She couldn’t afford beauty school. Now, this N.J. Latina is a jet-setting celebrity makeup artist. | Calavia-Robertson

In her group of friends, and basically everywhere else, Nydia Figueroa Cabrera is a star. I met her years ago when I worked as a journalist in New York and have seen her flourish. (She's now also a fan-favorite in my new WhatsApp group chat , but more on that if you keep scrolling.) The 37-year-old celebrity makeup artist, who was born in Newark to Puerto Rican parents, now spends most of her time helping A-listers shine.

She's regularly on the red carpet touching up reality stars (Think "The Real Housewives" franchise, "The Bachelor" and "Love is Blind."), behind-the-scenes at the MTV Video Music Awards glamming up singers before they hit the stage, or hanging out with Miss Universe, the oh-so-gorgeous Nicaragüense Sheynnis Palacios, as she dolls her up for her next photo shoot. (I'm half Nicaraguan so for me this is a one!)

"If you would've told me, when I was a little girl, that I'd grow up to do all of these amazing things, I never, ever would've believed it," Nydia tells me excitedly. Her path to career success in the "extremely competitive" makeup industry, she says, has been unconventional.

She tells me although she grew up in "a very loving home," it was in a rough neighborhood, and says her family did not have enough money for her to attend beauty school or pursue a higher education. "When I was younger, I couldn't afford to go to beauty or cosmetology school and now, I teach at a makeup academy in Hoboken," she says. "Sometimes life is kind of funny like that."

So, how she get her start and how did she land such an impressive roster of celebrity clients? Well, Nydia, who's a self-taught makeup artist, unknowingly lived by the "fake it till you make it" mantra. When she fell in love with makeup as a senior in high school, she visited the MAC counter at Nordstrom in Edison's Menlo Park so much that customers soon started to think she worked there. She'd sometimes even advise strangers on blush colors and tones.

One day, during a casual conversation with an actual employee, she was asked if she'd like to work there. "She asked me if I had experience and I blurted out 'yes!' but of course, that was a lie," she says laughingly. "She then asked me if I went to school for it, and again, I said 'yes!' but I hadn't. I'm not a liar, or anything like that, but I just kept blurting out 'yes!' ...I really, really wanted that job."

After a series of tests, two of them "nerve-racking" makeup trials, she was hired. "And the rest is history," she says. "That was sort of my big break and the launching pad for so many of the wonderful opportunities I've had, because MAC was, and still is, so big, that it really allowed me to learn, to develop my skills, to be mentored, to meet new people, to make important connections, and to grow as an artist."

It's because of her work at the beauty brand, she says, that she first connected with many of the famous artists she now counts as clients. She worked for the company at a variety of locations in N.J. for 13 years.

Since leaving MAC in 2017, she's worked with one of her idols, Eve Pearl , a 5-time Emmy award-winning makeup artist, opened her own makeup studio in Cedar Grove, N.J., and established herself as a senior director and beauty product retailer for LimeLife by Alcone , a professional makeup brand. (Yes, she juggles all of that with jet-setting around the country to glam celebs!)

And yet, despite her ultra-busy schedule, Nydia, who last October married Panamanian fashion designer Gerardy Cabrera , tells me she somehow still has time for her hubby and for one of their favorite shared interests: philanthropy. Several times a year, she does bedside makeup for patients at Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, organizes a series of charitable events in Newark for girls of color from low-income homes ( like this one that I wrote about in 2022), and hosts holiday parties for unhoused people from different N.J. shelters. Like I said, she's a star.

"No," she laughs. "I'm just a person who's trying to use the talents God's given me to show other Latinas, both little girls and grown or older women, that no matter what background you're from, you create your own story," she says.

"If you have faith and stay the course, anything is possible ...and as Latinas, it's important for us to know that we good enough, and that we do belong in every space we want to be in, regardless of how many times we're told or made to feel otherwise. We belong there and we can shine." And for that, and for so many other reasons, Nydia's a true Latino.

? Readers of My Group Chat newsletter got the first scoop on Nydia during this week's edition. The weekly newsletter highlights all the topics that we, Millennial POCs, care about most. From news to pop culture and everything in between, nothing's off the table. Sign up here. And now, more than 200 of us are chatting all day long in WhatsApp. Come join us!

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