Interview with Christina Flach: Founder and CEO of Pretty Girl Makeup

Christina Flach works as a celebrity makeup artist and is the founder and CEO of Pretty Girl Makeup. She found her passion for makeup after discovering how one can change their perception of themselves by enhancing their exterior features. Once she realized that the products she was using could be improved upon, she developed enhanced versions of her makeup that would look good on everybody, and began her line.

Flach is also a mother of 5 and married to the late Ken Flach, an American doubles world No. 1 tennis player who won the men’s doubles gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Ever since he passed from sepsis, Flach has been a firm advocate of raising awareness for the disease through the Sepsis Alliance. Additionally, she has set up an organization at the Northern Lights School in Oakland, California in honor of her late son Beau and husband Ken, along with the Beau Freedman Outdoor Classroom, a place for young kids to learn how to plant, harvest, and cook.

After a brief introduction, we went right into asking Flach about her life in the business field, work as a celebrity makeup artist, and her work as an advocate of Sepsis Awareness.

Q: How were you first introduced to business? Can you describe your business journey since then? How would you describe being a woman in the business field?

Flach said the first person she ever did makeup on, besides herself, was her mother who had terminal cancer when she was growing up. When her mother was going out with her father one day, Flach decided that she wanted to make her look like the best version of her. Through a basic makeover, Flach discovered how one can bring inner peace to someone just by changing a little bit of their exterior, and it inspired her to keep on practicing makeup throughout her life.

Before, she worked as an image consultant and personal shopper, but eventually she developed her line, Pretty Girl Makeup, and now works as the CEO in addition to being a celebrity makeup artist. Flach expressed how being the CEO of Pretty Girl has been a great career for her, as work is accessible at home, and still gets to pursue her job as a celebrity makeup artist, going all over the place to work on sets.

Q: As a woman in the male-dominated business field, what is the biggest challenge that you’ve faced in the industry?

Flach expresses that she thinks this is a misconception; the fact that she is a woman does not make her experience different than that of a man. One thing she says is different, however, is the difference in the way attitudes are perceived on a man versus a woman. She said that when she has to be tough, people think badly of her, whereas if she were a man others would think differently of her attitude, praising her behavior as one of a “tough businessman.”

Q: What is the typical workday as the CEO of Pretty Girl Makeup in the makeup industry?

Flach said she wakes up at 6:30 AM, 7 days a week. She begins each day by checking her emails and talking with her assistant, and doing a morning workout. Throughout the day, Flach is in and out of conference calls, working on expanding her line, and has to respond to a lot of emails. If she is on set at a photoshoot, she says it is as if she is doing both jobs as a CEO and makeup artist, working on her business while still on the sets. Flach expresses that though it may be hectic at times, her job is always interesting and she enjoys it a lot.

Q: What’s the most rewarding part of your career?

What she loves so much about her job is that she gets to meet so many different people and be in many different places. Flach also says that her career has been blessed with being able to work with different fashion houses like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, GAP, and Armani. As for working as a makeup artist, she has been able to go on the sets of many TV shows and meet all kinds of celebrities, which she finds is an enjoyable and exciting part of her job that she can experience.

Q: What is it like being the CEO of your own company? What are some of the challenges that you face on an everyday basis?

Recently, she and a partner have been creating a new line with some investors, and Flach expresses that it’s all new to her. Since she worked by herself before, she never had to create a business plan to look ahead, and was strongly self-guided by what she thought was good at the moment she thought of it; now though, she has to talk about large sums of money and forecast far into the future, which is uncomfortable for her. She also expressed how difficult it is when developing products, as she has to constantly question what people like, and a lot of the time she feels as if she’s constantly treading water, trying to catch up.

When it comes to the amount of time she works, Flach says that as a CEO, work never ends and that can be both a blessing and a curse. She needs to consciously remind herself to have a nice work-life balance and to not get obsessive, remembering to pay attention to her personal life too. As a piece of advice, Flach tells us that we should not worry too much; worrying just wastes time. In the end, she says, everything will work out and we should all enjoy life as it is and not try to rush through it.

Q. What was your inspiration behind Pretty Girl Makeup and how is it different from other makeup brands? 

Her inspiration for Pretty Girl Makeup began when she couldn’t find a lip gloss that would last for a long time and felt frustrated. She worked with a beauty chemist for over a year and formulated her product, testing it out with family and friends. She had to constantly work out the textures and colors with the chemist and wanted to make sure she could develop a product with colors that would look good on all skin tones.

Q. How has your dedication to sepsis awareness inspired you and connected with your career?

Flach expresses that the more people she can reach about the signs of sepsis, such as temperature, infection, mental decline, and excruciating pain, the more deaths she will be able to prevent. Sepsis is an infection of the blood, which attacks all your vital organs and it can be life-threatening. If you can get tested early enough you can get an IV antibiotic and survive, however if you don’t see doctors soon after the first symptoms, like in the case of her husband, sepsis will have terrible outcomes.

Q: How have you used your platform on social media to promote your company’s message of beauty in a positive light?

Flach expresses that because she wants to make people look like the best versions of themselves, she wants to make sure that they don’t look completely different; rather, she wants to enhance the preexisting features and beauty they already have. She also talks a lot about beauty from the inside and out, which to her means that it’s about taking care of yourself, eating healthy, drinking lots of water, and living a positive life full of love. It’s not the makeup that makes a complete person, she says, it’s the sum of all your parts that make a beautiful person.

Q: What has been the biggest lesson you have learned?

Over time, Flach has learned that everyone has a story, not just famous people. It could be a bride, a model, a business person – you can learn something from everyone because there is always something out of everyone’s life that they can share.

Q: In all your years of working experience, what has been your happiest memory from working in business?

Flach loves to see that the products she has created have been used in magazines, by celebrities, and expresses her love for those times when she’s out in public and someone recognizes her as the creator of Pretty Girl Makeup. As a makeup artist, she loves working in a team and being part of a TV show or working in a fashion line, and it’s a lot of fun for her and extremely rewarding.

Q: Do you have any future goals in business or your personal life?

She wants to continue helping others – she speaks a lot about grieving in a positive way and expresses that it’s different for everyone. She says that you don’t always have to be miserable to honor your loved ones or start a foundation, it’s different for everyone. In the beginning stages of grief, everyone always tries to find their new ‘normal,’ and something that helped her find some balance was not to be too tired or hungry, to continue with her life, think about all the things that she’s grateful for, and help other people.

For herself, she hopes that she can find someone else to love her as much as her husband did. She tells us that after he died, she could still hear him speaking so clearly, and that she knows he’s watching over her even though he may be gone.

Q: What advice do you have for girls who would like to pursue business in their future careers? And how should people try to find their ‘normal’ while grieving?

Flach says that you should be as kind to yourself as someone else is to you because all of us can be way too hard on ourselves. She says to be patient, and that hard times will pass and you should think positive thoughts and be grateful for what you already have.

In life, there will always be changes and Flach emphasizes that we should just ride the waves of change and not let them shock us. She recommended a book called We Plan, God Laughs by Sherre Hirsh, which brings the view that things may be happening for us and not to us, and to just know that everything will work itself out.

Q: Anything else you want to share that we didn’t ask?

She talked a bit about the behind-the-scenes of different shoots she has been to. Flach says that you would be shocked how many people are on the set – even just recently she shot a commercial with over 200 people and a budget that exceeds a million, with stunt doubles, jet skis, and a big trailer with roses. The scale is large and it’s a lot of fun, so she’s happy to be able to experience all this.

She also talked about how important it is for her to be sensitive to other people and what they think, and how she needs to read people’s emotions before they even do.

Through this interview, we had the chance to take a unique dive into the makeup industry with Christina Flach, while also learning about her advocacy promotiving sepsis awareness and her adventures behind-the-scenes as a celebrity makeup artist. Flach will continue to serve as a role model for girls to pursue their dreams and navigate the world with confidence.

To learn more about her, check out her website at http://www.christinaflach.com/ and her Instagram at @christinaflachmakeup!