Photographer: Adlai Carassco (@adlaicarassco) for The Bergen County Scout Guide (@tsgbergencounty)
There’s nothing like the fantastic personal experience of blowout bars and nail bars, helping women look their best and giving them a chance to get some great insight from professional stylists and aestheticians. Ashlee Kleinschmidt noticed that there’s nothing similar for makeup or skincare but knew that there should be!
Ashlee told us about her time as a makeup artist before founding her own makeup bar, saying, “There has to be a place out there where women can go and get their makeup done and feel good and not be made to feel like they don’t know what they’re doing and that they need to buy all these products, and that really lead me to the idea of opening up a makeup bar where I could teach ladies how to do their makeup, do their makeup for them, help them create a makeup bag.”
That’s how she came around to founding Muah Makeup and Lash Bar, giving women the same chance to get not just a makeover but expert advice on day-to-day makeup and skincare.
Bringing the Best in Makeup to Everyday Women
Ashlee Kleinschmidt has been a professional makeup artist for over 12 years, working with big names in the industry in New York City. Her experience during that time was great, always having the chance to experiment with bold new looks. However, she found that something was missing. Only working with professionals couldn’t help but cut out some of the personal connection of doing makeup.
She started working with everyday women instead and found that the difference was night and day. Whether for a wedding, another special event, or just to treat themselves, everyday women brought a completely different energy to getting their makeup done, and Ashlee saw that she could help more people in more impactful ways by focusing on everyday women.
And so, she opened the Muah Makeup and Lash Bar, a unique makeup bar that focuses on catering to everyday women. She’s been helping women look and feel their best there for seven years now, and the business has expanded to offer its own makeup, lash, and skincare product lines.
A Focus on Makeup Education
A big part of what Muah Makeup and Lash Bar does differently is giving everyday women the guidance and understanding they need to find the style of makeup that works for them. In fact, the name of her company comes from Ashlee’s blog, where she would share makeup tips, Makeup Artist How-To’s, or M.U.A.H.
Ashlee has found throughout her experience that most everyday women have picked up a lot of misconceptions about what matters most when it comes to makeup. The cause behind so many of these problems is makeup counters and bars that are just there to push products. She hears so many supposed tips and rules from women that were just made up in the heat of the moment to sell some specific product.
Instead of focusing on specific products, Muah Makeup and Lash Bar focuses on empowering their clientele and building lasting relationships. They work with each individual woman to find out what’s going to be right for them and help them feel confident in their everyday lives.
Taking a Comprehensive Approach to Makeup and Skincare
Among the most important things that Ashlee stresses for everyday women is that they should try to choose the right products, not the best products. So many makeup counters try to push the most expensive, the most glamorous, and the flashiest. Instead, getting to understand what routine works best for them and what their own needs are is the way to go.
That’s why Muah Makeup focuses on helping everyday women understand the small steps and subtleties to makeup that sales-oriented makeup bars ignore. Ashlee shows her clients the many ways that different types of makeup can come together to make a certain look instead of just relying on specialized products.
Ashlee always makes sure to emphasize the importance of skincare, telling us, “There are so many different products you should use to prep your skin to give it that really beautiful canvas, and then the makeup goes over it. If you don’t wash your face, if you don’t exfoliate, if you don’t hydrate and take care of your skin, then your makeup is never gonna look good.”
That’s why the Muah Makeup product line includes a variety of skincare scrubs, cleansers, oils, and creams. Skincare itself plays such an important role in how a woman can take control of their look and get the confidence they need. Together with simple but stunning makeup products from Muah Makeup, everyday women can find everything they need without spending more than they can afford to look their best.
