Jopie Sanchez on Owning One's Growth

For 14 years, Jopie has built a career through non-traditional paths. Her work as a hair and makeup artist has enabled her to learn from the best in the industry including from a BAFTA award–winning mentor behind her favorite Black Mirror episodes. Beyond the makeup chair, she also immerses in other creative pursuits like writing and film. According to Jopie, these projects may not always bring in high income, but they are essential to her sense of self-expression and growth. At 39, on the cusp of a new decade, she looks back at a life defined not by predictability but by brave and intentional detours.

What do you do for a living?  

My main source of income is from doing hair and makeup. I’ve been a hairstylist and makeup  artist since 2011.  

On the side, I have several other things that I also earn from occasionally. There’s writing,  translating, subtitling, taking photos, and running a small business called Nawa Philippines  which I co-own with a friend.  

What are the things that make you feel more alive? 

There’s writing of the creative kind; I mostly do poetry and stories. I’m still trying to figure out the avenue for storytelling that I prefer, but I’ve dabbled with playwriting and scriptwriting. And then there are other creative explorations as well that I haven’t mentioned yet, like dancing, singing, playing instruments, and making art.  

How old are you?  

I am 39 years old! I turn 40 next year. Oh wow. I’ve been around a while and a little bit at the halfway mark with life.  

What would you consider as the unique pathways you took in life/ or that life presented you with?  

Probably the decision to be a freelancer and having the courage to explore whatever interest I  feel that I should at any given time. I took all my savings then and apprenticed to do hair and makeup without any sort of income for a year or so. It got to a point wherein I would cry out of anxiety, and then just bargain with myself, considering the positive trade-offs. I was young and could afford to risk it, I guess.  

The path I chose is far from the traditional expectations put upon my generation growing up. I  grew up thinking I would follow in my parents’ footsteps and become a doctor, but my fear of boredom and things being the same day-in and day-out kept me from it. They also told me that I  should choose a path I was truly invested in a hundred percent, and that was at best at eighty.  

Then again, even as a child, I was never one to adhere to the norm. Back then, there was a conscious effort on my part to be different. These days, I’ve accepted celebrating being different without needing it to the point that it feels contrived. I just let things be and use my internal barometer to validate how authentic I am with myself—different or otherwise.  

Fill in the blanks: “I am most known for___________.” 

I think I am most known for being an Ate to everyone. At least, that is what my friends tell me.  They come to me for advice on whatever they’re going through at the moment. I’ve been told that I offer alternative, yet sound, insight into things.  

Overall though, I would like to be known for being true to myself. I want people to think of me and be able to say that. That’s just it, really. Authenticity is of the highest value to me, and I tend to gravitate towards people who are the same.  

Fill in the blanks: “I am most proud of __________.”  

I am most proud of being who I am! It takes a lot of effort and bravery to own up to being yourself, you know? In all its complex glory.  

What do you think is the biggest challenge, and the best thing, about being your age?  

With age comes unavoidable constraints when it comes to health—mentally and physically.  Being around longer, you can’t help but be tired— and this isn’t bone-tired, but more mental because of the toll life takes on you. You’ve just been through more, exposed to more.  Physically, it’s the realization that maybe there are things I used to want that I may never have anymore. For example, I really love children and because I haven’t found the right partner for that, I just have to accept it that I may never have kids of my own. That was quite an ordeal for me because I grew up dreaming of motherhood. On some days that still hurts because I think I  would have made a loving, mindful, wonderful, and cool mom. Maybe someday I would be open to adoption, but right now I’m still grieving giving up on that.  

On the up side though, I still enjoy getting older and being my age. I like it so much I tend to say,  “I’m pushing 40,” instead of saying, “I’m still 39.” I don’t know, but there is comfort to be found in knowing how old I am. It frees me from the opinions and expectations of other people. I find  

that, at this age, I am able to focus more on what I think about myself rather than how others think of me. It’s also easier to let go of things and people now—that what comes, comes and what goes, goes. Somehow the age also allows you to temper how you handle life. You can keep the recklessness of youth, but rely on the solid foundation you built over the years to be able to handle finding the balance in between.  

How have you grown wiser in the past few years?  

Mainly, it’s the letting go of the expectations I had for myself and how things should have been like. I grew up with a notion of what concepts like happiness, success, or love, should be like based off how society led me to believe. Over the years, I’ve had to take that apart and figure out what they mean to me instead. It’s been difficult because it takes a lifetime of practice to listen to your own voice and drown out other people’s opinions. 

What are the best career choices you’ve made in life?  

I’m not sure I can pinpoint it to particular choices. It’s probably more of repeated choices I made that led me to where I am career-wise. Personally, I also feel that the choices that led to mistakes matter because I learned something from them.  

If I do have to mention particulars, I guess the path that led me to focus on storytelling when it comes to makeup It’s what allows me to still love what I do despite being here for more than a  decade now. It kept me from being bored with my job, and indulged the writer in me in a less stressful manner that still managed to provide me with a living. That led me to film, which led me to working with and getting firsthand experience being mentored by foreign makeup artists on movie sets.  

Whenever I get impostor syndrome, or compare myself to peers who make more money or are popular and well-known—I remind myself that I learned from several great people in my field of practice. I mean, one of them is a BAFTA awardee for hair and makeup, and was behind some of my favorite “Black Mirror” episodes; another worked on the set of “The Crown;” and yet another one has done Audrey Hepburn’s makeup for an event, and Mads Mikkelsen’s hair and makeup for a film. I have to keep reminding myself that these are the people I have access to and can freely consult with. Not everyone can say that.  

What are the best pieces of life advice you have ever received? 

Learn for the sake of learning, do things for the sake of doing—that there is merit in the experience in itself. Validation and high marks are just a bonus. They shouldn’t define how enjoyable or beneficial an experience is. This allows me to explore new things, even if I’m not particularly good at them.  

Another one isn’t exactly advice I received from others. It’s something I’ve told myself from a very early age and have stuck to all these years while navigating life: That the end of the day, all you have to answer to is yourself and the Higher Being that you believe in (should you believe in one). I always come back to one question, “Can I own up to it?”

#STAGenerations