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Bold Beauty Manny Gutierrez is breaking the internet, boundaries, and building a badass brand Words by Vanessa Pascale Photo credit: Damir K. I am seated in Dos Caminos in Times Square when Manny Gutierrez, aka Manny MUA, beauty guru and founder of Lunar Beauty, walks in and joins me. The animated and uncensored "boy beauty vlogger" has amassed a substantial social media following (over 10M followers and subscribers!) with his impressive makeup artistry and videos like, Full Face Using Target Clearance Makeup and Testing New Viral Over Hyped Makeup! Manny MUA (which is an acronym for makeup artist) is in NYC doing press and to film a segment on The Today Show and Instagram. "We were talking about spring trends and with people who have created their own brand. I created Lunar Beauty, so they flew me out to do a Today Show segment with them and a couple of other creators." Three years ago, the former MAC makeup artist had an idea for an eyeshadow palette comprised of half neutral colors and half bright colors —something that had never been done before. "I was working on this concept, Life's a Drag. I wanted to pay homage to drag, because that's how I got into the beauty community. I would never have been Manny MUA without doing drag first. So, that's kinda why I wanted to do it." Last year, he launched his first product, Life's a Drag, and has since expanded to a Greek Goddess Highlighter Palette, Greek Goddess Color Palette, liquid lipsticks, and lip glosses. The family-run business —he recruited his dad and mom— came together pretty quickly. "I would say two and a half years is how long it actually took me when I had the concept and to it being able to launch. Luckily for me, I had my dad. He was reaching out to different labs. I had old friends of mine helping connect with labs and things like that. It really starts with finding the connections. Just being able to connect with the lab, connect with the manufacturer... You will find labs and things like that through Google search. You have your lab that creates your formulas. You have your packaging people… You have all different parts. But once you hit every part, it becomes a well-oiled machine and you just have to get every section hit and then it kinda flows after that." Manny makes sure to have his hand in every aspect of Lunar Beauty. The former Sephora /MAC makeup artist grew to fame on Instagram by posting the makeup looks he was wearing to work back in 2013. "I was like, 'I'm just wearing this makeup, might as well take a photo,' 'cause I didn't see a lot of boys that were doing beauty back in the day. People were like, 'This is really cool.' They were interested, but kinda weirded out at the same time because I didn't shave my face. I wasn't trying to be like, a woman. I wasn't trying to look like a woman or anything like that, I was just doing it as myself." Makeup enthusiasts quickly began to take notice. So many people asked Manny to create a channel demonstrating how he achieved these looks, that he decided to give it a try. "I didn't really know what to do. I literally borrowed my mom's camera and I bought soft boxes from Amazon for $100. I was like, 'OK, this is the