Ashley Rosales wasn’t allowed to wear makeup until she was 15 years old, and though she loved cosmetics, she decided to follow another passion first: joining the military. Her father was a Marine, the now-beauty blogger told People, and he was “so honored that he served. I wanted to make him proud.”
She was stationed at Fort Riley in Kansas working as an Army mechanic for two and a half years. But then she suffered a foot injury during training and was medically discharged. It was then when she turned back to her first love: beauty.
“I was pretty upset. I could barely walk,” she said to People. “But I didn’t want to waste time being sad. I wanted to inspire people to express themselves through makeup.”
Rosales started watching makeup tutorials online to perfect her craft. She has always had the support of her husband, Ivan, a sergeant she met at Fort Riley in 2012 and wed six months later.
She now has more than half a million followers, though she has only been posting tutorials for five months. She has been approached to promote products like Kylie Jenner’s lip kits. She has also been asked to collaborate with organizations like Smolder Cosmetics.
She has dreams of moving to Los Angeles to pursue her career. She is currently living in El Paso while Ivan, 26, is stationed at Fort Bliss. She herself is “known for her skin tag on her upper lip and she wants to help people look — and feel — good.
“I also want to show them that everyone is beautiful — flaws and all,” she told People.
Check out some of her work below.
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