Joyce Connor - This Episode Is Guaranteed To Make You Feel Positive and Joyful!

Outspoken Beauty

Joyce Connor shares her transformative journey from a stifling marriage to building a thriving career as a makeup artist and beauty writer, all while

Key takeaways

• Joyce Connor divorced at 30 after a decade-long marriage, relocated to Manhattan with three young children, and discovered self-worth through inclusive makeup counters that finally matched her skin tone.
• She trained in beauty despite facing exclusionary industry standards in the 1990s, eventually winning Student of the Year at Dermalogica's International Dermal Institute for mastering skin anatomy.

Main topics

• Pro-ageing philosophy vs. anti-aging marketing
• Single motherhood & career entrepreneurship

Notable quotes

"Getting older isn't something we should take lightly. We should be, wow. I've made it to another day."

Conclusion

The episode delivers a deeply empowering blueprint for reclaiming pers

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:05) Hello, I'm Nicola Bond and this is the Outspoken Beauty Podcast. Now a couple of weeks ago I went to a body shop event and this lovely lady stopped me and said you smell gorgeous and that was the start of what I hope is going to become a friendship because just such a nice amazing person and now you're on the podcast. Joyce Connor, Speaker 1 (0:24) welcome. Good morning Nicola, I tell you what. As soon as you walked past me, you just had this energy around you that was so positive. And you wafted this amazing scent past me. I thought, I need to know what that is. It's funny, isn't it? Because you do sometimes meet people and Speaker 2 (0:50) you just think, you're my person. I think the thing with you though, Joyce, is I think you're... you're like, like people, since I put you on my Instagram, because I did a tiny little video where you just talked about kind of being positive about life and aging and about a hundred people are like, I know Joyce. I love Joyce. I think maybe you have just got, you've got the energy and everybody loves you. Speaker 1 (1:15) Oh, that's so nice to hear because you know, when you're just, just being me, I mean, you know, scratch. go back 30 years, I had zero confidence in myself. I didn't believe in myself and I didn't think that I was good enough. Isn't that strange? I mean, you do hear Speaker 2 (1:37) this a lot though, that women, because you're, if I remember rightly, you're 62, is that right? Yeah, Speaker 1 (1:41) 62, yeah. Yeah, Speaker 2 (1:42) you hear that a lot of women suddenly, well, they say, you know, they stop caring so much, but that kind of, yeah, 30s, 20s, just feeling, I mean, even 40s, just feeling like you're not good enough, imposter syndrome. And then suddenly you enter this new stage where, well, I hope the cliche is you step into your power. Speaker 1 (2:04) Exactly. Exactly that. And I think ageing, we should be pro-ageing. Getting older isn't something we should take lightly. We should be, wow. I've made it to another day. Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:24) Yeah. I really agree that kind of, you know, that fear of aging we have should turn into wonderment. Like, oh, my God, amazing. I'm here. I'm alive. I'm having fun. And yeah, it's funny. There's so much work to do to stop people being so negative about something that's truly, really amazing. Speaker 2 (2:44) Joyce, I need to go back though, because you are a really experienced beautician, makeup artist. And when did that all start for you? Like what made you want to enter the world of beauty? So strangely enough, I got divorced. Speaker 1 (3:00) How old were you when you got divorced? I was 30. Speaker 2 (3:03) So I've been married Speaker 1 (3:04) for 10 years. 10 years. And did you, what made you get divorced? What happened? My husband had been very ill and he kind of, everyone was, it was everyone's fault kind of thing. He was a very negative person. So I'd lived for 10 years with this negative person who, you know, everything was bad and everything should be his way kind of thing. And at the time, my mum was living in Manhattan. And she said, you know, come over. So there's me traipsing across the other side of the Atlantic with my three children. And I took them there. And the plan was for me to eventually get my green card like she did and stay. But the one thing that happened for me was I could get my makeup done. I couldn't get foundations or anything to match my skin. This is in the 90s. There was nothing for me. There were maybe two brands. Is this when you were in Manhattan you found this? No, no. In Manhattan, everyone had a foundation for me. Here in the UK, zero. You know, maybe two brands, if that. And so because of that, I was getting my makeup. I went to Macy's every day, had my makeup done at every counter. And every single person could do my skin tone. I went to Bloomingdale, same thing. I was so shocked. And you know what? That was the start of me feeling good. Wow. That was how I felt really good. So, you know, after six months, I thought, I can't live here. Speaker 1 (4:52) It sounds fun living in Manhattan, but it's constant sirens and noise. And, you know, they say it's the city that never sleeps. It's the city that never sleeps. Speaker 1 (5:06) It's just constant. My mum loved it, but I just couldn't. I just couldn't stay. So I came home and I thought, you know what? I want to give people back that feeling that I got from these counters that I was going around to. And so I saw a course and it said. uh beauty and makeup for mature students at 30 I was mature it's like when you have a baby over 30 you're geriatric aren't you or something like yeah it's all yeah Speaker 2 (5:38) yeah Speaker 1 (5:38) so I enrolled um and uh we we used a brand called Dermalogica as our skincare the makeup kit was shocking it was porcelain and beige were the two foundations in the kit And we got told anyone with darker skin will bring their own foundation, which I was shocked. Speaker 2 (6:01) Oh, my God. And obviously anyone with darker skin wouldn't because there was none available anyway at the time. Exactly. Exactly. So Speaker 1 (6:07) it was it was really bad. And so my things, my. tutors were teaching me were oh you know dark skins wear fuchsias and violets and I was thinking oh my god this is awful um I said I don't wear fuchsias and violets and she said well that's what it says in the book and that's what you're writing down and I oh it wasn't it wasn't the best experience let's put it that way but I learned a lot especially anatomy physiology how the skin works and that was very good for me to learn because a lot of people do makeup but they don't really know how skin works or they can't visually tell what the skin type is. So I then, I won the student of the year. Congratulations. What did that mean? What did that mean? So I won a year's free training at the international. It was called the IDI, the International Dermal Institute, which was Dermalogica's professional side where you went in and you did all of their courses. So, you know, fantastic. Sally Penford was there. That's when I met her. And she just, oh gosh, to be honest, the name of the other lady's gone out of my head. Speaker 2 (7:35) Is it? Oh my gosh. She's got short hair. I can't believe I've actually forgotten her name. Candice. Candice Gardner. Candice Gardner. Oh my God, Speaker 1 (7:43) Candice. I'm so sorry if you're listening to this and I've forgotten your name. But Sally and Candice taught me everything I know about skin. everything they are they are the most Speaker 2 (7:54) incredible women and um because I've worked with Dermalogica over the years and every time you speak to them you're just like yeah you you get it it's Speaker 1 (8:03) a Speaker 2 (8:03) great brand it's a great brand and they are fantastic Speaker 1 (8:07) you know Speaker 2 (8:08) their knowledge Speaker 1 (8:09) is endless and because of them I knew that dry skin isn't dehydrated skin yeah it's so different Who knew that? Who knew how the layers of the skin worked, how many layers we've got, all of that kind of stuff. And it gave me my grounding. Can I ask Speaker 2 (8:30) you, Speaker 1 (8:31) so you're obviously, Speaker 2 (8:32) you divorced your husband. Yes. And you'd kind of, you'd gone to Manhattan with your three kids. And then, you know, how old were your kids and how old were your kids when you were doing this? Because I love this feeling that you... you made some really important decisions for yourself whilst basically being a single mum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 (8:49) So they were 18 months, 9 and 10. Wow, Joyce. Yeah. And how did that work? How did you make it work? Oh, well, my mum only lived in a very small apartment. I say small apartment, but in America, they're not that small, you know. So I moved in with my mum. My brother was also in the same apartment building. He lived there too. So I had his support. You had support. My uncles and aunts and cousins, you know, my village was there. You see, yeah, women need a Speaker 2 (9:22) village. And did you have a village back in the UK as well? Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 (9:25) I'm child six of seven. Amazing. So I had so much support. It was amazing and everything. And then, you know, I went to college. I studied. It was really hard because I had one at nursery, one at primary school, one at secondary school by the time I enrolled. And I was rushing around. I lost so much weight because I was so stressed out trying to manage. And also, financially, training is, you know, it's difficult with kids. You know, so I had to give up my full time job. And, you know. What was your job at the time? So I was a nanny. You were a nanny? Yeah. Wow. Triplets. Lucky me. Speaker 2 (10:10) Blimey. Yeah. Okay, so amazing. So I really like that feeling of taking, you took control of your life in every way. You left the man that wasn't Speaker 1 (10:19) right for you and you knew what you wanted to do. And I really like the fact that beauty was your saviour in a way. Yeah, it was, absolutely. And then, you know, I left college and my friend said to me, we need someone doing beauty in the local leisure centre. And I thought, oh, I don't know. So we negotiated and I opened. And on the first day of my business, we had a power cut. And I thought, oh, this is a mistake. I don't know if this is going to work. And honestly, I grew to having three salons. I had three salons and I was doing bridal makeup. But back then it was just the yellow pages. Yes. I remember the yellow page. I love those simple Speaker 2 (11:07) days. Speaker 1 (11:07) Yeah, yeah, Speaker 2 (11:09) yeah. Speaker 1 (11:09) There was no, not everyone had the internet. And it wasn't a thing. There was no social media. You just had word of mouth, yellow pages. And that's how things grew. So I then went on, I employed seven staff to run the salons and I did the makeup and I chose bridal makeup because I didn't want to leave my children for long periods of time. And I've tried everything. You know, I've tried film, I've tried TV, I've tried all kinds of stuff. But the bridal route was the best route at the time. Yeah. And it really worked. It really worked. And my mum eventually came back to the UK and she was my saving grace. She had my children every