DAWESVILLE creative makeup artist Courtney Leigh Hollins brushed off the competition at Australia’s 2018 NYX Face Awards and won a $10,000 trip to LA.
The mother of one, a qualified makeup artist of four years, was crowned this year’s Face Awards champion at Luna Park on Saturday and took home a year’s worth of NYX products and a sponsorship with the brand.
“I went into shock when they called my name and I think I was crying – I’m still pinching myself and it doesn’t feel real,” she said.
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READ NOW“I didn’t even organise my passport because I was sure I wasn’t going to win and didn’t want to set myself up for disappointment.”
With more than 11,600 Instagram followers and 19,000 Facebook followers, Ms Hollins said she worked hard to build her social media following for the competition this year.
WARNING: The below video contains coarse language.
“I entered last year but my social media was small,” she said.
“Coming into it this year, my social media engagement is really good and the competition is based on public voting so I needed to lift my social media game.”
“I made it to the final six in last year’s competition, and was the only person from WA to land a spot in the Top 30 and Top six”.
This year’s final winning design, named Lizard Woman based on the theme Carnival, took the Mandurah mum almost five days to create.
“The frill took a whole day to create, the face prosthetics took three days with colouring and detailing and the application took eight hours,” Ms Hollins said.
“We turned my garage into a circus tent and I filmed at King Carnival for my final design video, to keep it local to Mandurah.”
The near future is bright for Miss Hollins who hopes to travel and conduct creative makeup artistry workshops internationally.
“I’m just an Aussie mum from little town Mandurah that wants to make it big,” she said.