From being an engineer to now a full-time content creator, Mukul Richards aka @mukulrichards_makeupartist has had quite the journey. She has been creating content regularly since 2018, but the path to that destination wasn’t the easiest.
Engineer to retail employee to content creator
There were a few stops for Mukul before she could finally realize her dream of being an influencer. She she quit her job in the tech world after working with big brands such as IBM and HCL when she realized that she wasn’t happy. She says, “I wanted to get into fashion designing but since that would be very expensive, I decided to try out my hand at makeup. And in India, the entire makeup scene is not very hi fi or on point. So I decided that a better place to learn makeup would be at a place like Mac. I interviewed with them and joined them as a retail employee and worked with them for 4 years. I was also involved in their social media marketing when they launched in India.”
Mukul was also involved in the social media marketing of Mac and there she learnt a few tips and tricks. “I was one of the first few faces of Mac on Instagram. There, I leant a lot of tricks of makeup and tips to help out with darker skintones and hyper pigmentation. I learnt techniques to make one’s dark circles look more natural and I learnt that they don’t always have to look white after putting makeup on. They can look exactly like your skin if you follow the right techniques. When I started sharing these on social media, it worked in a big way and that’s how it all took off,” says the Indian makeup influencer.
The vision
Mukul always wanted to follow on the footsteps of the OG makeup creators like Jaclyn Hill. She was passionate about makeup from the beginning. “Now I get to it and I enjoy it. Of course, there are challenges but nothing beats the feeling I get when a girl comes to me and thanks me for helping them conceal their stitch marks or dark circles. That’s when my day is made,” says Mukul, who has 99k followers on Instagram.
The battle of quality and quantity
One of the main pressures that come with being an influencer is the expectation of delivering a certain amount of content. This makes it difficult for a lot of people to maintain a balance in life. But Mukul says she has found a sort of system to deal with the pressure. ” I am full time house wife as well so it is tough to manage everything. But there are a couple of things you have to keep in mind. On social media, there are two things you have to ensure – quality and quantity. I solved the quality problem when after much deliberation I finally bought an iphone because everyone said the video quality is so much better. And as for quantity, I make my content in batches. So when I sit to shoot a video, I make sure I shoot enough content to at least be able to take out 4-5 videos from that shoot,” she says.
The Mumbai-based fashion and beauty blogger adds that some times she has to shoot late nights and ensure that she has created the best quality content for her followers. “If I don’t find time to shoot during the day, I ensure that I sit from 9.30pm to even 2-3am to finish shooting. There have been times when I have had deadlines and I am sitting there with eye lashes on at 5am in the morning just to finish making content. But its also fun. At the end when you see the video, you feel good and it pays off,” concludes Mukul.
We at Chtrbox are thrilled to see Mukul break some beauty myths through her videos and we want to keep learning new tricks and tips of makeup from her!
Mukul is managed by Chtrbox Represent, the talent representation division of Chtrbox. Chtrbox Represent is proud to help power some of India’s top influencers who are category experts across fashion, beauty, travel, lifestyle, tech and more.