Terri Bryant turned a Parkinson’s diagnosis into an innovative way to help others.
Terri Bryant’s Parkinson’s diagnosis led to an opportunity to create makeup products for unsteady hands.
Have you ever had trouble drawing the perfect cat-eye despite watching hours of YouTube tutorials? Florida-based makeup artist Terri Bryant knows the struggle is real—especially for people who have dexterity issues in their hands and arms. About 10 years ago, Bryant became one of those people. “I was on a photo shoot doing an eyeliner technique I had done a million times,” recalls the former educator for Christian Dior, Stila, Smashbox and Josie Maran. “And it was taking me a really long time. The model asked me what was going on, and I really had no answer.”
Bryant eventually learned that she was in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that often causes tremors and rigidity in the limbs. This is devastating enough for someone whose entire livelihood revolves around makeup application, but the final straw for Bryant came when she started having trouble applying her own makeup. She finally understood what her clients had been talking about when they said they just couldn’t replicate her precision.
Bryant knew she needed easier tools and products, but nobody was making them, so she made them herself. Her line, Guide Beauty—because the tools with the products will literally guide your hand—launched in February with a black pot eyeliner (and accompanying wand), a brow gel and a mascara. “It was obviously not the best news in the world,” says Bryant of her diagnosis, “but something beautiful was born out of it.”
Making Guide Beauty presented a unique challenge for the design team that Bryant worked with. The team, which specializes in human factors engineering and ergonomics, usually makes products that are meant to reduce bodily strain (like giving something a more comfortable grip) or intended for extreme accuracy (like surgical tools). Guide Beauty’s products needed to be both at the same time. It took two and a half years and countless designs to get it right, but the results addressed everything from the weight of the tools to the formulation of the products. And Bryant worked with people with all sorts of mobility challenges, including multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, as well as elderly women and average makeup wearers, too.
There are a mind-boggling number of unique elements in what is (so far) just a three-product collection. For instance, the eyeliner applicator tool is designed to be held vertically instead of horizontally, and it has a guide that you can rest on your cheek and a flexible soft plastic tip instead of a wriggly brush. The eyeliner is formulated so the tool picks up the exact right amount of product—the first time. The response to it has been, to put it mildly, positive. Users are asking Bryant for more colours, and she’s planning to oblige.