Meet Tia Williams: The Pioneer of Beauty Blogging to Writing for Beauty Brands (While Writing Novels)
There is no doubt that Tia Williams loves to write, she penned her first novel on a steno pad at the age of seven, complete with an author's bio and her photo. But she's also loved beauty for as long as she can remember.
“I was just obsessed with makeup. Obsessed with Kevyn Aucoin and Sandy Linter, and Way Bandy, and all these amazing, iconic legendary makeup artists. I was obsessed with fashion shows and what happened behind the scenes. I love the designers and the makeup artists creating the looks and was obsessed with the makeup itself, I would go to the drugstore and salivate over Maybelline.
Tia turned her obsession into a successful career, writing about beauty. Her first job lasted for just three months while working there, as a beauty assistant at YM and then working at the Beauty department at Elle Magazine. Tia explains that the mentorship and guidance she received from her then-boss, Jean Godfrey June, changed her life. “Jean taught me how to write. She really, really did. Well, she helped me refine my voice, too. To this day, you know, 20 years later, I think what would Jean say? She was just, I mean, she's one of the legendary beauty editors of our time.”
When Tia started ‘Shake Your Beauty’ It was during the early years of blogging, and at that time few were focused on the interests of Black women. “ I was the beauty director of Teen People at the time, which is now defunct, but it was People magazines, sort of sister. And Amy Barnett was editor-in-chief, who is an amazing black woman. And I had resigned because I had written my first novel, and I was young. And I thought that "Oh, I'm an author now, like, this is what I'll do." I didn't realize that authors didn't really make any money. And I was talking to my literary agent and I was like, "Oh, this you know, I'm excited to be a novelist, but beauty is the other half of me. I'm really gonna miss having this voice," She said, start a blog and I was like, "I'm sorry, what is a blog? I've never heard of a blog?" I don't know, it sounds like a made-up word. What are you talking about? And, um, she showed me a couple on WordPress or Blogspot. She told me it's basically, your beauty diary, and you can still maintain your voice and still talk to your audience and, have this unique sort of the Black point of view on you know, beauty which honestly, was super rare back then [in blogs}, like, we just didn't have that. And it's very analog to think about it now because there were no social media platforms. I mean, I got out the word by sending out a mass email to people You know, and it just caught on and it got bigger than I ever thought it would have. And, you know, it sort of kick-started a movement I was one of the pioneers of beauty blogging, so it's pretty cool.”
After returning to freelancing for magazines and a brief stint as a radio host for Cosmo's Sirius channel, Tia decided to try her hand at working on beauty's corporate side. She quickly found out that there was a learning curve she needed to master.
“It's different. Yeah. So when you're working corporate, it's not it's no longer about your voice. It's about the voice of whatever brand you're inhabiting at the time. So you have to be nimble because you know if you work at L'Oreal, [it's] going to sound different than Coty and Coty is going to sound different than you know a brand like LVMH. So you just have to know how to massage your voice.”
All along this journey, Tia has also been writing novels. Her first, "The Accidental Diva" came out when she was at Teen People. In addition, she wrote a series of YA books under The It Chicks banner before releasing "The Perfect Find" four years ago. That most recently was turned into a Netflix movie starring and produced by Gabrielle and her most recent novel, Seven Days In June. so how did the Gabrielle Union, Netflix deal happen?
“Well, our friend Robinne Lee [author of "The Idea of You"]...she and Gabrielle are really close friends and Robinne was reading my book and I think Gabrielle was going on vacation, Robbinne's like you should read "The Perfect Find" on vacation. And [Gabrielle] was I like, I love this, I want to do something with this. And the whole thing was just surreal. Because all you want I mean, I don't know any novelists who doesn't dream about their work being made into a movie. I've always wanted that.”
In addition to all of these great things, Tia shares her thoughts on the maximum time one should stay at a job, what she looks for when hiring someone on her team, her best interview prep tip, and insight on why her first beauty purchase was so wrong.
Click below to listen to Tia’s full interview.