Pamela Carter-Pitts is a woman of many talents. I met her several weeks ago at the Contemporary Dance Theatre’s fall Performance and Time Arts show. She directed a fashion show that was a part of the act (which you can read about on Not Your Mom’s PTA) and we struck up a conversation before the show began. This woman does a lot! Her business L’BAE, standing for Living Blessed and Empowered, provides hair and makeup services, has it’s own cosmetics line and it’s own apparel line. When she’s not working for herself through L’BAE, she can be found working as a sign language interpreter, playing wife to her husband or mom to her five children. Oh, and she also hosts a weekly radio show called Living Life the L’BAE Way on 1050 WGRI. I actually had the privilege of going on her show last Wednesday to talk about A World of Dresses.
Pamela started her career as a cosmetologist in 1995. She started off working in various higher end salons, which was great to learn the business. However hair has always been a gift of her’s, so she was always able to build up a solid client base. She started getting deaf clients and thus decided to go back to school to become a sign language interpreter. She completed a bachelor’s program at Wright State and became nationally certified in 2010. Since then, she’s had many unique opportunities through interpreting. She’s had the privilege of working as an interpreter for Michelle and Barack Obama. She’s also worked with many government officials and gospel artists. Music, she said is her favorite. Thus, she ends up interpreting at all sorts of concerts.
“I love music and I love the stage,” she said.
In 2007, her daughter was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called Synovial Sarcoma that eats your organs. It swallowed her entire left kidney, so today she’s living with only her right one. However she’s cancer free and does not need dialysis. During this time, Pamela really sought out her Christian faith. That was where the idea of L’BAE, Living Blessed and Empowered, comes from. She said that during this time, she kept this sort of mantra with her. No matter what, she would get out of bed with the belief that she was blessed and empowered through her faith.
“I’m living blessed and empowered because despite the hardships that I’ve gone through and you don’t even know my story,” she said. “That is why I’m living blessed and empowered. My God gives me the joy to keep going despite what may be going on in my life.”
Pamela looks at all of what she does as an art form. From a young age graduating high school from the School for Creative and Performing Arts, she has always loved performance. So makeup, hair and clothing design all go hand-in-hand with her creative side. In fact, her slogan with L’BAE is “Where the concept of art and beauty create a new you!”
For Pamela, L’BAE is more than just her business. It’s a lifestyle brand. She’s all about promoting positive self-esteem and feels like her business is her tool in empowering everyone she meets through it.
So in 2011, she began brainstorming and putting her business plan together. She started figuring out how she wanted the makeup to look, what she wanted the t-shirt designs to look like and all the other fun things that go along with creating your own business. Now she has her own space on the West side of Cincinnati where she sees clients by appointment. She can also be found going out to various events such as the one I met her at. In the summers, she travels around with L’BAE. Her cosmetics line was even endorsed by Reggie Wells, Oprah Winfrey’s former makeup artist.
Through L’BAE, she landed her radio show. Life is full of so many chance encounters that lead to amazing things. This was one of them. She was at a gospel concert and ran into one of the producers at 1050 WGRI. He had heard about L’BAE and was asking her all about it. The concept was one he found intriguing. Through several interactions, she read to him some of her poems and writings she had that inspired L’BAE. She didn’t think much of it, though. Then a few weeks later, he asked her to come read them on the station. This is how L’BAE Moments came about, a short two-minute radio segment with Pamela saying different inspirational things. From this, the radio show was born just about two months ago. It has blown up, she said.
Overall, Pamela seems to have a sense of joy and gratitude. She feels blessed with all of her successes.
“I love being my own boss and entrepreneur to where I dictate what happens in my own profession,” she said. “I love that. It feels really good.”
