Dawn Lindo – Beauty beyond the surface

DAWN Marie Lindo has spent most of her life in the beauty industry, and she knows how to use cosmetics to create a beautiful face. Yet her real beauty — the soft, warm light that shines in her eyes — could only have been harnessed by overcoming some very ugly truths about her life. Her experience and training at top international cosmetics houses such as Estee Lauder, Mac and Clinique certainly helped in establishing her beauty school, D’Marie Institute, but they could not have prepared her for the personal journey she had to take to become the minister of religion, motivational speaker, businesswoman and author that she is today.

Lindo had anything but a flawless foundation. What she remembers most vividly from her childhood in the rural community of Point Hill, St Catherine, was watching the city lights from a boulder in her yard and dreaming of a life in the lights. Her mother was already married with five children at the age of 22, and though Lindo learned the value of discipline and hard work from her mother, she did not want a similar life for herself.

“I started working hard because when I was 11 years old my dad left for America,” she told All Woman from her school’s studio at the Pulse 8 complex on Trafalgar Road in New Kingston. “He migrated to make a better life in the States, but he never came back. So at 11 years old I knew that life for me would never be the same as for the other children. I knew education was the way out.”

All her life she knew that she wanted to be in the fashion and beauty industry, but after graduating from St Catherine High School, Lindo’s first opportunity came in the field of education. Unsure of what the rest of the staircase looked like, but believing that God had a plan for her life, she took the first step.

“I had the opportunity to move overseas for college. I did education, which was my second love, then I moved into working with Nordstrom,” she recalled.

It was during these years at community college in New Jersey, then working with the department store company, that Lindo started learning how to put her best face forward. As president of the Caribbean Club in school, she benefited from leadership training while accumulating insider knowledge of the industry she loved while working at Nordstrom.

When she was 28, Lindo returned to Jamaica with her newborn daughter. The intention was to build a life with her child’s father, but when that dream was crushed she decided to bloom where she was planted, regardless.

“So I went and got a job at The University of the West Indies as an assistant, and I stayed there and bought a house. The following year I met my husband and we got married.” she shared.

Lindo was in love. She entered the relationship head-on and said ‘I do’ before you could say ‘Guess who’. Little did she know that her marriage would start going downhill before she could make it down the aisle.

“And you know, the signs are always there, but the heart wants what it wants,” Lindo said in hindsight, reflecting on the fact that they had not even dated, yet she agreed to marry him when she found herself pregnant for him and he proposed.

“We got married and it got harder. His family was not talking to him and I felt like it was my fault,” she said, explaining that they were all in the church, and many people did not like the fact that she already had a child outside of marriage. “But I think I loved him because he made his mind up to be with me regardless of how many persons were coming at him.”

She started journalling. The journal entries that she made before, during, and even after her marriage would form the basis of the book Dear, that she would write years after the marriage ended.

By the time she found out about her husband’s first affair, Lindo already knew that she was not happy in the marriage, but she was resigned to it. She had been chosen by her husband and she did not want it to seem as if he had chosen wrong. She buried herself in work.

“When I learned about the other girl, that is what drove it home for me. I started feeling sick and I thought it was from all of what was happening so I went to my doctor who ran some precautionary tests. Lo and behold I was pregnant again!” she said.

She cried. She questioned God. She blamed herself. But she decided that she could not leave her marriage with two children and another on the way.

“I just sank into church and work,” she said, sharing how her master’s degree in counselling psychology helped her to remain sane in her unhappy marriage.

In 2009, shortly after the birth of her son, she established D’Marie Institute. She started out by just teaching make-up classes at a school in Spanish Town, while juggling other jobs on the side. It was not until 2014, however, that she decided to give it her all and let God figure out the technicalities.

“To date we have trained and certified over 1,300 beauty professionals in make-up, hair, nails and barbering,” she said, testifying to the success of her business. The institution, which is registered with the Ministry of Education and is accredited by City & Guilds of London, was the winner of the City & Guilds Medal for Excellence Award 2014 and the MUA Essential Award for Best Make-up School and Best in Make-up Artistry, 2014.

It was not until 2016, after discovering yet another affair, that Lindo decided she wanted out of the marriage. After an emotional breakdown that landed her in the hospital, she finally had enough.

“That night I went home and I looked in the mirror and I apologised to the girl I saw in the mirror,” she said, signifying the beginning of the process to the end of her tumultuous marriage. As a part of her healing, she decided to break the silence. She started writing down the things she wished she had said to her former self, to her husband, and to the other women. These soon blossomed in to Dear, a reflective personal workbook, which she plans to launch on March 7, her 45th birthday.

“Now when I talk about it, it’s not because I want to get back or to bash,” she said solemnly. “It’s not to paint anyone in a bad light, regardless of their role in my story. The reason I talk now is because so many women are hurting and dying in silence and I want to be able to empower them to begin healing. I now understand why God had me go through that, because my purpose is to empower and to heal.”