Stateline beauty influencer paves the way for men in makeup

ROSCOE, Ill. (WIFR) -- One stateline native is paving the way for boys in the beauty industry. He's now working to make the beauty world more accepting of everyone.

"I just ended up doing it one day and it ended up taking off, my first video. It's just mind-blowing it really is,” said Cohl Woolbright.

Belvidere North High School alum Cohl Woolbright started wearing makeup for his cheer competitions. After getting requests to do tutorials, he started posting videos online. In just one year he's up to 272,000 followers on Instagram.

"I really realized that I was like becoming bigger when people were noticing me in public and coming up to me asking for photos, that's when reality set in like this is going to be something big,” said Woolbright.

Woolbright noticed there weren't many men being featured in makeup so he reached out to Ulta Beauty asking them why they didn't feature more guys. The beauty company then asked Woolbright to partner with them to show makeup is for everyone.

“I actually used to work at Ulta Beauty so it was kind of a full circle moment and that was another time I was like oh my gosh this is so cool this is happening to me.”

In a statement, Ulta Beauty said, “…We love when people use makeup to express themselves and celebrate beautiful possibilities. Cohl has been an amazing partner in representing the spirit of beauty without limits.”

“I think it's really important that boys feel comfortable with makeup. It doesn't define you as a person. Society is changing every day and it doesn’t make you any less of a man. You’re still a man with makeup or without it. Everyone should feel comfortable with what they do like it doesn’t matter what anyone says, how other people feel about it, if you love it you should do it.”

Woolbright recently worked with Mac Cosmetics on a campaign. He will be moving to Los Angeles next week but plans to come back to the stateline to do meet and greets in the future.