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Welcome to Big Break, a look back at some of the beauty industry’s most influential figures, from the good to the bad and all the moments in between. He tells how he became the founder of Patrick Ta Beauty.
Patrick Ta didn’t become the makeup artist for stars like Gigi Hadid, Camila Cabello, and Emily Ratajkowski. In fact, his journey early in his life wasn’t easy. Ta was born in San Diego, California to a large Vietnamese-American family. He has only one sister, but he grew up with over 40 cousins.
“My sister was an honors student, all my cousins were honors students, and I was always very creative, so I became the nuisance of the family,” Ta told POPSUGAR. “I wasn’t well off academically.” On top of that, the bullying he suffered at school made the class an extremely toxic environment for him.
“I was always teased for speaking a certain way or playing around with being ‘unmanly,'” he says. Eventually, he got to the point where he didn’t want to go to school anymore. He dropped out at age 17 and started working as a busser at a sushi restaurant, embarking on a career as a chef. After that, he decided to move to Scottsdale, Arizona at the age of 18.
Shortly after moving, Ta convinced her parents to help her open her own nail and tanning salon. His mother owned several salons in California, so his business was family run. “I owe my knowledge and success to my mother and father,” he says. “They allowed me to go through things for myself at such a young age.”
