my audience, to my community, and my following: products that would give them that sense of confidence, products that were going to make them feel good and make them feel beautiful — and make them feel the way makeup makes me feel.”

Get to know Angel Merino in the Storytellers universe—Pride edition. Watch it here!