00:02when I act as this mermaid character for my audience and guests at a party I
00:09definitely feel like I am a magical being and that's providing this magic to
00:16them that they don't usually have they don't usually experience and I am so
00:21glad I heard the calling and and I pursued it
00:24hello everyone my name is Elle and I'm a professional mermaid for a living
00:32I love this mirror look at it look at this stuff isn't it neat so I like to say
00:38that my show makeup is kind of like a makeup sandwich it's basically just your
00:44normal makeup sandwich between primer and setting spray with some of them
00:51being a little bit more waterproof than others it's because I get out of the
00:55water I don't want to look like my makeup is running like at all it is not a
01:01common thing for it this type of work to become a full-time job I think that
01:06there's maybe a handful of mermaids around the world that do this for a
01:11living I started using more gold because the gold kind of represents that royalty
01:16aspect of Mermaid Elle is a mermaid princess who earns her crown for doing a
01:21good job at protecting the oceans and telling the humans to clean up after
01:26themselves and not pollute the beaches and things like that so it kind of adds
01:32that element of royalty I started out as a dancer and I opened up my own
01:41entertainment company and then one day I got asked for a mermaid for an event and
01:46I at the time there was not a lot of mermaids and I thought I could do this I
01:53could definitely do that the only problem was I didn't know how to swim at the
01:57time so it took me a lot of swimming lessons and getting scuba certified to get
02:03over my fear of being in water it really opened me up to like this ocean world and
02:10being down there and enjoying the ocean from the eyes of an actual mermaid what I'm
02:15gonna do is because the wigs all have clips for my hairline I'm gonna do a tight
02:20braid on my hairline this is the not a look I would really share but it is part
02:28of the part of securing the wig so I find the braid and I clip these onto it so it
02:35makes it super secure if you were to add up all the things I do as a mermaid it
02:42would add up to about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars per year which
02:46is something I really worked towards it it wasn't always that way my bread and
02:53butter is performing every time I do a show is I like huge amount of money that
02:59it's for the least amount of time I also teach mermaid diving courses out in the
03:05ocean for aspiring mermaids who want to become mermaid divers as well I also help
03:13kid Cali which is an amazing mermaid company dive wear mermaid tails and I
03:19help them with consulting and designing tails as well I do a lot of content
03:24creation as well and I get part of my income from social media so one thing that
03:28I love to do before getting in the water is to protect my eyes I kind of use
03:34these eye gel drops they're a little bit thicker than regular eye drops and to
03:39kind of create like a film on my eyes it's just another mermaid thing that we
03:43have to do I'm not good at this though I might fail oh my gosh it all it already
03:56feels so good there are several kinds of tails that I could wear as a mermaid
04:01performer I prefer wearing a fabric tail that's super realistic and also that
04:06makes me feel like I can be more mobile in the water all dive gear can be rough
04:11on the feet I wear these scuba socks that are like three millimeters thick
04:17inside of the mermaid tail there goes a actual monofin the monofin goes inside of
04:23the tail one tip at a time and then you gotta zip it up very carefully then you
04:29put your feet in the foot sockets one at a time and then you can just roll up the
04:35fabric all the way to the waist once the tail is on you just cannot walk you have
04:41to do the mermaid scoot which is kind of like an inchworm it's hard to be a
04:45mermaid on land the key to being a great mermaid is developing great
04:50performance techniques such as great posture shoulders back chin up just
04:56having good posture can create that presentable just look that presence for
05:01the guests as they're walking in I also do a lot of arm movements I'm always
05:06using some part of my body because obviously I'm half human half fish so one
05:11of them has got to be moving make sure that you look up as you're surfacing so
05:15that the hair kind of like falls back behind you and not in your face do a lot
05:21of surface work because the guests are usually right next to the pool looking
05:25down at the pool so you want to stay on the surface you don't need to go like
05:29four feet deep to disappear they want to be able to see you
05:35mermaid can definitely be dangerous in so many different ways let's just start with
05:41the fact that your legs are bound together there's only one way to move in
05:47water is doing that ondulation that dolphin kick mermaids are also going in
05:53water holding their breath you're still doing free diving techniques which
05:59require free diving training one of the courses that I was teaching at kind of
06:04proved to me how important training really is we were out in the water during the
06:10program you do have to learn how to rescue another person when all of a
06:15sudden we heard somebody yelling from far away that they needed help so I went my
06:22safety diver went and one of my students went to the three scuba divers that had
06:29surfaced and we noticed that one of them in the middle he was out completely
06:35passed out Elena got there first and she was doing rescue breaths at the surface
06:41my partner that had the underwater camera accidentally took a photo of this moment
06:53I think that those hours of him not waking up and being at the hospital was
06:59definitely hours of torture and even after we knew that he was okay it's still it was
07:06just very impactful and a little bit traumatizing it's very very common for
07:11like humans to look at mermaids and kind of laugh and kind of make fun of the
07:16mermaiding world but it is very skilled and it is important to know what to do
07:23what steps to take if there's an emergency in water I always tell the kids next time
07:32you go to the beach just just yell mermaid owl mermaid owl I miss you and then I will
07:37hear it no matter where I am and I just feel like if that creates a bond with them
07:43that they will never forget me that they have a mermaid under the sea mermaid friend
07:49under the sea it makes me emotional because I I know what it's like to miss
07:55out from such a beautiful underwater world a lot of people don't really like
08:00have that amazing experience it's just a beautiful world the ocean teaches us so
08:06much the ocean is like life and I can see how healing the sea can be a message for
08:17all humans is to follow your dreams nothing is impossible if I am a mermaid for a
08:24living then you can do whatever it is that you need in life so dream big and
08:30make a splash
Comments