Today we’d like to introduce you to Curnedra Williams.
Hi Curnedra, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Beauty has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to work in the beauty industry I grew up in it. Being surrounded by beauty and entrepreneurship allowed me to see early that this industry was about so much more than making someone look good. It was creativity, confidence, community, and business.
As I got older, I found my own lane. I became a makeup artist and later an esthetician, which gave me the opportunity to experience beauty from different sides from creating a look and transforming how someone felt to understanding skincare and caring for the person underneath the makeup.
Then came my first baby in entrepreneurship, Hadarah Artistry, my skincare line. That was one of the first times I really got to experience what it meant to take something that started as an idea and turn it into an actual brand. I wasn’t just providing a service anymore. I was learning about products, branding, marketing, customers, and everything that comes with trying to build something of your own.
But I’ve always been somebody who likes to create experiences too. That side of me led me to create Who’s Gone Beat Me Boo, Austin’s first urban makeup battle. I wanted makeup artists to have a space where our creativity could be celebrated in a way that was fun, competitive, and centered around our community. Looking back now, that event told me a lot about myself. Yes, I loved doing makeup, but I also loved developing the concept, bringing people together, promoting it, and creating something people could experience.
My journey after that wasn’t a perfectly straight path. There were seasons when I was fully immersed in entrepreneurship and other seasons when being a wife, raising my children, working a 9-to-5, and simply handling life had to come first. I’ve stepped away, come back, changed directions, learned new things, and reinvented myself more than once.
For a long time, I probably saw those things as separate chapters. Now I realize they were all building on each other.
The makeup artist taught me creativity. Becoming an esthetician deepened my understanding of the beauty industry. Hadarah Artistry taught me what it meant to build a brand. Who’s Gone Beat Me Boo taught me that I could create something bigger than myself and bring a vision to life. And all of those experiences eventually helped shape what I do today through Ugly Mug Creative.
Today, my work has expanded beyond the makeup brush and treatment room into branding, creative strategy, marketing, and AI. I help professionals recognize the value in what they already know and find creative ways to package, present, and build around it.
When I look back, I can see that I wasn’t constantly starting over like I once thought. I was collecting pieces. And now, at this stage of my life, those pieces finally make sense together.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Absolutely not! My journey has had plenty of twists, turns, pauses, restarts, and a few “Girl, what are you doing?” moments.
One of my biggest struggles has been learning how to balance being Curnedra with all the other roles I carry. I’m a wife, a mother, a daughter, I’ve worked a 9-to-5, and I’ve been an entrepreneur at the same time. There were seasons when my dreams had to take a back seat because my family needed me, life was life-ing, or honestly, I was just trying to figure out my next move.
I’ve also had to learn how to let myself evolve. Hadarah Artistry, my skincare line, was my first baby as an entrepreneur. I put so much of myself into building it, and when you create something from the ground up, it can be hard to accept when you’re being called into a different season. Sometimes we think success means holding onto something forever, when sometimes success is recognizing what that chapter taught you and having the courage to keep growing.
And I’ve definitely struggled with getting in my own way. I’m a creative person, so I can have ten ideas before breakfast and genuinely believe all ten need to happen! Over time, I’ve had to learn that every good idea doesn’t have to become a business, and every opportunity doesn’t mean I need to change direction. Learning to focus, trust myself, and finish what I start has been a huge part of my growth. There were also times when I questioned whether I had waited too long or whether I should have been further along by now. Watching other people grow while feeling like I was starting over could be difficult. But eventually, I stopped looking at my pauses as proof that I had failed. I started seeing them as chapters that gave me experience, I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
The biggest lesson has been realizing that you can reinvent yourself without erasing the woman you were before. The makeup artist, the esthetician, the woman behind Hadarah Artistry, the creator of Who’s Gone Beat Me Boo, the wife, the mom, the employee, and the entrepreneurthey’re all me. Every version built something the next version needed.
So no, it definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. But every detour, restart, and chapter has helped me become more confident about who I am and what I’m building now.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Today, my work lives at the intersection of beauty, creativity, and technology. Through Ugly Mug Creative, I help beauty professionals and other service-based entrepreneurs take the knowledge and talent they already have and tun it into brands, offers, content and systems that make sense for where they’re trying to go.
My specialty is creative strategy figuring out how the pieces fit together. That can mean helping someone clarify their brand, develop an offer, create a marketing direction, or build a content system that supports their business. More recently, I’ve also incorporated AI into that work, especially as a tool to help professionals create and market more efficiently.
If you know me personally, you know I’m an idea person. I can hear somebody explain what they’re trying to do and immediately start seeing the possibilities how we could position it, what the campaign could look like, how we could package it, who it’s for, and what might be missing. That’s probably what I’m most known for: taking a bunch of moving pieces and finding the idea inside of them that makes sense.
What makes my approach different is that I didn’t enter this space strictly as a marketer. I came through the beauty industry. I’ve been a makeup artist and an esthetician. I’ve developed my own skincare line, Hadarah Artistry. I’ve created experiences like Who’s Gone Beat Me Boo. I’ve been an entrepreneur trying to figure out how to turn creativity into income. So, when I’m working with another entrepreneur, I understand both the creative side and the business side.
I’m most proud that I’ve been able to take everything I’ve learned throughout my career and give it a purpose. Ugly Mug Creative isn’t me trying to do everything I’ve ever done at once. It’s where everything I’ve learned finally works together.
And that’s really what I do: I help people take what they know, get clear about what they’re building, and turn their creativity into something that can actually move.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
The most important lesson I’ve learned is that you’re not always starting over sometimes you’re collecting pieces.
For years, I would look at my life and think, “I should be further by now.” I had been a makeup artist, became an esthetician, created Hadarah Artistry, produced Who’s Gone Beat Me Boo, started businesses, stepped away from things, worked a 9-to-5, raised my children, supported my family, and then found myself dreaming about something new again. From the outside and sometimes even to me it could look like I kept starting over.
But at 40, I see it completely differently.
Nothing was wasted.
Every chapter gave me something I needed for the next one. Beauty taught me artistry. Esthetics taught me care. Hadarah Artistry taught me entrepreneurship. Who’s Gone Beat Me Boo taught me that I could take a crazy idea in my head and turn it into a real experience. Motherhood and marriage taught me things about sacrifice, patience, and priorities. Working a 9-to-5 while still having dreams taught me that a title or a job doesn’t get to decide the size of my vision. And the times when things didn’t work taught me just as much as the times when they did.
I’ve also learned that I’m allowed to evolve. I don’t have to stay attached to an old version of myself just because I worked hard to become her.
So today, I’m not trying to race anybody else’s timeline. I’m much more interested in becoming the woman I’m supposed to be and building something that reflects everything I’ve learned along the way.
I wasn’t starting over. I was collecting pieces. And now I’m finally learning how they all fit together.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Uglymugcreative
