Tina Rodosta is always in motion.
The artist has just enough time to pour a cup of coffee in the morning before she and her team are out on the road, tending to a bride’s every need.
Rodosta is the owner of Verde Beauty Studio, an on-location hair and makeup salon.
The studio is classified as a Baton Rouge-based special event hair and makeup team available for travel nationally and internationally. However, Verde is much more than that.
Along with on-the-go hair and makeup for weddings and other special occasions, the team offers lash extensions, skin and waxing services, body wraps, tanning, makeup lessons and will soon teach hair classes.
“We are a full service event studio, so we specialize in on-location airbrush makeup and hair services,” Rodosta said. “We’re not a regular salon that happens to do events. We’re an event company that happens to do salon services.”
Rodosta has a background in fine art and photography, which she utilizes on the job. She said her love of art led her to owning Verde.
“I got into it because I was a fine art major, and I didn’t like being told how to do art,” Rodosta said. “That transferred into being a business major and running my own business.”
Verde wasn’t always part of Rodosta’s vision for the future.
When she first started, she was in makeup direct sales while in school. Rodosta said people would make deals with her to purchase products if she did their makeup, which surprised her.
Then, Rodosta saw a gaping hole in the industry. She said everyone she talked to wanted to have someone come to them for event hair and makeup instead of having to go to them.
“There was a niche market that wasn’t being filled, so I started doing on-location makeup for events, weddings and commercials, then added hair about seven years later,” Rodosta said.
Rodosta and her team of makeup artists travel across the state, but that wasn’t always what she envisioned.
Rodosta said she liked doing makeup and was excited people were paying her to do it. She never wanted to work in a regular office setting doing regular salon services, so she began doing on-site services. Then, the studio parlayed into what she does now.
Everything can be traced back to art, Rodosta said.
“This really is an application of what I learned in art,” Rodosta said. “All that highlighting and contouring is, is highlighting and shadowing like you would on a canvas. In art, I can paint, which is makeup, and I can sculpt, which is hair.”
For Rodosta and her team, there are no typical days on the job. Rodosta said the month of October is one of the busiest months for events in southern Louisiana. Currently, Rodosta said she and her crew are in wedding season.
Just last Saturday, she did the hair and makeup for an LSU alumna bride and her bridal party.
The bride, Kalynn Chumney, who graduated last year, had her makeup done at her parents’ house.
Chumney said having on- location makeup done for her wedding was a blessing.
“I think that it really made the day a lot easier but also a lot more fun,” Chumney said. “We were at my parents’ house so we had a lot of room, and people were able to watch TV while others were getting hair and makeup done.”
Chumney said it wouldn’t have been the same experience if she and her bridal party had to travel to a salon for their hair and makeup. Verde providing on-site services allowed Chumney to enjoy the day and relax with her family while she awaited her impending nuptials.
“I don’t wear a lot of makeup, so I feel like she’s the first person who really listened to me and didn’t just cake it on,” Chumney said.
Rodosta did Chumney’s sister’s makeup for senior pictures a couple years ago, and Chumney has used her ever since. Chumney said she didn’t consider anyone else do her wedding day makeup.
She plans on utilizing Rodosta’s services in the future as well.
“I wish I could have her do my hair and makeup all the time. I’m not good with that kind of thing at all,” Chumney said. “She does airbrush makeup. I was a little worried about it at first because with airbrush makeup, I was like, ‘How is that going to work?’ But it looks really good, especially in pictures.”
Rodosta said weddings take the cake for her as far as services go. She said Verde is big on making brides look like themselves, just the wedding day version.
Doing bridal makeup allows her to experience brides’ most private moments, in which they get a moment to relax from all the chaos of the wedding day and finally soak everything in, Rodosta said.
“We’re there and a part of the most exciting day of a person’s life,” Rodosta said. “You can’t beat that.”
Along with intimate, personal on-site makeup like brides and bridal parties, Verde has accrued some high profile clientele through the years. In addition to boudoir makeup, which is intimate portraiture, Mardi Gras balls and sorority events, Verde does commercial work.
Rodosta is no stranger to big ad campaigns.
“All the billboards you see for Walk-Ons right now and Happy’s, we did all the hair and makeup for that,” Rodosta said. “All the buses in New Orleans with the Happy’s and Walk-Ons girls, we did that. Pretty cool to see your work 10-feet tall.”
Verde has done commercial work with Nestea, Louisiana Lottery and Women’s Hospital.
The studio is also the Miss Louisiana sponsor for Miss Louisiana USA. Rodosta and her crew work backstage at the Miss Louisiana USA pageants doing touch ups on the contestants as well as photoshoots. Verde recently did a couple photoshoots with current Miss Teen USA Katherine Haik.
Rodosta and her team also do makeup for the Miss LSU pageants. Next year, Verde will be doing on-location makeup for the wedding of Hilary Tuttle, the 2013 Miss LSU pageant winner.
Everything about Verde represents Rodosta’s art and what she stands for, right down to the name.
“I wanted a name that was memorable and based in color,” Rodosta said. “We are a green studio, so we do our part to recycle and use environment friendly products as well as donate to animal shelters.”

Gallery • 5 Photos

Karen Welsh

Verde Beauty Studio makeup artist Tina Rodosta works on bride Kalynn Chumney's wedding day makeup.