'Eyelash Kween': Probation officer discovers true calling, leaves career to open Dearborn Heights beauty salon

DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich. (FOX 2) - Kawana Baldwin, known as the Eyelash Kween, spent years in a career completely unrelated to beauty before finding her true calling.

Baldwin was a probation and parole officer for the Michigan Department of Corrections. She was a decade into her career in 2015 when a colleague recruited her to sell makeup.

"I remember at 12 years old.. my mother teaching me how to do hair… by the time I was in high school I was doing hair in my parents’ basement, but I never equated it to a gift or talent," Baldwin said.

However, that colleague asking her about selling makeup changed things.

"It sparked something in me," Baldwin said.

She went to beauty school and became an esthetician while still working full time with MDOC.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened.

"If it wasn’t due to COVID allowing me to slow down to have that talk with God and for him to show me this is his will and my purpose," she said.

So, she left her job with MDOC and last week opened a beauty salon in Dearborn Heights. 

The overall focus of her business is beauty and skincare. Baldwin is also known for her stip and magnetic lashes that were featured in Parents magazine.