Beauty Expert and Writer, Amber Katz On Her Journey to Success
Amber Katz is a beauty expert and says she has always had an interest in the beauty world. "I took babysitting jobs when I was about 10 to be able to buy my own masks, skincare, and makeup. I used to negotiate with my brother to let him pick what we watched on TV (boring boy cartoons) in exchange for his letting me give him “facials.”"
Amber began freelance writing while she was still working full time as a financial copy writer a few years after starting her own blog. “I wrote for TotalBeauty.com and later accepted a job as senior beauty editor for a now-defunct site called Daily Makeover. I worked there a year before going freelance. Since then, I've written for ELLE, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Real Simple, People and more.”
The advice Amber would give to someone looking to begin expanding their writing portfolio and obtain more writing opportunities would be to know that you’ll have to work and write for free a bit at first in order to build up your bylines. “But the good news is that there are more sites than ever looking for new writers to contribute.”
Rouge18 began at Ambers desk at her job working in marketing at a big four accounting firm in 2006. "It was originally just an outlet for me to talk about beauty, instead of talking about my favorite hairsprays and lipsticks with straight, male auditors in their 50s (not my target audience, as you can imagine).”
Looking back on her career thus far, Amber would say that one of her top moments or highlights of her career would be creating her own eyeshadow with MAC Cosmetics in 2011, called Sparkle, Neely, Sparkle. Other than that, she says that traveling to Tahiti with Lisa Price to learn about how monoi oil is made.
In five years, Amber hopes to grow her copywriting business. She currently writes newsletter, web, and social copy for beauty and lifestyle brands in addition to contributing to more publications. “Another goal is to have my own advice column in a national publication.”