My MUA Journey pt.2 - Inglot Ireland

Continuing on from my previous post, "Part 1 - Where It All Began", we're diving into the Inglot section of my career...

The first Inglot store in Cork opened in Mahon Point in October 2014. They immediately advertised for temporary Christmas positions. I figured it would be a good way to dip my toes into retail and the extra money over Christmas would be great. So I applied - and I got a call for an interview! I went in and met with Inglot Ireland owner Jane Swarbigg. As the shop is small and only has a tiny stockroom we went down to the food court for our interview. Jane told me a lot about the brand and asked me some of the usual interview questions. I left feeling relieved that it was a fairly easy interview in that I wasn't sitting in front of a board, being asked difficult questions trying to trip me up. I was asked to come back for a practical test. I can't remember the brief I was given exactly but I do remember creating a bronze smokey-ish eye. I don't even want to look through my hard drive for a picture!🙈

My old store!

To my delight I was soon offered a place as a temp along with two other girls. We were brought in for two training days with the National Trainer at the time, Sheena, to go over some basic artistry training, product knowledge and sales training. Towards the end of the second day there was a point where the shop became busy and we were asked to start working. I was horrified 😂. The other girl I was training with, Julie (who became a good friend over our Inglot time together), jumped straight in with seemingly complete ease. I timidly asked a customer if I could help them and started to try to answer questions using what I had just learned and had researched myself at home. And so it began. I got used to speaking to customers, and of course my product knowledge grew every day. There's a lot of cleaning and stocking in retail, which I didn't mind because again as an introvert, dealing with customers constantly takes a lot of my energy. I started to do makeovers too, which I loved.

A few makeover pics I found from back in the day 👇🏽

 

The Christmas period flew by and soon we were into the new year. With the temporary contracts coming to an end, I was asked by the manager to stay on as an official Inglot MUA. Now that retail wasn't such a daunting idea and I once again found myself surrounded by girls who shared my passion, I was absolutely thrilled!

So, I continued my job and soon worked my way up to the position of Senior MUA. Later in the year, Sheena (the national trainer) was leaving, and our store supervisor Sarah Cummins then took her place. With the supervisor position now open in our store, I applied for the post...and was thrilled to be accepted and promoted!

During this period, Inglot Ireland was really starting to boom as they opened more and more stores around the country. With more and more staff to train, it was decided that having one trainer was not going to be possible. So there were now two "regional trainers", while each store was appointed one "store trainer" who would take care of the continuous training of the staff in their store, as well as training in new staff members. I was appointed store trainer for my store and once again was pleased to find hard work paying off.

One of my favourite parts of the job was teaching the Inglot courses. Back in the day only a couple people taught the courses in the store, and then it grew to be anyone who was at least a Senior MUA. I'm not sure how it works nowadays. When I began teaching I was super nervous. I hate public speaking, but I also love chatting makeup so that helped make it easier. After my first course I felt so much better about it and was already looking forward to my next one! I loved sharing my tips, tricks, product knowledge and techniques that I had learned over the years of doing makeup. Seeing how those things helped a student, and seeing their growth in both artistry and confidence was super rewarding. When I first started out, doing my courses was such an exciting and inspiring time for me, so I love reliving that with others.

So now we are talking 2016. As I said I was absolutely enjoying my time and my work at Inglot. I was extremely lucky to join the brand at an exciting time when it was new in Cork and growing across the country. At that time while sales was obviously necessary, and of course we had targets to meet every day, the brand was very artistry focussed. There came a point in that year where there was a decision in the brand to focus more on sales, as well as implement new company policies. As a growing company, of course this was natural for them to expand different aspects of their business. During that year I began to feel that the job was no longer the dream job that it once was, for me personally, but it could be the dream job for someone else. Meanwhile, my freelance work and clientele had been growing alongside me over the years, and I was now turning down a lot of work due to lack of availability. It came to a point where I felt my time at Inglot had come to an end, and I handed in my notice.

I have to say that the one thing I miss about the job is the girls I worked with. As I've said above, it's so fun to be around people who share your passion for something. As an artist I love learning from other MUAs and seeing how they work. I had the absolute pleasure of working under great managers and alongside super talented artists, and I learned so so much. The people I worked with and met at Inglot made my time there so special.

Miss these gals loads! 👆🏽

If you are here wondering about any of the "#InglotUnveiled" drama, I briefly spoke about this in a Brush Cleaning Chats video. From my personal perspective I didn't have heaps of super negative experiences. No more than most people at their jobs, I think. I feel I was also lucky to be in a store with great girls where we all got on really well. However, as I said in the video, while I didn't personally experience a lot of the stuff that came out, I also wasn't surprised.

Joining Inglot was one of the best things I have done for my career, but so was leaving Inglot. I did both at the right time for me, and gained lots of knowledge, industry experience and personal experience along the way. It really paved the way for the next phase of my career...

To Be Continued...
See Part 3