AFTER

The 23-year-old seized this opportunity to look more put together at her internship. "I've been wanting to try red lips, but I could not find a color that looked good with my skin tone," she says. "I like that this one is blood red and not at all orange or pink." She also loves her new spiral curls, although she was apprehensive at first. "I was like, 'I'm going to look crazy,' but I like them." Lipstick and curling irons aside, the mother of two young girls is most impressed by how the makeover makes her feel. "It used to be that when I got frustrated, I would tend to give up, but today feels like the culmination of a lot of hard work," says Xrist. "Now I know that if I do keep going, I can reach my goals."