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Meet the glam guru who refused to give up, even during chemo
This story is brought to you by our partners at day Etienne Ortega bought his mother a house, he wasn't thinking about glam. He was thinking about a promise.
'I told her when I moved to L.A. that I'd do it,' Ortega says. 'And by 26, I did.'
It's the kind of moment that reflects everything Ortega brings to his work: determination, intuition, and an unshakable sense of self. A moment that, like the refined confidence of a Lexus gliding down Laurel Canyon, speaks volumes without ever needing to raise its voice.
Today, Ortega is a celebrity hair and makeup artist with clients like Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, and Lana Del Rey, founder of his brand Ortega Beauty, and a cancer survivor.
But rewind two decades, and he was just a kid in Ventura County, Calif., cutting rubber bands out of his mom's bathroom drawer to do his sister's ponytails before school.
'I had no idea beauty was going to be my career,' Ortega says. 'But I used to sit at the salon for hours watching this woman named Hilda work — highlights, cuts, eyebrows. I was fascinated. She saw something in me.'
That early spark evolved into an unmistakable signature — bold lips, glowing skin, and a style clients now instantly recognize as his. But Ortega didn't fall into the glam chair by accident. He earned it through years of work, a mix of hustle, faith, and a fearless drive that began when he left home at 17 with no clear roadmap, only ambition.
'I had no fear,' he says. 'Just this pull. I'd help my friends get ready for prom, charging $10 a face. It wasn't even about the money. I just loved the transformation — not just how someone looked, but how they felt.'
Ortega, who was born in Guadalajara in Mexico, moved to the United States with his family at age 7. He describes his upbringing as full of love but shaped by machismo — a cultural environment that initially made him question if beauty could ever be his future.
'I didn't want people to say it was gay,' he says. 'That fear held me back. But then I realized — everything I loved, everyone I looked up to, were icons in beauty, in fashion, in music. And they stood for being unapologetically themselves.'
Years later, Ortega now calls many of those idols clients, mentors, and friends. Working with Aguilera wasn't just a career high — it was destiny.
'I used to say I'd work with her one day. People thought I was crazy,' he says. 'But I knew. I manifested that before I even knew what manifesting was.'
It hasn't been all highlights and lipstick, though. In 2021, Ortega was diagnosed with stage 2 testicular cancer. The news came unexpectedly after what he assumed was a pulled muscle.
'You never expect to hear that from a doctor,' he says. 'But it shifted my entire perspective.'
Even as he endured two surgeries and chemotherapy, Ortega rarely slowed down.
'Work was healing for me. It helped me feel strong. I'd sit in chemo and see babies, older people getting treatment — I thought, if they're not complaining, neither am I.'
Through that battle, he continued building something bigger — his namesake beauty brand, Ortega Beauty.
'It took six years,' he says. 'There were bad partnerships, setbacks. But I couldn't quit. Anything I start, I have to finish.'
Launching his own beauty brand wasn't just a business decision for Ortega— it was a reclamation of power, of vision.
'I'd spent years executing other people's creative direction,' Ortega says. 'This time, it was all mine. I chose everything — the formulas, the textures, even the soundtrack to the launch video. Christina helped write the voiceover. Mariah approved the edit. It was surreal.'
And like any good artist, Ortega doesn't just create — he gives back. He runs a series of beauty education classes called Maestro Workshops, helping emerging artists develop their own voice.
'I never had the chance to assist when I was coming up,' he says. 'Now I try to give others what I didn't get — mentorship, encouragement, a safe space.'
Safety, in fact, is something Ortega revisits often — not just in physical comfort, but emotional energy.
'You can't underestimate how important it is to feel safe,' he says. 'I try to create that with every client. Whether they're famous or not, I want them to feel ready, confident, supported. Like they're about to walk into the world as the best version of themselves.'
That's not just good glam — that's what Ortega considers the standard of amazing: Whether it's performance, style, or presence, both Ortega and Lexus know that what truly moves us is more than appearance — it's how we feel along the way.
This article originally appeared on Out: Meet the glam guru who refused to give up, even during chemo
