It’s always been tricky for me to convey ‘what I do’ or ‘who I am’ because I think all of these things are always changing. I have a lot of creative interests and I wear many hats.

Perhaps we can start with the socially acceptable answer?

Hey I’m Kayleigh, I’m 31 and I live in Waikato New Zealand with my (soon-to-be) husband, 2-year old daughter, puppy, and 2 cats. I studied psychology for around 8 years and was 2 years into a PhD when I decided to leave academia to become a mother and pursue other interests. I also own Kayleigh Creates, a hair & makeup freelancing business that I started when I was pregnant. When I was studying I worked in makeup retail at Mecca Cosmetic and then at MAC Cosmetics, which lead me to pursuing my own makeup freelancing and then several years later, adding hairstyling to my services.

Okay now let’s get to the real stuff!

I’d consider myself a creative at my core. I get really bored of doing the same thing all day, every day, and I thrive on being able to create change, to learn new things, and to have inspiring and authentic conversations.

From a really young age I’ve always had an affinity for faeries, crystals, animals, flowers, plants, and mystical things. I have also always been artistically inclined and as a child and adolescent was frequently performing at a competitive level and in musicals through dance and singing. When I went to University, I switched from my initial degree in Fashion Design to Psychology because I struggled with the competitive nature of fashion and found that it took away from my love of creativity. I absolutely loved Psychology and took it through to a PhD in feminist creative methods, but decided to leave my future prospects in academia to focus on full-time motherhood and makeup freelancing.

As you can imagine, this brought about massive shifts in my identity and my values, and this is something that threads its way through everything that I do: change and transformation as a natural part of life as a woman. As an adult, who is also a mother and a business owner, I have found it tremendously difficult to reconcile my interests in academics, pyschology and literature, with my love of the arts, mystics and magic, and I always found I needed to fit into a box to make sense to others.

I have since made it my mission to build bridges between the seemingly opposite and contradictory interests I hold, and supporting others to do the same.

I hope that you can find something that ignites your soul through one of my offerings, and I hope that if we haven’t already, we get to meet and work together in some capacity in the future!

Kayleigh x