Published March 2001

Makeup artist teaches ‘common sense’ cosmetics

By Kimberly Hilden
Herald Business Journal Assistant Editor

John Maxwell is a travelin’ man on a makeup mission.

For more than 20 years, the Mill Creek makeup artist has been crisscrossing the country, giving seminars on cosmetic application to beauty consultants and consumers.

It’s a mission to end makeup misinformation by offering practical advice gleaned from years of training in Hollywood and experience as a national training coordinator for Redken Laboratories and with his own company, Glamour by John Maxwell Inc.

“There is no mystery, and there are no secrets. I believe in common sense,” said Maxwell, who collected about 200,000 on-the-job air miles last year alone. “I believe there is magic in well-done makeup because of what it can do for a woman emotionally, what it can do to boost her self-esteem, and because it can alter the way that the world perceives her in a very positive way. I’ve seen it happen over and over again.”

He first saw that magic when, as a teen-ager, he had the opportunity to watch some makeup artists at work in Los Angeles.

“I was attracted to the fact that they could take somebody who, really, without the makeup, looked just like everybody else, and in a short time, there was a radiance about these women,” said Maxwell, who then took theater makeup courses, studied with Hollywood makeup artists and got his cosmetology license.

In the early 1970s, Maxwell began working on sets, but soon found himself “starting to explain to everybody that I was making-up why I was doing what I was doing,” he said. “Well, there’s no time in the budget for that, so I was always in trouble.”

He then was hired by Redken to train hairstylists on makeup application. But he soon became concerned watching people, many influenced by the glossy photos and step-by-step advice in magazines, become frustrated with their efforts to improve the way they looked with their makeup, Maxwell said.

“It’s ridiculous to think that a person can learn anything about their own face if somebody is just giving out general information to a group of people,” he said.

With this philosophy in mind, Maxwell and wife Rosemary started Glamour by John Maxwell in 1980.

Then came a real break for Maxwell.

“I had the good fortune to be introduced to Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics. I started teaching workshops for Mary Kay, and I’ve done that for 20 years. They’re my very largest account,” Maxwell said about the internationally known cosmetics company, which, according to its Web site (www.marykay.com), had more than $1 billion in wholesale revenues in 1999.

When it comes to his seminars, Maxwell won’t take more than 40 people in a class designed for beauty consultants, and no more than 10 in a class for consumers, to “maintain the integrity” of the workshop, he said.

Along with classes, Maxwell offers a line of how-to videos, which he sells at his seminars and on the Web.

“We have a brand-new video that I’m very excited about called ‘Beautiful Differences’ that is going to be available very shortly,” Maxwell said. “It’s a multi-ethnic video. It features the makeup needs of African-American women, Hispanic women and Asian women. ... The second part is devoted to women over the age of 60, which nobody has ever done before that I know of.”

Besides his seminars and videos, Maxwell said he is negotiating a deal for a possible radio show and plans on doing an infomercial in the future.

And there’s always the purpose of his mission.

For more information, call 425-316-3944 or toll-free at 866-548-5588, or visit the company’s Web site, www.glamourbyjohnmaxwell.com.

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