FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — It’s time to put the spotlight on a man who helps so many people feel their best through makeup.
Daniel McFadden once lived on the West Coast and worked with A-listers in Hollywood, but he has recently returned to his East Coast roots.
Now that he’s living here in South Florida, he’s working at the Color House Collective in Fort Lauderdale, which is where he conceals the deal on each of his clients.
McFadden is one of South Florida’s most polished pros in the world of makeup.
“One of the most important things in my career is helping people to feel better about themselves,” he said. “Growing up, my goal in life, which I thought would be the coolest job ever, was to drive a school bus. That’s all I wanted to do. I could dream about it. Obviously, that didn’t happen. When I went to the Art Institute, one of my teachers asked me, ‘You ever thought about being a makeup artist?’”
And that he did, dropping the idea of driving the wheels on the bus and finding his calling in cosmetics.
His journey began 30 years ago.
“I was working in Philadelphia and New York, commuting back and forth. And always had clients that would say, ‘Why aren’t you out in Hollywood? Why aren’t you working on the stars and on TV, telling women how to do their makeup?’ And I thought I was a little camera shy, a little stage fright, and that seemed like quite a big journey for me, but I went,” McFadden said. “I said I will give Los Angeles one year and I stayed for 27 years. I eventually started my own cosmetics line and met a lot of celebrities and it was an incredible journey for me.”
After making a name for himself, he left the red carpets and the star-studded sessions behind and traded coasts again -- this time for sunshine and a fresh start in sunny South Florida.
“Coming to the East Coast -- this is coming home for me,” McFadden said. “I was always an East Coaster, so Fort Lauderdale is where you came to grab a tan and have a lot of fun.”
South Florida is a different vibe, calling for a different style and McFadden delivered, giving his product line, “Daniel McFadden Cosmetics,” a bold, bright and bronzed South Florida makeover.
“Being here, it’s changing -- learning the customers that are here and knowing that like women here, they like bright lipstick, they want flamingo pink nail polish and they want boom, boom bronze lipstick,” he said. “It’s more fun, it’s more spirited. They want sheer foundation -- maybe something with an SPF.”
But for McFadden, there’s something much deeper behind all of the glam.
“I think I was a kid that didn’t feel so great about myself,” he said. “And so for me, it wasn’t always meeting the celebrities. But if I have a choice of an A-list celebrity or helping a lady that doesn’t feel so good about the way she looks, I want to help that lady because I know cosmetics can make any woman look better, and sometimes when you show them a trick and you zoom in on their face and you realize that their eyes are their best feature or their lips or their bone structure or the color of their skin -- whatever it is (that) is the best feature -- and you show them how to bring that out, you give someone that confidence, their face kind of lights up and their whole mood changes.”
For more information on McFadden’s journey in cosmetics or to learn more about the Color House Collective, click here or visit McFadden Instagram page.
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