She's famous for her affordable, chic makeup line and for making celebrities look beautiful. Beauty expert Sonia Kashuk talks to Holly and Rodney about making it in the beauty industry and her success fighting breast cancer.
Sonia began her career as a makeup artist but always thought about developing her own product line. "I really wanted to set out to do great products at a fraction of the cost so that every woman could have [them]," she says. Her wish came true in 1999, when she launched the Sonia Kashuk Professional Makeup collection at Target stores across the country.
Although Sonia was soaring in her career, her health took a turn for the worse in June 2006, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Even though Sonia was at high risk for the disease because of a strong family history, she says it wasn't easy to get that call. "Nobody can understand what that feels like, and I can't even give it an explanation until, God forbid, somebody hears that themselves," she says.
Sonia had a double mastectomy to remove both of her breasts, eliminating the chances the cancer could resurface. For her, the process of fighting the cancer was not easy, but she says the hardest part was telling her children. "It took me six weeks until I could tell them," Sonia says. "I've always had such a fear of the word 'cancer,' so I just thought if I have that fear, their little minds will definitely have it too."
Now that she is fully recovered, Sonia says she is grateful for everything and looks at her cancer as an opportunity to help other women survive it. "I think in life you've always got to take something that could be negative and make it positive and do whatever you can do to make it better."
