Desi Making Waves

By Elaine G. Flores

Oh, The Places You'll Glow: Shalini Vadhera's Passport to Beauty Tips Around the Globe

Turn to the Home Shopping Network and you may get to watch Hollywood makeup artist Shalini Vadhera perform a drab-to-fab makeover using her Global Goddess line, inspired by the beauty secrets of women all over the world. The products come in yummy, feminine shades and feature names fit for a pampered deity: Floating Diamonds Shimmer Powder, Divine Eye Color and Moroccan Mystique Lip Veil. That sense of divalicious fun strikes a note with fans from Philadelphia to Norway to Syria who interact with Vadhera through the Facebook group “I Want To Be A Global Goddess.” Behind all the glitz and glam is a very focused woman with a mind for business. On a recent busy morning, Vadhera squeezed in time to talk a little about how she does it.

Tell me a little bit about your upbringing. What sparked your desire to be a girly-girl?
I was born and raised in Southern California, but I was first-generation Indian-American. I traveled back and forth to India, but my mom was born in Kenya. Seeing these stewardesses from Singapore Airlines … [I wondered], “How can I look like them? They are so pretty.” My mother tells the story of when I was three, taking the Tylenol dropper for medicine and trying to use it as eyeliner.

Was your mother a glamour-puss, too?
My mom was one of those fabulous women who would not leave the house without looking great. She always had her hair done and her makeup done. She taught me not to leave the house without thinking of how I look.

When did you start working as a makeup artist?
I started working when I was 17 for Clinique cosmetics at a department store. That's when I knew I really wanted to do makeup. I was looking at women who were going through cancer or going through a bad time in their life. To be able to change how they felt and impact their self-esteem, that's really where I got hooked on makeup on a professional level. I began building my career, then I got freelance work at photo shoots.

You have a degree in international business from California State University. Was this business part of the plan?
My long-time dream was to always have a makeup brand … one that I could take to India because there [were] no products there that would really match the skin tones. Even though Revlon, at that point, was already in India, the foundations were peachy and the lipsticks were deep, dark red; there was nothing to complement [women’s] complexions.

Of course, my parents are very traditional. You know when you're Indian-American, you're supposed to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer. This was like, “Oh, my God, you are going to disgrace this family!” NBC offered [me] a chance to work on The Tonight Show as a makeup artist while I was in senior year. It was an amazing growth process, swimming with the sharks in a cutthroat industry at such a young age. I was never professionally trained and I learned so much.

Did you ever have self-doubts about not being professionally trained?
No, it's not like I was in a salon where you have to have that. I learned on my own. There was no better place for me than to be under the lights in the studio … About six years ago, I started getting called to do segments on red carpet looks, etc. One of my clients, Tom Bergeron of America's Funniest Home Videos and Dancing With The Stars said, “You need to be in TV.”

I talked about global beauty, which they hadn't heard before. The media always shows Caucasian and African skin tones, but what about the rest of us? I started doing a lot of research and speaking to women from all over the world and it just hit. I built my website up to a million hits a month, and St. Martin's offered me a deal to do my book [Passport To Beauty: Secrets From Around The World For Becoming A Global Goddess, 2006].

How do you slice the corporate vs. creativity pie?
Oh my God. Ideally, I'd love it to be 80/20, 80 percent creative, but right now I'd say most of my day is very corporate. But then I do get to spend a lot of time working on amazing products. Like my new holiday collection—I just got back from Paris, [and] we're working on Goddess Lights Parisian Nights.

What achievements are you most proud of?
I never take any time to look back, but the most challenging part of this was finding the funding to take it to the next step and that took a year of nonstop meetings and number-crunching. Taking an idea out of my head and translating that to a chemist to getting that idea to the customer and our first round of funding was one of my proudest moments.

How do you see your burgeoning empire expanding?
We are looking into going into India in the next year. We're working with a few firms to see what the best entryway would be. We are looking to build our business in the US, as well as internationally. We already have a strong presence in the UK. One of the things that we are going to be doing is a product that gives back philanthropically.

Is there anything else you'd like to say?
I just love our customers. The Global Goddesses that are out there are just fantastic, and it really makes me feel like I did something right. Seeing women share beauty secrets that have been passed down from their grandmothers to their mothers, it just makes for a very nice community.

For more information on Global Goddess, visit www.globalgoddessbeauty.com.

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