Houston TV News Star Dominique Sachse Opens Up and Shares Secrets Like Never Before

It was a surprising no holds barred Q&A when popular KPRC Channel 2 news anchor Dominique Sachse, the woman with 1.5 million YouTube followers, was in the velvet hot seat. She revealed her age, her beauty secrets and the scoop on that Today show appearance.

The Annie Café and Bar was setting for the Houston Symphony League inaugural Houston Icon afternoon fundraiser during which chairs Ann Ayre and Marla Hurley peppered the deeply religious beauty with questions both personal and professional. Then the audience of some 60 women tossed queries her way.

As background, Sachse was born in Miami but soon moved to Houston with her parents, Peter Sachse, a native of Germany, and Audrey Toll from the Ukraine. She graduated from Memorial High School and the University of Houston, earning a degree in broadcast journalism.

She began her broadcast career as a Metro traffic reporter on radio, was a DJ for a bit and eventually advanced to doing traffic for KPRC and after a two-week fill-in on the news desk was offered a permanent news anchor job. Sachse has been with the Houston NBC affiliate for 25 years.

A Broadcaster’s Shelf Life

On YouTube, Sachse is known for her beauty tips, fashion advice and life guidance. In recent years, she began appearing sans makeup, taboo for most female broadcast journalists, particularly those who admit to turning 54 this year as she did at the Icon event.

With that bold baring of face to the public, the question comes from the audience about the limited shelf life of female broadcasters. Is she worried?

“I never believed that fear leads to anything good,” Sachse says. “So if you make decisions based on fear, fear of being judged, fear of being cast aside, fear of not being liked, fear of not being accepted, you’re going to prevent yourself from possibly doing things that truly speak to you.

“So I just said, ‘You know what, screw it.’ If people don’t how I look without makeup or they are seeing dark circles or lines, so be it. It is what it is and it’s me. It’s me and I’m going to put myself out there.”

With a glee, she adds, “And I happen to know a lot of tricks. And so why not put those out there too and share it.”

“I get judged for doing things to myself that I’ve never done to myself. I get all of that. I don’t pay attention to it. It’s like white noise and I put it away and I put my eye on the prize. And you are the prize. People like you who watch it (YouTube) and enjoy it. That’s why I do it.

“Before COVID we all had this discomfort of leaving the house without makeup. Then there was this fabulous epiphany that is that you just don’t give a flip any more. It’s a starting point. If I’m not willing to go there on camera and show that starting point then how believable am I going to be. And that’s what I love about aging and maturity is just being comfortable in your own skin.”

Genesis of Dominique Sachse on You Tube

A glamorous force on broadcast news, Sachse was regularly receiving queries from readers, particularly on her station’s Facebook page, about her color of lipstick, her makeup, her hair style. So she did video, somewhat as a lark, and posted it on the KPRC Facebook page.

“The comments blew up,” she says, which led her to think, “This might be a really good place to connect with women on a completely different level in a completely different way. . . It’s helpful. It’s empowering. It’s inspiring. It’s sharing. I think that is the one thing that I enjoy most.”

She launched her channel in 2014 giving makeup tips and tutorials from the bathroom of her River Oaks home. Seven years later she is an international star with the aforementioned 1.5 million followers. And the bathroom is still in play though she’s added her closet, the outdoors and living areas of her house to the background.

Sachse on The Today Show

“Surreal is probably the best way to describe it,” she says of her segment on the Today show with Jenna Bush Hager. “We all, in our careers, I think everybody has a goal or a benchmark, and I always felt, especially early on in my career, watching Katie Couric . . . I would always look at that show and that team and that model as something to aspire to. So the Today show was the dream. It was the best of the best.”

Sachse got there but not as originally imagined. “This was the path, not as an anchor, but as somebody who gets to share a message,” she says.

“So It blew my mind. Suddenly you realize that your message is going beyond Houston, beyond the state and you never know in what way it’s going to impact. Even more impactful than the Today show appearance was the women who were there and chose to be there in support and that is something that I will never ever forget.”

Hormone Imbalance

“Exercise became even more important when I started going through menopause and hormone changes,” Sasche says. “The loss of estrogen is the biggest sleep disrupter there is. There is noting worse than going through the night and you’re trying to restore and your hot and your body is restless. You have to pee every hour.

“Hormone replacement  I can’t live without it. It has been my sleep regulator. It has provided me energy. Mental focus, clarity, concentration, all of it.

“I immediately saw that when my hormones started going out of whack that I was losing what I needed most and that was a good night’s rest. And when that happens sleep deprivation — you’re agitated, you’re angry, you don’t feel like doing anything or working out. You have a tendency to gravitate toward carbohydrates.

“You eat badly. You’re going to sugar, you’re going to carbs. And it becomes this giant snowball that sends you into a really bad place. I’m not a doctor but I would say start with getting some blood work done and find a practitioner that really listens to you.”

Hormones and exercise were her saving graces, Sachse tells the ladies. A former “gym rat,” she gave up lifting weights and the body pain that began kicking in after so many years.

“I started doing yoga,” she says. “It changed my life because yoga is the perfect balance for strength, stretching, and peace meditation. So my body immediately started to respond to this physically and mentally. Mind, body, spirit is all one. Nothing is separate. And to me getting all this in play and working together is what makes me feel healthy again.”

On Spirituality

Sachse allows that she is deeply spiritual and has been known to attend Joel Osteen‘s Lakewood Church. In fact, Osteen performed the ceremony when Sachse wed Nick Florescu in 2012.

“I can’t imagine life without it,” she says. “To be honest with you, I talk to God every morning and every night. I give thanks for everything and I pray. That’s the cornerstone of my life, my marriage, my parenting. It’s my everything. It’s how I get through. It’s how I got through this past year and a half with COVID. I pray for our country. I’m always praying.”

On Her Changing Hairstyles

“Nick says that he has a new girlfriend every six months,” Sachse says. “When I met him and we started dating I said, “I gotta warn you. I do like to change a lot.’ And he said ‘I don’t care, I love you just the same.’

“For me it’s fun. Again, it’s the abandonment of fear. I see the human form as a canvas. I love to play with color and shape and style. If I love it, great. If I don’t love it, well it’ll grow out or I can change it. I’m not attached to it and I’m not married to it.”

And it’s fun as well for stylist Ceron, who works the magic in his namesake salon. Her most recent hairstyle and color change were shown off on Sachse’s YouTube channel.