Gia Farrell is Zach Neil’s business partner at Beetle House, the highly popular New York City horror themed restaurant. In addition to running the business, Farrell works on cocktail design–including colorful drinks that froth with liquid nitrogen–but she is perhaps best known for her contributions to a completely different aspect of the entertainment industry.
Singing since she was a toddler, Farrell was signed to Atlantic Records label at age 16. In January of 2007, Farrell’s hit song, Hit Me Up, came out that many will recognize from the Academy Award winning motion picture Happy Feet.
Although this was a giant break in Farrell’s career, she says it created emotional challenges.
“There were certain things about it that just weren’t me… I kind of got in there and then they tried to turn me into something that I really wasn’t,” she stated.
At that point she moved on to another entrepreneurial venture that preceded her work on Beetle House. Farrel began her own cosmetics line.
“Everyone who knows me knows that the two things I am super into are music and makeup,” Farrell says.
She got her start working for other cosmetics companies as a make-up artist and then went out on her own.
“For the first collection of makeup from my line I wanted to do 4 different lipstick colors that were inspired by different characters,” Farrell explains.
She named her line Dirty Mind Cosmetics, because, she says, “I can pretty much take anything and I turn it into an innuendo. That’s just me.”
Farrell works in the lab herself to create products.
She says, “People really love it so far, so I’m really happy about that. The reaction I’ve been getting is ‘Oh my god these are so creamy and pigmented.’”
Farrell, who is only 29 says she intends to continue her various ventures and adventures, “People change. People grow into new things and better things.”
—
