User:PatriceMarrero/sandbox

Christina Flach
Christina Flach is a celebrity makeup artist. She is the Founder and CEO of Pretty Girl Makeup and is a member of Soap Opera Digest’ s Style Squad. Since her husband, Ken Flach, died from sepsis on March 12, 2018, Flach has worked as an ambassador to raise awareness about the condition.

Tennis
When Flach was 16-years-old, she began competing in professional tennis events. That eventually led her to the Avon Circuit in Mexico, where she spent several years competing and became a clay court champion. When she got pregnant with her first child, she began looking for a career that meshed more with family life.

Celebrity Makeup Artist
Flach began working as a makeup artist in 1996. In the beginning, she styled her friends and family, and that led to her booking weddings, and then she her first agent at Ford Model Agency, which led to working with celebrities, on high fashion photo shoots, films, and in a variety of commercial advertising campaigns. The first photoshoot she worked was for an online catalog shoot for GAP.

Flach works on location all around the world, but does most of her work in San Francisco, Cabo San Lucas, New York, and Los Angeles.

Flach’s client list includes Miley Cyrus, Renee Zellweger, Hillary Swank, Condoleeza Rice, ABC Disney President Anne Sweeney, Lars Ulrich, the band Journey, Tyler Florence, Italian Vogue, Forbes, TIME, People, The New York Times, GAP, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Burberry, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, Vanity Fair, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Bloomingdale’s, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn , Jaylen Brown , No Tofu Magazine , and Institute.

Pretty Girl Makeup
In 1998, while vacationing with friends in Hawaii, Flach coined Pretty Girl Makeup after a friend commented on their pretty girl status. Flach wanted to create a lip gloss that lasted. She worked with a chemist for almost a year to find the right formulation. In 1999, Pretty Girl Makeup launched with a lip gloss line. The full collection now includes lip gloss, lipstick, eyeshadow, highlighter, bronzer, blush, eyeliner, and mascara. Pretty Girl Makeup products are all natural, cruelty-free, non-toxic, kosher, and made and packaged in the United States. Sharon Case from “The Young and the Restless” is a known Pretty Girl Makeup fan.

Fashion Correspondent
Flach has been a member of Soap Opera Digest’s Style Squad, which consists of a variety of fashion and beauty professionals, since 2007. The Style Squad column praises and critiques celebrities on their choice of fashion and styling. Her style tips have also been featured on ABC7, TODAY , and Prevention.

Board Member
Flach is a member of the advisory board for LAFACE Skincare, Inc.

Sepsis Awareness Advocate
After her husband, Ken Flach, died suddenly due to a sepsis infection that stemmed from pneumonia, Flach made it her mission to raise awareness about sepsis. She fights against sepsis with two goals. One, to enact stronger protocols in hospitals to avoid misdiagnosis and inappropriate prescribing. Two, to engage the public and raise awareness about the symptoms of sepsis, and relay the importance of early medical treatment.

Flach joined forces with Sepsis Alliance to tell her husband’s story through the organization’s It’s About TIME™ initiative. The poster campaign featured a photo of Ken Flach from his professional tennis career, and asked viewers to take a quiz on Sepsis Alliance’s website. The material provided the public with information about the symptoms of sepsis, and the importance of seeking prompt medical care.

Flach has been featured on various news segments, podcasts, and in articles speaking about her husband’s story and life to promote sepsis awareness and changes within the medical system.

Personal Life
Flach was born Christina Marie Meroff. She grew up with both of her parents, Don and Peggy Meroff, in Fairfax, California – a small town in Marin County. As a kid, she rode horses, played tennis, and played with makeup. When she was young, Flach’s mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. While her mom was undergoing chemo, Flach would make her feel better by tending to her hair and makeup.

Flach had five children with her first husband, Mitchell Friedman: Melanie, Rose, Nikolai, and twins, Ben and Beau. On December 25th, 2006, Beau died from SIDS at 18-weeks-old. After Beau’s death, Flach started a foundation in his name at Northern Light School in Oakland, California. The funds help children with minority families get access to a better education. Flach also helped build a community garden in his memory at his twin brother, Ben’s, elementary school.

Flach met her late-husband, Ken Flach, when her friend, Shaun Casey, moved next door to Ken’s doubles partner, Rob Seguso, and his wife, Carlin Bassett. They became friends on Facebook, and when he commented on one of her posts, she realized it was Ken Flach the professional tennis player. Flach has noted that she had a crush on Ken when she was a teenager, and kept a poster of him over her bed. The two began messaging often, but it wasn’t until a year-and-a-half later that they talked on the phone and met in person. Six weeks later, in 2010, the couple was married. They merged two large families, with Christina’s five children from her previous marriage, and Ken’s four.

The couple was married for eight years, when Ken got a cold, which turned into bronchitis, which turned into pneumonia. His illness progressed quickly, and within a week, he was in the hospital and suffering from sepsis. The hospital didn’t have the right antibiotic to treat the infection, and Ken died on March 12, 2018. After Ken’s death, Flach teamed up with Sepsis Alliance, and works to raise awareness and change hospital policies around sepsis.