I’m Desi Perkins.
I’m a social media influencer.
I make beauty tutorials on YouTube,
fashion videos, lifestyle.
I grew up in LA and I’m Mexican-American.
Today I’m going to be going around LA
to dig a little deeper into my Mexican culture
and really show that beauty is more than
just skin deep.
The first stop is El Mercado
and this is located in the thriving Latino community
of Boyle Heights.
Here I’m meeting Jesse Tapia, a local,
to show me around.
Hi!
I’m Desi.
I’m Jesse.
Nice to meet you.
—So excited to show you Al Mercadito today. —Me too.
Before we get started,
I have one quick spot to show you.
Alright, let’s go.
Great. Let’s go.
So this mural, basically everyone that comes
visit Al Mercadito comes and prays to her.
They bring her flowers.
They bring her candles.
This is always kind of an either first stop or a last stop.
It’s beautiful.
Let’s go check out the market.
I love Mexican candy. It’s the best.
Have you tried the coco one?
It’s really good.
These are called sages.
You turn them on.
It’s basically to cleanse your house.
All the bad spirits will go away.
Oh yeah, girl.
I have definitely seen that in my day.
My mom and my aunt are
always cleansing new houses.
Nobody wants evil spirits.
No.
Right.
Jesse showed me around the market.
I got to relive my memories.
We had drinks that reminded me of
memories growing up in Mexico.
Just like how I remembered it.
It’s really good.
Mmhmm.
It’s really, really good.
It’s so weird having these again.
It’s been so long.
I think the last time I was 15.
Wow.
Yeah.
But what really caught my eye was
a store that sold natural Mexican remedies.
—Hi I’m Desi. Nice to meet you. –Hi. Nice to meet you.
Hi I’m Jesse.
Nice meeting you.
I’m really into skin care and so I wanted to see
if you had any good remedies for me.
For the teeth we have the charcoal,
which also has other plants in there.
It’s a wonderful remedy to
make your teeth very healthy.
And you make all of these?
Yes. I use them all. I prepare them all.
So they are all natural.
You have beautiful skin so I can see that.
Thank you.
And we make a deodorant.
A natural deodorant.
Which is also made from a stone
and is free of any radicals, chemicals.
It’s call alumbre.
Would you like to try it?
I do. I need to. It’s hot outside.
Yeah.
It does smell really fresh.
Exactly.
But clean.
You know, just in case.
I’m going to have to put it to the test
today and make sure I don’t stink later.
Thank you.
You are very welcome.
I’m going to take this.
Okay.
To dive deeper, Jesse sent me to the next stop
of the day.
Herbs of Mexico is another Boyle Heights institution.
It’s an herb and wellness store that originated
in the ‘60s and still serves the community today.
Buenas dias! I’m Desi.
—Jade. Nice to meet you. —It’s nice to meet you.
I met up with herbal specialist, Jade Lopez,
to further explore traditional Mexican remedies.
Is there a mask that you would like to make?
Definitely.
I would love to learn. Let’s do it.
So here’s what I have for us today.
Bentonite clay, it’s also known as Aztec clay.
The herb that I recommend that you use for dark spots
is gonna be tepezcohuite.
This is a tried and true Mexican herb
for burns, for scarring, for reducing blotchiness,
and discoloration in general.
—So this is a magic herb. —Ooh. I like that.
I never use teaspoons or tablespoons.
That’s how old Mexicans do it.
That’s the abuela way.
They don’t even own measuring cups.
And then you can add any essential oil,
but the oil that’s going to be most important
is probably like an emollient oil like
almond oil, jojoba, olive oil.
But I think I’m going to use the moringa oil
because this is also another amazing herb
that’s used for everything from skin care,
balancing sugar levels.
A lot of people just take it as their daily superfood.
And you’re just going to do a thin layer
like that all over your face.
And this is really great for blackheads...
—Ooh yes.
...skin discoloration.
Wait for it to dry and then wash it off
with warm water.
And it’s a natural exfoliant.
Can I take these?
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay.
Bye!
Another big trend in the beauty world,
especially in Latin America,
is permanent makeup or micropigmenting,
which is the process of tattooing semi-permanent
makeup on your face.
Elite Permanent Makeup Center is
leading the industry in permanent makeup.
So I met up with specialist, Shunashy Jimenez,
to learn more.
So permanent makeup has definitely been around
for a very long time.
Now it’s having a bit of a resurgence
where people are more so looking to get it done
but more on the natural end of the spectrum.
Whereas before it was more of the old school
style where you could tell it was permanent
—makeup. —Oh yeah.
I’ve seen some brows.
Really thin, kind of Sharpie-looking brows.
So what kind of permanent makeup are people
doing exactly now?
What are all the options?
So right now the most common one is microblading.
Microblading for sure.
The lips.
The lips, definitely.
So lipliner or...?
The full lip actually.
And I feel like, especially in Latin America,
we love our liner and we love our brows.
So it’s definitely becoming really popular
in a lot of cultures, but definitely in the more
kind of Hispanic, Latin American culture.
I, myself for example, am Mexican.
So I actually have my brows, my eyes, and my lips done.
And my mom, she has it all done also.
—Brows, eyes, lips too. —Oh yeah. My aunts too.
Yeah. We can actually go watch the owner
do one right now.
Oh yes!
We have to. Let’s do it.
Let’s go see that.
Okay so we’re going to go ahead and
we’re going to introduce you to the owner, Mahnaz.
—Hi. –Hi.
I’m Desi.
NIce to meet you.
Alright so how does this work?
What do you use to do it?
We use this digital cartridge machine.
This is the color she chose.
Ooh nice.
This is all disposable.
It’s really safe.
This is the machine and this is the needle.
Are you nervous?
I hope it doesn’t hurt.
No it’s not going to hurt.
I feel nervous just watching this.
It’s about to start.
Ready?
I’m going to start from the bottom of the lips
because she doesn’t want any line or
any lipliner.
She wants just natural-looking
like everything blended.
Is it painful?
(disagrees)
It’s not painful.
It actually ended up looking really relaxing.
So how long does this last, the tattoo?
It lasts for a couple of years.
It depends on the skin.
On some skin, it fades faster.
And on some skin, it stays longer
but it depends on how she takes care of it.
Oh my god!
It looks so good!
Wow.
And it does look natural.
You have really flushed lips.
So did it hurt?
No.
I just felt a vibration.
I could feel the machine.
But no, it was super numb.
Oh it looks really good.
So pretty.
Wow. That’s incredible.
Really cool.
For the last stop of the day,
I’m visiting celebrity makeup artist, Andre Sarmiento,
to talk to me more about the impact
of Latinas and beauty.
—Hi Desi! How are you, honey? —Hi!
I’m excited to play with makeup today.
I know. Thank you for coming today.
Andre’s work has been featured in the pages of “Elle,”
“Cosmopolitan,” “Glamour,”
and “Vogue.”
I’m seeing a lot of Latina-owned brands here.
Yes, exactly.
That is our focus today.
Since you brought your lovely makeup,
I figured it would be great to explore other brands
that have been created by other Latina entrepreneurs
such as yourself.
So let’s play with some eyes.
Let’s play a bit with your palette.
This is exciting.
Wow that is gorgeous.
Yeah I actually created this with my best friend, Katy.
Another Latina.
Yeah she’s also a Latina.
I heard that you were a big Selena fan.
And I happen to have some of the collection
—here with me today for us to play with. —Yay!
Selena from Mac.
Also it's really amazing that her legacy continues on
in beauty and since beauty is such a big thing today,
it’s just so cool that her name gets to be
part of something that’s so huge.
Yeah and I feel like she was such a strong
influence for a lot of women growing up,
a lot of Mexican-American women especially.
I’m Mexican-American and she was the ideal beauty
for me.
She gave me more confidence to be proud
to be Mexican-American.
I feel like that’s such a good thing because
she really broke through.
She did.
And it makes me sad and I don’t even want to.
I know I can’t even use it.
I have it and I don’t even want to use it but…
I’m going to tap the edge over here because
I don’t want to brush over Selena at all.
I know it hurts kind of, right?
Being Latina, especially my skin tone,
I feel like it’s really hard to find foundation
shades that have that really olive undertone.
Our whole collection, we wanted to make sure
anywhere from really fair to really deep skin
tones can wear it.
Yeah that’s so smart.
It’s hard to kind of get that nuance, that subtlety.
They may not always have the thing we need.
But we have to try this amazing highlighter
of yours called Fuego.
Fuego!
You know I had to hit ‘em with some
Spanish pigment.
Yes. You had to.
This is amazing.
Gorgeous!
Wow.
This one is called More Creamer Please.
Wow that is gorgeous.
And then I’m actually going to take a little bit of this
Nuance Firming Day and Night Cream,
which is by Selma Hayek.
And I’m actually just going to use it just to
amp up this highlight a little bit in a natural
kind of way.
It’s nice to kind of touch up this area
with a little bit of moisture.
Alright, so we’re finished playing with these products.
Let’s take a look.
See how you feel.
Oh I love the lip.
I love how you added that little sheer.
Just a little tint.
Mmhmm.
It was a blast and I hope we can do it again.
Thank you for doing my makeup.
You look amazing.
Thank you, thank you.
Well all thanks to you.
After a long day on the streets of LA,
it was really nice to just see what a strong
bond our community has.
From the market to the permanent makeup center
to meeting with Andre, I feel we all just
have this really strong connection and bond.
I’m really happy I got to meet all of these
people along the way.
And that they share with me a pride
in their Latin identity.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
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