Kandee Johnson

Kandee Shayn Johnson was born on July 9, 1978 in Los Angeles, California, and was raised with her younger sister Tiffany. She graduated from a beauty school and wanted to focus solely on make-up. Soon she got her first job as a make-up artist on VH1's show ‘I Love the 80's.’

She was married twice and has four children—Ellie, Alani, Blake, and Jordan. She had her first child at the age of 18. After her first divorce, she faced a lot of hardships in raising her son and paying for his daycare. After her second marriage also failed, she started dating singer Michael Castro. She got engaged to her boyfriend on September 13, 2015. However, it is not known if they are still together in 2017.

Kandee is a shy person. In a blog post, she wrote that she was lonely at high school, and had no one to eat lunch with. But now she has so many people who like and love her. She regularly posts on all major social media platforms and tries to reply to all comments. She likes to craft, draw, decorate, window-shop, and collect vintage things. She loves macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and desserts. She is terrified of snakes and has a fear of heights. Her dream place is Fiji. She loved her father immensely; he sadly passed away in 2012. Today, she follows her father’s advice to make today better than yesterday.

Kandee Johnson has not only established herself as a famous beauty expert, but also continues to inspire thousands of bloggers and vloggers to follow a similar career path. She started blogging about small incidents in her daily life and about her kids. Then she stated blogging about beauty, style, and fashion. Eventually she became popular and was featured in magazines, including ‘Elle,’ Glamour,’ ‘Nylon,’ ‘Self,’ and ‘Cosmopolitan.’ She has also been featured on TV shows like ‘Good Morning America,’ ‘The Late Late Show with James Corden,’ and ‘E!, Fablife.’ She has judged TV shows like ‘How Do I Look’ on the Style Channel.

However, Kandee’s journey to success was not so easy, as she was exploring a territory—the digital world—which she knew nothing about. It was hard to work on a platform that never stops, where one has to engage with viewers 24/7, and share new content regularly, besides looking into hundreds of emails, shooting, and uploading videos. Plus one also has to compete for engagements, likes, and subscriptions! She struggled against all odds and came out successful.

Kandee loves her work—creating, entertaining, teaching, and inspiring others. She does everything with full commitment, be it teaching how to get the brows in perfect shape, make the lips fuller, look like a Barbie doll, or advising her viewers on how to turn a bad day into a perfect day. Grabbing exciting opportunities, she has now branched out of her niche industry and does different things like hosting the fifth annual ‘NYX Fine Artistry of Cosmetic Elites’ (FACE) Awards, a prestigious event to award the talents of upcoming beauty video bloggers. She has also teamed up with the cosmetic brand ‘Too Faced’ to develop the ‘IWantKandee’ collection. She has developed her nail polish collection called ‘Sinful Colors’ as well. She won a Streamy Award in the Beauty category in 2016.

Kandee Johnson was once charged with leaving her 12-year-old son alone at home while she went on a business trip to Los Angeles. She was charged with child endangerment, and accused of leaving her son unsupervised for three days in a house that was littered with dirty dishes and food remnants. The boy and his 12-year-old friend were also trying to set something on fire. The criminal complaint stated the boy and his friend had access to materials to create a fire. The deputy was about to place the boy with Child Protective Services, when he contacted his grandfather who came and took custody of his grandson.