REA ANN: There is no reason why a pink, egg-shaped sponge should have me sitting talking to you right now in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, outside of the grace of God.

The simple fact of having Latina aunts, mothers, cousins, there is no way of escaping beauty because in our community and in our heritage, beauty is such, an important part of who we are and how we express ourselves.

I just remembering about to graduate from high school and my mom was like, "What are you going to do?"

And I was like... And she said, "Well, I found this school in downtown L.A., and you love fashion."

Of course I love fashion because she implanted it in my brain.

She throws me into this apartment in downtown L.A. and says, "You got to get a job."

She said, "Let's go down to the department store."

Because she actually had worked at department stores.

I started making a couple friends at the, you know, cosmetic counters and kind of seeing what they were doing, and I thought I could do that.

One of the girls that I met was a makeup artist and did some part-time production work, which introduced me to a whole other aspect of makeup artistry and a way for you to make money.

We're talking about the MTV generation, I would subsequently get all the jobs with people of color, rappers, R&B, black actors, black actresses.

When I created Beautyblender, I had just come off of working on a show called "Moesha" with Brandy Norwood, the singer.

I was hired to come in because the show "Girlfriends" was going to be the first show being shot and broadcast in high-def, and at that time all shows were shot in film.

When high-def came around, everything changed.

They were looking for something that was going to look as if these women just woke up the way they looked.

When I created these prototypes that we would hand-cut for every show, they would just walk away.

They sprouted little legs and walked off, but it was the actors stealing them, and then they would come back and say, "Hey, can we get a couple more for our my mother, my sister, my brother, whatever?"

I realized I need to find a way to scale.

I need to find a way to actually manufacture this product.

I would go to different stores and look at sponges.

This one name kept coming up: Victoria Vogue.

So I just called the number.

I call Cathy my "Makeup Momma" because none of us would be sitting here right now if it wasn't for Cathy.

She took my call.

She listened to my whole, pitch about Beautyblender.

At first she was like, "Well, kid, you know, we hold all these patents.

I'm sure we have you covered."

And I said, "Great, then you have nothing to lose."

I sent my prototypes to her.

I get this call from her, and she's like, "Well, kid, I gotta tell you, it's like the palm slap to my forehead.

Why didn't we think of this?"

And I said, "'Cause you're not a makeup artist!"

And so she was like, "So here's the deal.

I want to help you.

My company is advising me against it, but they've also charged me with innovation.

And this is the most innovative thing that I've seen come across my desk since forever.

I totally get it."

And that was the beginning.

She stuck with me through the process of finding a manufacturer and getting it made.

Couple of the first stores that took Beautyblender in as a retail product were pro-based stores.

They started getting non-pro people coming in buying Beautyblender.

So I started hearing that, and I thought, "Wouldn't it be amazing if I could crossover into a consumer market?"

I found the buyer, at Sephora, and I sent her product.

Sephora was one of my first retailers.

Today I still own Beautyblender 100%, and the zig-zag is still there.

To be an entrepreneur, you need to have God, grit, and resilience because the valleys are deep and the highs are high.

I, I think my perseverance and my independent spirit really came from coming from people that hustled and knew how to work and knew that nobody was going to give them a break.

So when, when I get an honor like this, I go through every emotion like, "What am I going to say?

What am I going to do, why do they want me?

Are they sure they're right, I don't know."

It was like when the Smithsonian came to me and said, "Hey, you know, we want to talk to you because we, we recognize that, you know, the product you invented changed an industry."

And was like, "Are you sure you're talking to the right person?"

You go through these moments of, "It's just me."

They're, they're big "wow" moments.

They're, like, getting a little misty right now.

I mean, it just makes the whole zig-zag worth it.