Karla Baxa moved to the United States from Jeffreys Bay, South Africa when she was 19 to become an au pair. As a high schooler, she was the artsy type: always drawing. At one point she wanted to become an architect. Three years later, at 22, she is a TikTok creator focusing on face painting with more than 839,400 followers.
The daughter of a farmer, Baxa was never really into makeup, starting face painting when she was 20. Six months after she moved to the U.S. she got bored and played around with the acrylic paint and makeup. “I posted a picture and people were like, whoa, this is pretty cool.” she recounted. Baxa started by buying cheap paints, but when she discovered that people liked her work so she invested in better paints.
On April 8, Baxa attempted her soon-to-be favorite face painting: the queen of clubs.
@karla_mua_baxaCan i get 1000❤️s ?? ##clowncheck ##clownmakeup ##clown ##queen ##duet ##facepaint ##fyp ##foryou ##forupage ##toosieslide ##freezeframe ##viral ##eye ##oops ##scary♬ Hearse song cover by rusty cage – Yakshini13
“We were actually playing cards that night, and I was like, oh, maybe I should just like glue a bunch of cards to my face as a joke.” She said. And then decided to do a cards-inspired look.
“I was just like, putting a bunch of ideas together in my head. And then I was like, okay, I don’t really have like a solid plan, but I’m just gonna like kind of wing it as I go.” she said. “So like I kind of made the inside more like, clown-ish. And then I made the outside like this little white and red block checker box. And then I put the lines down my neck and then I just glued all the cards onto my shoulders and I really loved it.”
Baxa is saving up money to study special effects in Hollywood. Her favorite TikToker is Katie Cole, known in TikTok as FancyFlutie. Her favorite artist is Nirvana and her favorite TV show is Criminal Minds. The lowest battery percentage she will let her battery percentage go is 30 percent.
One year after moving to the U.S., Baxa met her future husband, and got married in December 2019. She is in the process of getting her citizenship and is currently waiting for her green card. She hopes to live on the west coast in the future, she says hopefully in Colorado.
