In a sultry day last April, a crew from ABC News was at The Mason on Beckley recording interviews for an upcoming true crime documentary. Rather than bringing a makeup artist along, the New York City-based production team hired a freelance beauty professional from our neighborhood, Malysa Correa.
Correa spent the morning applying cosmetics, chatting politely with program guests and explaining to mascara-averse interviewees the difference between everyday makeup and TV makeup. For another eight hours she watched monitors and popped up intermittently to brush back a subject’s stray hairs, powder sweaty brows and touch up pale lips.
Though her days on set are long, Correa’s confident, cheerful energy never wanes. She loves being a professional makeup artist.
“Ever since I was really young I always had a passion for beauty and creativity,” Correa says.
With her thick hair and lashes, glowing skin, thousand-watt smile and dewy lips, Correa looks every bit the beauty expert.
However, her appearance while working a movie set or bridal suite is unlikely to betray her other profession, a second career she takes as seriously as the first. She’s a general contractor with construction jobs underway all over Dallas.
She is remodeling rooms and homes in Highland Park, Preston Hollow and Lakewood, as well as properties in her own Oak Cliff neighborhood.
Her interest in homebuilding precedes even her love of makeup.
Her parents owned an HVAC electrical company, and she watched them play a major role in building homes and helping Americans achieve their dream, Correa says.
“The work, the beauty and aesthetics involved in bringing your idea and vision to life” — it’s what drew her to both professions, she says.
She began working in makeup in 2002. By 2017, having enjoyed success in both the remodeling and beauty industries, she felt pressure to choose one. She stepped back to reevalute and was leaning toward the latter.
“I was 20 and torn between the real estate and makeup industries. I had a meeting with a mentor. He said, ‘Malysa, we all have a God-given gift. What is your gift? Once you know what that is, follow your passion and dreams.’ I went home and did a lot of thinking, and at that moment in my life, I wanted to inspire women and show them how beautiful they are in their own skin.”
In the beginning she did not expect to stay in Dallas. Los Angeles was the place to be for celebrity makeup artists. But she soon found there were plenty of gigs to be had here.
Without leaving town, she’s readied Mark Cuban, Canelo Alvarez, George W. Bush, Bryson DeChambeau and Deion Sanders, to name a few, for the screen. (“Oh, yes, men on TV wear makeup too,” she says.) She’s done makeup for those famously funny Poo-Pourri commercials and for the WFAA news and weather team (yes, she’s had Pete Delkus’ face in her hands).
But when she wasn’t doing construction, she missed it.
There had to be a way to do both, she (correctly) believed. Both jobs require education and experience, patience and planning, vision and commitment, problem solving in any situation and compulsive attention to detail — she had those things, she says.
Both careers also thrive on good relationships and word-of-mouth recommendations.
“I build friendships, not just clients,” she says. “I really love that I can build bonds with the people I work with, and they trust my expertise, and they always refer me to a neighbor, family or friend.” That’s how she just finished a third fencing job on the same street in University Park.
General contracting is a field that’s 91% men, career analysts at Zippia estimate. But on the bright side, the gender pay gap is negligible. It’s not bad for a woman in the industry these days, Correa says.
“Being a woman homeowner, I know how hard it can be to find contractors and the right people for your project,” she says. “It’s often women in the household taking care of remodeling projects. Sometimes the husband doesn’t even want to worry about it. So I come in and make the process a little easier. I feel that I can click with the women and build trust.”
She adds that if anyone did challenge her just for being a woman, she would be eager to accept that and show them just what she can do.
Oak Cliff homeowner Brad Lollar, who has occupied a two-story brick charmer in Kessler Park since 1991, says he’s a fan of his hardworking contractor. “I trust her,” he says. He explains that because he’s on a budget, she is doing one smaller project for him at a time: “the siding, then the back fence, and she’s about to measure for the deck.”
Correa has made her dual passions work for her. Though her self promotion in both realms is minimal, she remains in demand. Most days she has a makeup gig, and when she does not, she stays busy on construction sites.
She’s intimately familiar with Dallas’ neighborhoods, having been in beautiful homes all over, and she prefers ours to the rest, she says.
“The food, the culture and how diverse it is,” she says. “And the architecture, those mid-century, modern and historic homes, big wrap-around porches and patios — I love Oak Cliff.”
