Replay: A Podcast Takeover with Bold Blind Beauty's Rising Stars

Episode title and number: Replay: A Podcast Takeover with Bold Blind Beauty's Rising Stars 4-#4

Summary of the show:
In this special 'replay' edition of the Bold Blind Beauty On A.I.R. Podcast, interns take over to share their fresh perspectives and journey through the world of demystifying blindness, beauty, accessibility, and inclusivity. Featuring Dana Hinnant, Beauty Editor of Bold Blind Beauty, the episode explores the intersection of beauty with accessibility, the importance of representation, and pathways for people with disabilities in all industry levels.

Co-hosts Ryan Maxwell, Christine Barosi, and Marta DeVito, delve into their backgrounds and aspirations, contributing to a conversation that highlights the significance of beauty for everyone, including individuals with visual impairments. Dana shares her sight loss journey, the challenges and triumphs of pursuing a career in the beauty industry as a visually impaired individual, and discusses the evolving recognition of blind and visually impaired women in beauty and makeup. The episode also covers natural skin care methods and the role of beauty in self-esteem and representation.

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Bullet points of key topics & timestamps:
00:00 | Welcome to the Replay Edition!
01:51 | Intern Takeover 
02:28 | Meet the Interns: Diverse Backgrounds, United by Passion
05:37 | A Beauty Editor's Journey
06:06 | Breaking Barriers in Beauty
11:12 | Empowerment Through Beauty
13:42 | Natural Skincare Tips from an Expert
15:32 | Supporting Bold Blind Beauty's Mission
16:27 | Wrapping Up

Connect with Bold Blind Beauty to learn more about our advocacy:

• Join our Instagram community @BoldBlindBeauty
• Subscribe to our YouTube channel @BoldBlindBeauty
• Check out our website www.boldblindbeauty.com

Music Credit: "Ambient Uplifting Harmonic Happy" By Panda-x-music https://audiojungle.net/item/ambient-uplifting-harmonic-happy/46309958

Thanks for listening!❤️

Transcript

0:19

Welcome to a special "replay" edition of the Bold Blind Beauty On A.I.R. Podcast! Today we're diving back into one of our most unique episodes, an intern takeover. Let's relive the moment our interns brought their fresh perspectives and dynamic energy shining a new light on our ongoing conversation about demystifying blindness. Join us as we highlight their voices and experiences, along with our featured guest Dana Hinnant, the Beauty Editor of Bold Blind Beauty. Get ready as we engage in powerful conversations, share compelling stories, and uncover invaluable insights. Together, we'll explore the intersection of beauty, accessibility, and inclusivity, breaking barriers, and building understanding. As we reflect on this episode, let us remember the importance of hiring people with disabilities at all levels, from the boardroom to entry level and throughout, to achieve real Access, Inclusion, and Representation in all industries and organizations. We apologize in advance for the fluctuations in sound quality. Thank you for your understanding and enjoy the show. Hi, welcome back to another episode of Bold Blind Beauty On A.I.R. Bold Blind Beauty On A.I.R. is clearing the air for more A.I.R. Accessibility, inclusion, and representation. I'm Ryan Maxwell. I'm Christine Barosi. I'm Marta DeVito. We are your co hosts, and this is the podcast Takeover. You may be wondering, what is a podcast Takeover? And what happened to our regular co hosts, Steph, Nasreen, and Sylvia? We, Christine, Marta, and I, are actually interns working with Bold Blind Beauty's virtual work experience program. During our internship, we will be gaining real world work experience with a social enterprise. The skills we learn at Bold Blind Beauty will benefit us by being transferable and will help us create our own opportunities. And now a little bit about us, as I said before, I'm Christine Barosi, an incoming graduate student at Fordham University. I have a background in psychology because of my bachelor's degree from Lehman College. I'm currently working to become a cybercrime analyst. and have gained a new passion for data. In September, I'll be starting my first master's degree. It's a new challenge, but I'm excited to tackle it. When I'm not studying, my hobbies include gaming, reading, and watching movies. I'm excited to be working with Bold Blind Beauty and hope to gain new perspectives as well as practical experience to take my skills even further. Christine, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I feel like it's so wild that we have just met each other a few weeks ago, and yet we have so many similarities. I too am an avid reader, and I also am coming from a psychology background. In fact, I'm going to be a neuroscience major as an incoming freshman at Binghamton University in Vestal, New York. I'm an aspiring social worker, or maybe clinical psychologist. I guess? In the fall, I'm going to be starting to work in Dr. Debra Christ's lab, doing some really interesting, spicy research about OCD and social anxiety. I am just so excited to be working with Bold Blind Beauty because I have a great passion for helping people with disabilities just to be empowered and to strive towards a more equitable future. And it's obviously a great honor to be working alongside a great team of really qualified, smart, and talented interns. Thanks, Ryan. I totally agree with you, and I'm so excited to be working with Christine as well. Hi, everyone. I'm Marta DeVito, and I'm an advocate for people with disabilities. I'm currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in communication from Purdue University Global. I am so excited to be working with a company like Bold Blind Beauty. I'm also excited to be getting hands on work experience that will help me develop the skills I need to one day be a communication representative for a non profit for people with disabilities, because I believe that people with disabilities deserve to find their own voice. So, we hope you enjoy today's episode. Our guest is Dana Hinnant, a self professed beauty junkie, former makeup artist and esthetician by trade, and the beauty editor at Bold Blind Beauty. We now turn it over to our regular co-hosts Steph, Sylvia and Nasreen. Hey, Dana. Welcome to Bold Blind Beauty On A.I.R. Thank you. It is a pleasure to be with you today. Dana, can you share with us your sight loss journey? Yes, sure. I have what is called retinopathy due to prematurity. I was a premature baby. I was also a twin. Basically my low vision resulted in the treatments that I received. So I referred to myself as a lifer, old school, visually impaired person. I still have low vision, and I went to regular public schools, just received vision services while throughout my elementary, middle school years and high school. Once I got out, I didn't really have the resources about when a person who was visually impaired goes through the whole transitioning youth aspect of things. Because back in the early 90s, information wasn't available. It's more challenging if you didn't have the resources or didn't have the connections to help you with the next steps of your life. So I was boots on the ground, in the trenches, whatever resources that we found, (meaning me and my family) then we went with what we found out. It was very challenging. If you talk to anybody who's been a lifer with their visual impairment, and they started their journey before all of this technology came to be, they will tell you, yeah, it was, it's not like it is now. So I, I went to community college first and received disability support services for my classes. Then I transferred, once I got my associate's degree, I transferred to university of Maryland and got support from the disability support services. It was okay, but it wasn't easy. The college part, that's a whole nother book. When I graduated from college, I wanted to go to beauty school. I always loved beauty since I was really young and used to be for those of us who go into the beauty industry it usually starts very young. And I didn't take this chance when I was in high school to either go do a cosmetology program in an area high school. By the time I got out of college, I was in my late twenties because I went to school part time. My mom was like, do you still want to go to beauty school? And I said, Yes, this is my last semester graduating from college. And she said, we're going to make that happen for you. So that kept my energy flowing and positivity because I knew I was getting ready to pursue something that I really, really wanted to do. I went to a very good beauty school. I had very good support staff. I went for makeup first when I actually gave out licensing for makeup artists. I went, went through that. And I thought once I did that, I want to sit for my board. I want to become the esthetician. I want the higher license. So after I graduated, I did some local things in the area. I went back to the same school and got the training to get the certifications for my state boards. The school wasn't used to dealing with somebody who has a visual impairment, at least at the time that I went. They had people with other disabilities that attended the program, but not quite like mine, and they had some type of bad experience with that one person, and they kind of had the opinion that they might have the same experience, but they realized that I was very different, and I did extremely well in that program. So. It's been a journey, it hasn't been an easy one to go, to crack the glass ceiling, to go into an industry that's not necessarily traditional for somebody who has a quote unquote disability, because back when I was coming through, if you had a visual impairment at the time, I live in the D. C. metropolitan area, and a lot of times for people who are visually impaired, they would recommend get a government job. Easy to get into the government. And I did that for a little while, found that I don't like office jobs. So that was not for me. So I felt like I was a trailblazer early on because I didn't have anybody that looked like me that was going through what I was going through to, to tackle the industry, may not recognize people who have visual impairment. So it wasn't easy but the journey was definitely worth it because it was some, some ups and downs, like with anything else. But I, I persevered through all of that. Dana, I love that you went for your passion. And as you said, you went into something that there are probably very few people who are visually impaired working in the beauty industry, especially as aestheticians. So why should women who are visually impaired like Steph Nasreen and I really get excited and care about beauty, about makeup, about skincare? Now I can tell you all three of us do, but for our audience, why should we care about that? Well, we should care about that because we also want to look good. One of the things that I have noticed is the beauty industry is recognizing that blind and visually impaired women do love beauty and we do care what we look like. So they're recognizing that, which they never recognized before. So we're seen as being relevant and that's thanks to some of the visually impaired, blind beauty bloggers that are out there that have a lot of followers showing how they apply their makeup. And the industry is trying to be a little bit more inclusive and even with the packaging, creating packaging for tactile purposes for somebody who can't see. One of the major cosmetic companies has a blind ambassador as one of their spokespersons. So we should be excited about beauty because we want to look good too. And it's a part of our wealth. I totally agree. I, I can tell you that over the past year and a half, when we haven't had to fix up our hair and put on the makeup and the jewelry and get all dressed up when I now get to do that, I'm like so excited to do it. Yes. If nothing else, we do it for ourselves. I tell people when I put myself together, my outfit and you know, I don't wear a lot of makeup because I wear it as a finisher, but I do it for myself not to impress anybody else. Because whether we can see or not, we're being seen. So people are looking at how we present ourselves. So that's very important. That's an excellent point that you make, Dana. I like to say, when you feel good, you look good. Believing that beauty resides on the inside. That reflects on the outside. So when you feel good, you look good. And as you say, using makeup as a finisher, it only helps to illuminate what's on the inside. I agree. I agree. So, what I wanted to ask you was, one of the things that I'm interested in, in regards to skin care, are natural methods. Can you recommend any natural ways of caring for our skin, such as using essential oils, perhaps products for people with sensitive skin? As we age, is there anything out there that you're aware of, or can you make any recommendations? It all depends on what a person is going through and you're not in my chair or anything like that. I'm not doing a consult with you. I love oils. Sometimes they'll pop up in magazine articles, like it's the new hottest thing. No, it's not. It's just popular at the moment, but we as estheticians have used oils for years. So I like jojoba oil. Because that mimics the sebum in your skin. I like grapeseed oil and, and that is a good moisturizer. If you're having sensitivities, if you kind of find yourself having a bit of a rash, maybe from eczema. The properties that are in grapeseed oil helps with the skin barrier function. I like argan oil for those fine lines, wrinkles for our ageless skin care, I'm not going to say anti aging, but ageless. And marula oil is one of the hot oils that is being talked about as another, more potent, ageless oil for wrinkles and fine lines and even acne. Would you spell that for us? M-A-R-U-L-A. At boldblindbeauty.com, we sell a message of empowerment, acceptance and hope conveyed through our fashionicon Abby. Our mission is to improve humanity, by changing the way we perceive one another. When you shop our online store, you support our mission and projects such as this podcast. The Blind Chicks with Attitude Racerback Tank is soft, lightweight, and form fitting, with a flattering cut and raw edge seams for an edgy touch. An abby trio is front and center. Directly under the trio is the slogan with the word Attitude in non tactile braille. For full product details, please visit BoldBlindBeauty. com. Thank you, Dana, Sylvia, Nasreen, and Steph for this amazing conversation. If you'd like to connect with Dana, you can do so at BoldBlindBeauty. com. So please share this and ask your friends to subscribe and follow us and join us for our next podcast on Bold Blind Beauty On A.I.R.. Thanks for listening!