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Meet Damaris Stark

Today we’d like to introduce you to Damaris Stark.

Damaris, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
For years, I have loved sharing beauty products with friends or anyone seeking inspiration, help, or advice on all things beauty and health. Growing up, you could always find me in the living room curling my mom or aunt’s hair. Or anyone that would trust a 13-year-old with a curling iron. After watching makeup tutorials on YouTube for five years, I began sharing snapshots of the makeup I was currently loving on Instagram. Eventually, that turned into mini-tutorials and increasing DMs of girls looking for advice on where to shop or how I curled my hair.

I finally decided to own that role and be intentional about it. This past July, I launched my blog. I created Desert Belle with the intention to create a community where product information and consumer education was the focus.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Launching a website has been made accessible by so many amazing websites that offer user-friendly platforms, but creating DesertBelleBlog.com was still one of the most time-consuming projects I’ve tackled and I went in with only my MySpace knowledge of HTML to guide me through. So you can imagine how that went down.

That being said, I am so guilty on staying in my comfort zone and focusing on Instagram as my main outlet. It’s the easiest access for me as the creator and my audience is already there. However, my goal for 2020 is to prioritize DesertBelleBlog.com as a resource for anyone looking for all things beauty and health. It is very easy for me to sit here and simply say, “I want to do more blog posts,” but the reality is that aside from cute photographs and catchy titles, writing a blog post comes with behind the scenes work that I am still learning to time manage.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
Currently, my Instagram and DesertBelleBlog.com are hobbies of mine. While it is my goal to one day create a business from them, I am currently focusing on providing detailed product reviews and experiences so anyone reading can walk into a store lined with rows and rows of product and have something to guide them towards the product that is best for them. To me, my blog and Instagram are all about providing value to the person on the other end of the screen. Sure, I share my life and daily things, but I want the breakdown of products and overall results to be what keeps bringing the viewer back.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I would say my stroke of good luck came when I was able to make real friends from people I followed on Instagram. At the end of the day, social media is just that- social. Making friendships and connections online turned into coffee dates IRL and advice on how to stand out in a world where everyone has an influence.

Sometimes social media and its apps can get a bad rep for being time-consuming, which it can be, but at the end of the day, everything is what you make it! Lately, I’ve found an amazing community of women and it’s all thanks to Instagram.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Ashley Gabrielle from Classic Ashley

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