The podcast Guiding Growth: Conversations with Community Leaders from the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, event and meeting venue Modern Moments and the Gilbert Independent/yourvalley.net explores the human journey of leaders. There are stories of humility, triumph, roadblocks, and lessons learned. This partial transcript of the most recent podcast with Dania Blanco has been edited for brevity and clarity.  

Dania Blanco founded Cosmiix Artistry in 2010. She was still working full-time as an investigator for the town of Gilbert and raising three kids. Her artistic career started out in the film industry, working on commercials and editorial shoots during any free time she had. In 2014, she resigned from her position at the Gilbert Police Department after almost 19 years of service to pursue her dreams full-time. Dania focused more on bridal makeup, eyelash extensions, and permanent makeup, slowly enriching her skills. Since taking that risk, she has grown her business far beyond what she could have ever imagined. In August of 2022, Dania opened her storefront in Gilbert, Cosmiix Beauty Labs. 

So born in Costa Rica. What does that look like for you? Well, I never lived in Costa Rica. I was brought here when I was about 2 or 3 years old. I think I was 3 when I was brought here by my mother, but I go back every year since since I've been with my husband. My mother came to the United States first in 1972 or 3. And I don't think that my father got a visa. So he stayed in Costa Rica with me. And my mom came here, lived with my aunt who was adopted by (a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) family when she was a young girl after my grandmother passed away. And this is my paternal aunt. And so my mom lived with them for a little bit, and she found a job and called my dad and said, “Hey, I have a job, let's have you come.” And he said, “Nope, I'm not going, I'm staying here, and Dania’s staying here,” and she said, “The hell she is.” 

So she went back to Costa Rica, and there was a little battle to get me, and my father tends to have lots of girlfriends. So I was at his girlfriend's house, and my mom went to go get me at his girlfriend's house, and she did not let me go with my mom. So she shut the door and went to the back room. I don't even remember, but I vaguely remember opening the pink chiffon curtains and looking out the window and seeing my mother and my aunt in front of a taxi. My mother was crying, and she looked over and saw me at the window and she waved for me to come out, and I opened the door and I walked out and she grabbed me and put me in the taxi, and we left.  

How does that translate to a relationship with your dad? Is he the reason you go back to Costa Rica? No, later my dad came, and my parents had two other Children. My mother divorced my dad in like 1984, 85, and my father married again and moved back to Costa Rica. I can't tell you what year that was, I can't remember, but he has two other children with his wife and moved to Costa Rica. Never has come back. He's not a very good man.  

Mesa High, what does that look like for you? I graduated in 1988. I had my first son two days before my 17th birthday. I was a very young girl, which is dumb. So I went to a school called TAPs, which is the pregnant girls school because back in the '80s, everybody was getting pregnant in high school. Teen pregnancy was an issue.  

You are a very accomplished individual? So what does that look like for you? Obviously, you are a lot like your mom in that you're a warrior and a champion, too, and you push through. I remember one thing that my English teacher told me. He said, “What are you going to do, Dania? Because I already had my son Dominic. And I said, ‘Well, I want to go to school, I want to go to law school. I want to go to UCLA,” and he said, “Well, then you better start going to college.” He said, “I don't want to know that in five years, you have five kids.” I said, “OK,” so he helped me fill out my college form and my financial form. He helped me with all that because my mom really didn't know any of that stuff, but he did. 

So how do you end up becoming an investigator? I really don't know. I was working in the early '90s, I worked for Lancome Cosmetics at Broadway Southwest Fiesta Mall. And after that I decided, I think I need something a little more stable. I worked at Chase Bank in Tempe, and I applied for the town of Gilbert because I wanted insurance. 

I just had my daughter, and I'm like, “I'm so screwed. I have three kids. I'm single. I am so screwed. I need to do something to change what I'm doing. This is dumb.” And so I applied at the town of Gilbert because we lived there, and there was a position open, and I took it, and I was an admin for a long time and it just grew from there. I remember one of the lieutenants at the time. She called me, and she said, “Dania, there's a position open in investigations.” And she said, “You need to apply for it.” I said, “OK,” so I applied for it.  

Do you feel your life experience thus far contributed to that job and what you brought to that position? I've always wanted to do something where I'm helping children that have been abused in some way, shape or form. I didn't know what that looked like. I didn't know how that was going to happen, but I knew somehow I had to do something to make things to change things. 

I was molested by my father at a very young age. I remember being molested at 3 years old and the molestation went on for years until my mom found out about it. And that's when she separated and divorced him and left him. I was about 15 years old when that happened. So I always wanted to do something good to help. And I was hired by investigations, and I didn't realize that I was going to be put in this position. But I was a civilian investigator, which is very different than a sworn investigator. 

It was a lot more my main job to manage the sex offender registration caseload. That was my main focus as an investigator, but because I speak Spanish, back when Gilbert was like a little town. I was afforded many opportunities. The police department also had me go through a lot of training on interviewing the sexually deviant, and I went through Childhelp for forensic interviewing training. And so I was able to help the detectives in a lot of different ways in which I'm very proud. I was just doing my job, and it was the way that I supported my children. 

You are working in the police department and somehow cosmetics remains a part of your life. How does it remain a part of your life? And what causes you to, to explore that and start opening that door again? In 2008 when things financially were getting a little crazy. I thought, “Man, what if my job gets cut? What if I don't have anything to do? What if I don't have anything to fall back because I do in all of this crazy chaoticness. I have gone to school. I've gone to, I've always had two or more jobs because I had to feed my children.” So I thought, “You know, I'm just going to go do what I do best and that's makeup. But I'm going to do it right this time.”  

So I took out a loan off my deferred comp, and I went to school. So I'm much older than the girls that are in this school with me, and the director and I hit it off, and she says, “I'm going to send you on a gig. I have a gig for you. I have a producer that's asking me for a makeup and hair artist. I said, “I don't do hair.” She goes, “That's OK. You do hair.” I said, “All right. I'll do hair.” So I went on a set to a pilot for a web series, and that was it. I was freaking hooked. I loved every moment of being on set. The best thing was that she said, “OK, when you're on set, you need to make sure that you do this and that and this, make sure you have this, the more you have, the more they love you. You be you because you have a great personality and they'll love you, even though your skill set isn't all the way where it should be, you'll do fine. Just be you.” 

I said, “OK.” So I did everything she told me to do and everything she said would happen, happened to a T. The director and I became very good friends, and the actors were great. So I started getting phone calls from people that said, “Hey, so and so said that you're a makeup artist and that you're great. And we need me a makeup artist for this.”  

I made so many different connections, and I think the sad part about being in this generation is that people don't know how to connect anymore. And that's super sad to me because they're missing out, man. These kids are missing out on human connections, right? Look at the pivotal moments in your life because of human connection. So I just networked and networked, and I attended every network event, and I talked to everybody. “Hi. What do you do? Oh, I'm a makeup artist.” 

So then I thought, “Well, you know, if this is going to be what I want to do on the side, then I'm going to need to make a business. So then I did my business name. I came up with all of that. It's Cosmiix Artistry because I'm doing art with cosmetics and so many different things. I've done so many films because I know what real dead people look like. That's how it started. I needed an outlet, and I used it as an opportunity to build my skills and an outlet for all the stuff that we see at work because I think everybody needs an outlet.  

And so now, you have built such a business that you were able to retire from law enforcement and now you have your own storefront. What happened was I signed two contracts with two films that were both going to be over 20-days shoot, and I ran out of vacation time. So I asked the town to give me a leave of absence, and they gave me one, but they denied the other. So I really thought, “Well, my daughter is a senior in high school, and if I have to eat ramen for a week, I'll eat ramen for a week, whatever.” So I decided that I was going to take an early retirement and pursue the film stuff. It's amazing. I didn't know what was happening, and I looking back, I probably should have did it differently. But I don't regret it. I think it's been really great. So nine years ago I stopped, and then last year I opened Cosmiix Beauty Labs, which is a 1,700 square foot med spa. It's a little beauty boutique.  

So now you are in a whole different path in life. You're running a storefront. What does the next five years look like for you? Where are you going next? Well, my husband retires in four years so he'll just have retired and then we're moving to Costa Rica. Good to think that that's what I thought. So. It's kind of funny because I never, you know, my whole life were my Children and I was their life and they are my life and I never even considered what retirement would look like. Never. 

It's really too early to tell where Cosmiix is going to be. I love my little area. I love that I have given the opportunity to young girls to come and be creative and to explore their own art. And because I am so grateful for those people that walk through the doors, then I feel like I have to pay it forward. And the way that I pay it forward is by going to domestic violence shelters and beautifying these women because I've been there. 

I remember my mother and I going to domestic violence shelters, which I didn't know that that's what it was at the time. But I thought, “Oh my God, they have such cool toys here. I want to be here, and the house is so big, and they have stairs.” And I never understood why my mom was crying. Obviously now I do. So I want these women that are there to feel beautiful just for one day if they can forget what they've gone through and just feel pampered and loved and beautiful.