The Makeup Insider
The Makeup Insider is a fortnightly one-on-one podcast exploring the life and career of makeup artists, hosted by freelance mua Vanessa Barney.. Finding your community of other likeminded mua’s – the creative, artistic, talkative, flexible, adaptable with a good eye for colour kind-of-people, can often be daunting. Like, where do you start? The Makeup Insider is designed for just that. To build a collaborative online community of artists to build their confidence, connections and help drive their career to the next level.If you’re just starting out or have been in the industry for a long time, tune in now, check out the key takeaways in the show notes and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Find Vanessa @vanessabarney @the.makeupinsider
The Makeup Insider
Breaking into Beauty: The Justin Henry Story from Artist to Global Director
When the vibrant hues of a makeup palette blend with the trials and triumphs of a storied career, you get the mesmerizing tale of Justin Henry. As Vanessa Barney, I had the privilege of sitting down with this celebrated makeup artist and hairstylist. From music videos in Melbourne to Maybelline Creative Director unfolding a narrative rich with insider tales and invaluable insights.
Step into our time capsule, as Justin recounts the transformation of his natural flair for beauty into a venerated profession. He didn't just break through barriers; he painted over them with a brush of resilience and adaptation. The evolution of the makeup industry, as seen through Justin's eyes. From wielding the iconic Max Factor's Panstick to the digital realms of social media, his journey is a vibrant testament to the ever-changing tapestry of beauty branding.
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Hi and welcome to the Makeup Insider. I'm your host, vanessa Barney, makeup artist, hairdresser, educator and all-round beauty junkie. If you've ever felt lost or lonely in your makeup career, this podcast is for you. I'm here to interview makeup artists and other industry professionals, to give guidance and be the mentor I needed earlier in my career, with a new episode every Tuesday, don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss a trick, and if you like what you hear, please rate and leave a comment. I hope you enjoy. Today I'm joined by fabulous just fabulous Justin Henry.
Speaker 2:Good evening, good afternoon, good day, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good. I'm good. Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2:Thanks for asking.
Speaker 1:Pleasure pleasure. Where can? If people want to see your work, where can they find you? Social media Insta.
Speaker 2:I'm probably not the greatest of either, but I am on social media. I've adapted. I grew up in a period when it wasn't a thing, so I never really wanted to be seen. It was more about my work being seen and I'm before Google. So a lot of my great stuff music videos and celebrities and covers and stuff is is findable. But yeah, my website and Instagram are probably the main ones where I show most of what I do.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool. What is your Insta handle tag?
Speaker 2:Justin Henry Beauty Fab On all mediums.
Speaker 1:So, justin, I am desperate to hear your story and how long you've been in the makeup game and all your stories. So can you take me back to the beginning of how it all began for you?
Speaker 2:I had a very glamorous mother who loved to get dressed up. I also had a very posh English grandmother who used to wear Maribou slippers and rhinestones on weekends and have afternoon cocktails and she was quite the do with the rollers and Elmer hair spray. So she was pretty glamorous and I think I just watched those girls do the things that women do when they're alone. I was the eldest of four. I was supposed to be like the soccer player, the football or the cricket dude, but I was more interested in the sparkles and all that glam and glitz that we're getting into and I was pretty fond of my grandmother. So I used to watch all those 1940s film noir things and I used to be amazed at how glamorous all those ladies were. So I think that's where it all stuck and started being a thing.
Speaker 2:And then one day mum brought home a little sister and I had two brothers and then the sister came and I was like wait a second, I can paint her and back home the hair and do all sorts of stuff to this little gorgeous creature. So my poor sister was the beginning of me going hey, can I put lipstick on you? I didn't really ever want to do it on me. I mean, I probably did. There was four of us so we used to play Cowboys and Indians and all sorts of stuff. But actually me doing hair and makeup started on my sister and then progressed on my mother.
Speaker 2:Once I got good. That would have been about seven. Poor Barbie. My sister had come home from Christmas and my mother or Santa, had brought Barbie alive and all sorts of things, and I would just be lined straight to them and be giving them smoky eyes and lipsticks and different colors and blending it all together and Barbie may have had a bob or a new hairdo or a different hair color due to me and my poor sister would have to just suck it up.
Speaker 1:Where did you grow up?
Speaker 2:England and Australia and later on, as a young, older teen, america. Okay, cool, all right.
Speaker 1:So the influence of your mum and grandma is how it all began. Did you do any sort of formal training or anything?
Speaker 2:Makeup. No, no, no, no. My formal training was backcombing and teasing my mum's hair. Before she went to the disco, I think I would have been about 11. And she had kind of realized that I gave a much better smoky eye than she ever could and that she had no idea how to actually do her hair. But I somehow managed to be able to do it. So I was roped into that.
Speaker 2:Then it became the girlfriends would come over and then I'd do their hair and makeup as well. So by the time I was about 14, I was pretty like, okay with it. My mum had sort of figured out well, that's kind of useful every now and again. Let's keep him doing that. And it wasn't really a sexual thing as far as like me, trying to explore my femininity or stuff. I remember growing up in Australia when I was younger, about probably 12 and 13. And people judging me because I was somebody that understood beauty or could figure out how to make a girl's ponytail look better at school than the guys he'd like what are you doing her hair for? Unbeknownst to them. I was like a fledging hair and makeup person itching to actually do it for a living, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So how did you start to do it for a living?
Speaker 2:Randomly, somebody asked me if I wanted to be a model. Didn't really understand what that was, and so then I ended up being a hair model for a hair salon. Then I realized, like there are people that actually get paid to do hair. I never really figured that out, so I thought that was cool. So I started doing a hair apprenticeship as well as being a part-time model while I was at school and they all kind of merged together because I didn't really like school but I didn't really want to work in a salon.
Speaker 2:I kind of didn't really like modeling but I knew how to do hair and makeup from my family, and so I started doing tests with models while I was at model agencies. And that's the beginning of me sort of understanding that I don't want to work in a salon. I definitely don't think I want to be a model, but I kind of want to do hair and makeup. And through that sort of weird sort of juxtaposition of all the industries I sort of figured out a way of like, hey, I actually can make money doing that girl's hair and makeup and she's some singer, she's going to be on some TV show and they're going to pay me 500 bucks, so let's do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great story.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I hadn't really done hairdressing completely, but I understood the form and I get how to like make certain things be a thing because I've watched people in salons. I used to Frank FB, which was a really cool salon in the 80s in Melbourne. He sort of started me doing modeling and then I got into Vivian's agency and I kind of was doing all of it. But at the same time I decided I was kind of doing model tests for my girlfriends that were also trying to be models.
Speaker 2:And randomly one day sports girl called up Vivian's and said oh, there's a guy supposedly that's a makeup artist and he's done makeup and we want him to do our campaign. And my agency was like Justin, well, the only Justin we've got is a Justin Forester. He's not a makeup artist. Come to find out. They called me and they were like yeah, I definitely did her a makeup on that test. Why am I in trouble? And they were like well, no, no, but we know that we've got a client that will book you, so we'll guide you through that. So at 17, I got my first paid gig as a makeup person, supposedly.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I love that.
Speaker 2:It was pretty funny because it was with this really fabulous girl named Alison Bray, who was like a pretty big model at the time and ended up being like she married Camandetta, I believe. I've lived away from Australia for a long time so I'm not up with all the celebs, but at the time she was a definitely well known model and I remember them being in a trailer at Black Rock the famous Black Rock. Everyone shoots everything a Black Rock. But back then in 85, it was Alison Bray and Justin Henry God only knows who he was going to be and the client came and said, oh, could you give her a French braid and natural makeup? Well, I've never freaking heard of what French braid was, so I had no idea and you could have Googled it.
Speaker 2:Had no idea what that meant. I'd never done really proper any of that sort of stuff or followed a brief or realized that well, if I get the job, I'm supposed to do what they want. I didn't know that was a thing so obviously. I imploded in front of the Alison Bray model girl. He was probably maybe 17. And I was probably 16 and three quarters 17 type of thing and she was gorgeous. Bray did her hair, I did her makeup and we came out and it was a win. Oh amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Love that, and then Vivian said well, look, you're doing pretty good, you're getting some money jobs as a model, but you can actually make money doing hair and makeup. So if you wanted to, we'll sort of guide you through that. So I sort of sort of transitioned slowly from want to be aspiring model into want to be aspiring hair and makeup person and sort of got into the. The advertising aspects clash commercial end of the industry, and that's how I started.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love it. Can we just stop and have a chat about your kit back then, because there's so products. Now you know totally what, what like. What did you do? Where did you go for them? Was this the 80s?
Speaker 2:85, 86.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it was pretty grim street I think it was Max Factor back in the day Panstick if you're a makeup person and understand the logistics of that, it's pretty grim. But luckily I kind of the 1940s film noir scenario. So I kind of understood that. And then I understood so when I was doing it actually professionally, there were still people that were using HMI's, which are the hot old fashioned lights, and the reason they used Panstick was because it was creamy and thick. It covered a multitude of sins but then the HMI melted it into this glowing thing right. So I kind of understood the premise on that and I was very light handed with the Panstick from Max Factor.
Speaker 2:That was kind of really all you could get at sort of like price line and places like that. Yeah, I don't even remember if I got it a price line, but it was something along those lines and it was pretty much geared towards a white girl complexion. It definitely didn't have yellows or or caramels or toffees or chocolate. There was none of that option. But yeah, it started with. That was what I could afford.
Speaker 2:And then randomly I got a modeling job that paid me a whack of cash and I went straight into David Jones thinking I was legendary and bought all of the Dior collection. It was done by a gentleman named Tien who was a really famous makeup artist slash photographer in the 80s in Paris, and it was very colorful and very rich and vibrant and I thought, right, can't go wrong with that. But at the time I really didn't understand what blush was or what contouring was, or you know, they give me colors that like purple and yellow and green and I didn't understand how I was supposed to make that look normal in Australia. So I bought a lot of really beautiful products but I didn't understand where there was supposed to go or how I was supposed to use them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, like products have just come such a long way since.
Speaker 2:And randomly, I used Maybelline mascara the green and the pink one. That's what I could afford and then flash forward to 2003. I become the global creative director of Maybelline worldwide. So oh, wow, yeah, which is one of the stories. When I told the general manager that story they thought it was quite funny.
Speaker 2:And, side note, when I went to New York there was a magazine that Condon asked you to do called Maybelline, called Madame Iselle, and I was one of the beauty people in there. It was me, kevin Aquan and Bobby Brown, and they asked us what would you, what would you be stranded on a desert island with? And my answer then, I think, was in 94, maybelline mascara. So I've always had an affinity with drugstore or affordable makeup, and I think, because I come from a working class family with a mother of four, I've always been able to understand that even women without money still want to feel beautiful and they want to aspire to do great things with themselves, and so I've never been shy to try something that's cheap, if you know what I mean, even by the expenses of stuff too. But it doesn't necessarily translate to me that I have to have a kit full of that to achieve the looks that I want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, so let's. So you've done that first job, which was a sports girl campaign. Did you continue to work like? Continue to work in Australia?
Speaker 2:for a while. Well, we're 17. At that stage we're trying to be a model. We're still working in McDonald's. It's a big grim. We're doing the best we can. We've got pimples, we're growing facial hair. Are we a boy? Are we a man? I don't know what we are, but we're confused, definitely.
Speaker 2:And I'm outside McDonald's, I'm trying to, you know, build my check as to where I was diversifying the funds and randomly, a young mixed race girl came up to me and said oh my god, you're cute. I was like oh my god, thanks babe. And that girl ended up being Kate Sibrano at the time, and I think she was 17, and we were just having a chat to mixed race kids walking past each other, and that was on Ackland Street near Luna Park, and she was like oh, what do you do? I'm like well, as you can see, I had the full makeup, full McDonald's uniform. I work there, but I want to be model slash makeup person.
Speaker 2:And she was like what Crazy? I'm doing a music video tomorrow. Do you want to maybe do my makeup Meanwhile? Don't have a pork, don't have a sports folio, rah, rah, rah. Next day I turn up to the gig and it is me with a fishing tackle box, a sticker, maybelline mascara, some Dior eyeshadows in purples and lime greens and turquoise and a couple of cheap random lippies. And I did a music video that I got paid by from Mushroom Records and that ended up going top five and they were called I'm Talking and it was called Trust Me and I think it was one of the big hits of I'm Talking Zero at that time. So that was the beginning of me moving into I guess it's a celebrity makeup.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. So K Soprano came past you and said you're cute, yeah.
Speaker 2:Supposedly I was cute enough for her to look and say how you doing.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, look, is it biggie? Pardon, do you?
Speaker 1:go on to work with her after that.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did, and I did a couple of other things. I think I did an album cover. I also did some PR stuff with the band themselves and became very good friends with the other girl that was in the group as well as Ann.
Speaker 1:Okay, so where to next? These stories are great. Keep them coming.
Speaker 2:Mushroom Records decided that I was cute. So then I ended up doing Michael Hutchins from In Excess and he then was dating Carling Minogue. So then I was hanging out with her. We were three little cute kids that were hanging around Melbourne. Nobody really knew who I was or who he was, but everyone kind of knew who Carling was. I didn't really know who she was because I wasn't a neighbour's fan. I was a son's and daughter's. So randomly I turned up and, nick thing, you know, I'm hanging out with those two. They ended up being a thing. I did a music video for him which was called Suicide Blonde.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And then we all twirled around the world and we were little wannabes I guess you were. She twirled off and became epic, obviously, and so did he, and I did a little something, something myself. But that was sort of the beginning of me starting to work with regular music people and I kind of figured out like, okay, well, I can definitely work and I can definitely do this music, video stuff and these sort of pop story celebrity people have money and there's a record company and there's TV shows and there's events where they'll pay me to go and make them look cool. And so that's when I decided I think I'd rather do that than actually work in advertising or do those kind of like I'm being told what to do jobs, I guess you'd say.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep. Did you have an agent on stage or did you just no, oh, yes, actually I did randomly.
Speaker 2:I was with an agency called Melanie Dames. Melanie Dames had Grant Matthews and myself and a couple of other people that you know, regan Cameron and our God, aaron was a really famous Australian makeup artist, and that's why I went with her was that she had this guy named Aaron and he was very creative and I thought, well, I don't want to be Aaron, but I want to be Justin Henry, and Justin Henry is going to do pop stars, which at the time everyone thought, well, that's pretty weird, how are you going to pay the rent doing that? But nobody really figured out that makeup people were a thing overseas, right. And I discovered a guy called Richard Shara. Richard Shara have done people like Susie in the Banshees and Adam Ant and Boy George and Marilyn, right. And so in my mind I'm thinking, well, I don't want to do sports girl commercials even though that was a cute check I want to do pop stars, and pop stars get to wear purple eyeshadow and wear pink lips and do cool shit.
Speaker 2:I want to do that. And then I realized, well, there aren't any here, so I've got to get the hell out of here ASAP, because I've already done Michael Hutchins right. Yeah, and obviously he's not going to wear makeup. He wore a little bit of makeup just to clean up his skin and make his skin look good in videos and things, but he wasn't Adam Ant in that sense. He wasn't interested in playing in that sort of David Bowie world, and that's kind of what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see, Can you? Hang on for one second, justin, hold on a second. So sorry, my dog locked himself outside and he was crying. Alright so I had to go get him. Alright, so you wanted to do David Bowie stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:How did that? Where did that take you next?
Speaker 2:Michael Hutchins introduced us to a lot of people. I got to meet a lot of cool directors who I didn't know that were cool at the time. One director introduced us to a bunch of people who then introduced us to you too. I went and hung out with you too through my girlfriend, who was in I'm Talking, who was now not in I'm Talking, but she was moving to New York, so we were thinking about America. So then we went and hung out with you too, and you too was on a tour with BB King and he was obsessed with David Bowie. And then we're all in a hotel room and it's like David Bowie, you too, bb King and Justin Henry.
Speaker 2:And in my mind I just thought, yeah, now this is what I want to do and I'm going to figure out how I'm going to do this. So it was this random act of kindness, in the sense I'd come from Melbourne, I'd met a couple of young upstarting pop stars, they'd met a couple of cool people who introduced them to some legends. And the next thing, you know, we're all hanging out at a hotel room and I'm thinking I want to stay in this room. And luckily I was able to understand that the music industry at the time, because there was now MTV and there was like music videos and countdown and rage and things like that right. Well, what a lot of average people didn't realize is that a lot of people needed makeup people for those people and those people were doing like album covers and press covers and magazine covers and that's where I sort of saw my way of maybe, oh, maybe I can do that.
Speaker 1:And so did you end up working with David.
Speaker 2:Well, no, actually I didn't. Okay, I ended up flying to Germany and becoming a commercial catalogue makeup person.
Speaker 1:You got to hang out. That would be fun.
Speaker 2:It was divine, yeah, no, I got to see him later on and I hung out with Iman and I get to hang out with his kids later on in the history of how life turns around and you end up bumping into people. So I met him randomly then and then years later I'd moved to New York. I was in my 30s and when I first signed, I signed to a big agency in New York years later and they were in liaison with Iman, who had a makeup brand, and she wanted to sign me as a face of makeup brand. Before there was makeup artist, iman was one of the first people that asked me to sign exclusively to them. My agent at the time wanted me to be more global and I politely declined that offer. But it was certainly a great opportunity for me because I idolized Iman and then, randomly at the time, she was married to David Bowie, so I was reintroduced to him through that.
Speaker 1:Yes, Okay, so where are we up to? Where are we up to?
Speaker 2:We're in Germany and we're doing catalogs.
Speaker 1:Okay, so how did you end up in Germany?
Speaker 2:Well, through the grapevine of having friends that were models, I found out that the cash right was in Germany doing this thing called catalogs.
Speaker 2:I hadn't really experienced that, didn't really know what that entailed, but I bought a one-way ticket to Hamburg and thought I'd give that a go. So that's where I started with that. I've never been afraid to try. Luckily I've been what's the word? Blessed with the opportunities to give it a good go. So randomly I got signed to an agency there. I didn't speak a word of German and I started the catalog industry. Germany was a massive, massive commercial catalog industry. They did a lot of like underwear and different kinds of things that have now become e-commerce, and Germany was one of the big countries and they were very open to foreigners coming and working there, as, obviously, if you spoke English working in a German industry, the Germans had completely used English as a second language. So it wasn't ideal, but it wasn't impossible.
Speaker 1:How long were you there for?
Speaker 2:A couple of years.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:How long is?
Speaker 1:this Is this the 90s.
Speaker 2:I was there when the war came down. Oh really.
Speaker 1:Every sign.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah. For years, randomly, vanessa, I had a piece of the war. You know, when you drag shit around you think, oh, one day it's going to be something. Well, I don't know what happened to that piece of the war, but somewhere along the lines somebody invited me to that scenario and I remember going there and getting my little piece of the war coming down.
Speaker 2:So it was quite an amazing period of German history in the sense that they'd become quite open and it wasn't great in the sense that they didn't really it wasn't a great time for them. It became quite what do you call it? Tumultuous, but I somehow slipped into the commercial aspect of Germany and was working for the Hugo Bossers and the Escarters and the Triumphs doing very natural, clean, simple hair and makeup on all those kind of catalogs. What they wanted was somebody that would read a brief and do it exactly. And, being the person that I am and I had a very particular type of mother and grandmother I had an eye for being exactly and I wanted to be that good boy. So I just wanted to do what they wanted and I wasn't rebellious at that stage. So it worked perfectly because they would show me a picture and I would just make sure that it looked exactly like that, come hail or shine.
Speaker 2:I didn't know what I was doing. Probably I never burnt anyone's hair off or gouged anyone's eyes out or transferred any kind of like grimy disease or anything. I was always clean and I certainly tried my best, to do the best that I could. And look, it was a lot of smoke and mirrors, I must tell you, because quite often I really didn't know what I was doing. I just tried really hard.
Speaker 1:So, as you said, doing this natural aesthetic, did you just learn how to do that through trial and error?
Speaker 2:You know what? I was a finger girl because my mum was a basic hippie. She grew up in England. She wasn't a makeup girl. She had really pale skin, dark hair. Her makeupy fingery thing was how she did it. She didn't have makeup brushes. I'm just reflecting back on where I would have watched that happen. My grandmother, there, was more of the type of woman that would use the actual Estee Lauder lipstick to line her lip and do it perfectly and then just powder her face with a little bit of Yardley Clear Translucent Powder and that was her beauty routine. They both had beautiful English skin, very alabaster, I think.
Speaker 2:Because I'd grown up with such a simplistic form of what was okay. We were kind of Christian, so it wasn't very spicy in our house. We watched Disney and stuff like that. I feel my aesthetic was always geared towards clean and simple. And then, growing up in England and Australia, both of those regions aren't known for dramatic makeup, hence probably why I was like wait, adam and Boy George, yeah, what? Oh, I want to do that, what's that? But I didn't want to be that. I wasn't brave enough to put makeup on and strut down Chapel Street and get screamed at. You know what I mean I wasn't that guy. I was more that if you were going to be that guy, I was going to hook you up. Be here to make your makeup look epic.
Speaker 1:And what about hair? What were you using that like?
Speaker 2:Girl fetal Elnette, whatever the fuck everyone else was using.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I mean? Because you know there wasn't like tongs and straighteners, even when I tried to get dressed.
Speaker 2:No, no, no no Hairdryer right.
Speaker 1:I maybe don't know.
Speaker 2:Hairdryer. So I learned how to do a round blow dry. I remember I was in a hair salon, right, but I don't know. Honestly, I really don't understand it. He must have liked me, this Frank FB, because I literally was like, well, I'm not sweeping up, no, and I'm not giving those old ladies coffees, no, I just want to watch what you're doing, I'm into what you're doing, show me what you do. Now, who says that to the boss? Do you know what I mean? But at 17, I was like, no, I don't want to be like that kind of hairdresser. Show me the cutting part, show me the curling part, show me the styling part. And he allowed me to be that person, right. So that's some random stuff in the 80s in a salon. So I never actually got my certificate. What I was very good at was watching really good technical hairdressers and going well, he held the blow dryer like that and then he did it like that. So let me try and figure out how do I do that?
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely makes sense. So you know, when you said that you went to Germany because you heard that you know it was paying really well to do the catalog work, what was it paying? Are you happy to disclose that?
Speaker 2:Oh God, back then you know what I couldn't tell you, but it was paying so much of that within. So you're talking about a kid that was basically kind of doing modeling and, yes, that did actually bring money, but I wasn't used to making that kind of money, right. So I went from just a normal person to, all of a sudden, I had 5,000 Deutschmark in my hand.
Speaker 2:Yeah okay, and then 5,000 Deutschmark. We're talking a time when the Deutschmark was a very strong currency in the world, right? So I've come from Australia and all of a sudden I'm making 5,000 Deutschmark a week, and then next thing, you know well, I haven't spent that 5,000. Now I've got another 5,000 coming. Wait, what do you mean? They booked me till June. It's only wait. No, it's February. What do you mean? I can't leave Germany till June. I'm booked every day till then. What?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've never heard of such a thing, right. So that was the beginning of me going oh, this is weird. Okay, so now I've got a full-time job basically turning up to all these weird. So I'd catch a train to Munich or I'd go to Austria and I'd go to all over the region in Germany during random Hugo Boss and all these different things I'd never really heard of, right. And then the agency would bill them and then they would get the money and then pay me, kind of a thing. So I've never really experienced that.
Speaker 1:Okay, and this was because you had a German agent, didn't you?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And in the end I know I'm having one in Germany in both cities, which was Hamburg and Munich, and Hamburg is the catalogue, e-commerce, kind of like Melbourne. That's where all the big brands are or the national companies are. And then Munich is more like where there's German Vogue and the more elite, like Helmut Lang or the more prestigious kind of like bourgeois companies and the wealthier women sort of that can afford to go out and pay for hair and makeup. That's what more sort of like more of a New York, for want of a better analogy. But I ended up having agencies in both because I didn't ever want to be one or the other. I kind of liked having like random 15 year old girls coming in from America and it's higher banks and we're doing Triumph London, london, and I'm getting a thousand Deutsche Mark for the day and then catch the train to Düsseldorf and I'm doing Fondant cover which was like the Dolly magazine of Germany, and I've got some young Heidi Klum kind of girl with braids that I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Do you know?
Speaker 2:what I mean. It was like fun for a 21 year old to have diversity within the job, because I didn't really know what I was doing. I just was happy that I could afford more than a sausage or a falafel, and I was constantly getting money and getting rebooked, which was random to me. I didn't realize that getting rebooked was a thing.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, yeah. And then where were you off to next? Where was after Germany?
Speaker 2:Well, then the Gulf War started and then everyone started being weird, and then the weather was weird too. At that time we started with the global warming and then they decided like, oh, it's crazy weather here, so we're going to have to go to Florida to shoot the next campaign and I'm thinking Florida, where the hell's that. And they're like well, we'll fly you to Miami, we'll put you up and then we'll start shooting in Miami. Are you available from December to April? And I'm like what do you mean December to April? Well, we'd like to book you from December to April. We'll fly you and put you in a hotel and we'll send models to the location every day at 5 am and you just have to turn up from five to five and do hair and makeup and we'll pay you. And I said, well, thank you, yeah, I'll give that a good go.
Speaker 1:Why don't I go to America?
Speaker 2:So I moved to America because the Germans decided that it was safer to do mass bookings with loads of different kind of at that time they'd started with the globalization, so there was German models and American models and French models and Italian models. And because there was a Gulf War going on, everyone thought, well, florida's a safer, more consistent weather and you can shoot week after week after week, like e-commerce catalog was the same thing. There was just so much content and so much work to shoot that once you got in that industry it was very long term and lucrative.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so to Florida you go.
Speaker 2:And off I am and randomly I'm at Next models. Next models have come to Florida and they're in Miami. I'm walking down the street and they somehow here, like I missed, like young little Aussie guy that's like 21 and he's doing all the German catalogs with all the Linda evangelists and the Claudette Nikki Taylor's how are you doing that? Right? So I didn't even know who Nikki Taylor was with. Nikki Taylor was with, I think, next or something like that, and she had to do a L cover, yeah, and she was like I like this guy from Australia does my makeup really clean and my hair is really simple and I want him. Randomly. She's like the it girl of America and I've never seen cover girl because I've grown up in Australia and Europe and stuff. So she was the cover girl sort of face of American natural beauty.
Speaker 2:And I started doing editorials with her when I wasn't working for the Germans and that was the beginning of me realizing like well, let's not go back to Germany so fast, justin Henry, let's have a little look and see what we can do in America. Because randomly back then they paid you 150 Deutsche Mark a day to eat and live off, which translated to around about 100 bucks, us. Yeah, now, back in those days, you can eat for $20 if you were savvy, and then you had X amount left over for fun times and social media scenarios, a aka laying at the beach all day, going get drunk at a party or all the fun things that a 21 year old would want to do. They basically gave you that per day on top of your rate, whichever the rate was that you negotiated to stay there and work for them and I think back then I was getting maybe 800 Deutsche Mark, which was probably around 600 US dollars back then, a day.
Speaker 1:Yep, that's pretty good.
Speaker 2:Well, when you consider your 21 and you're getting paid that kind of money to do what it is that you like I'm pretty gorgeous looking chicks and you get fed and on top of you got play money. I mean it was just an absolute like watching the world of. I landed here.
Speaker 1:And this is the 90s, right by now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 1991.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:And that was the beginning of Miami becoming the it place for commercials, flash editorial and advertising, because it hadn't been developed yet. There was all these old epic hotels that ended up becoming the fountain blue and the Delano and you know all these like epic hotels that are now. They were building them so we would all get like Pretty cheap A comedy, like I remember staying at the Delano for maybe a thousand dollars a month, so basically nothing. But it wasn't, it hadn't been. The infrastructure wasn't built in yet right, so it wasn't actually a proper hotel yet, but because there was so many of us and we were all busy anyway, wasn't like I was staying in the room, I was up at 5am shooting all day and then coming back and sleeping at night. So we grew up in a time when that city was just emerging into this we can do it, and everyone was kind of converging together. There weren't even department stores, really, or Versace or any of that sort of stuff that it is now right. But it was all coming, it was all starting to be and we were coming from all over the world Italy, germany, england, everywhere and I was a part of that era. And so New York realize like, oh well, hang on, if we go down to Florida, instead of flying a top model from LA or New York, we can actually just book a girl that's down there, right, because all these girls were being flown in from around the world.
Speaker 2:I remember one time I was doing an advertising job with a young girl called the Tisha Castro, who ended up being like this iconic French Italian movie star actress thing. She was just doing commercial work and I ended up shooting editorial and advertising with her and that got me into Murray Claire worldwide, because I had all these editorial pictures of her, because I was in Miami and I was able to do natural makeup and natural hair. So it was the right time, with the right aesthetic and the ability to mix in with the right crowd. I feel like that's where I was able to use that natural beauty Can do. Yep, I can do that, no problems attitude. I didn't have set ways in my makeup and hair and I was pretty adept at learning what it is that the person wanted me to do, and so I would just kind of conform to that. The non conforming me came later, don't?
Speaker 1:worry. Okay, did you ever assist anyone?
Speaker 2:I did beg for. Someone asked to let me assist him. I begged him, yeah, and he did. And I assisted Kevin Aquan, my sister, bobby Brown, and look at the time like they didn't know who I was. For nothing, I come from Australia but I was an absolute. I literally beg for a nice backstage and at the time I mean I get why he was weirded out because I mean he had all the covers and everything. But I was in there with Amber and Shalom and I did have my own stories with the Croce to McMenemy and stuff. You know, at twenty four that was kind of weird because the Pat McGrath hadn't come yet.
Speaker 2:But here in my, the sort of light skin, mixed rays, black guy from Australia and England doing what would to become supermodels. He didn't understand why I wanted to be an assistant and same with Kevin. I signed with Jed route when Kevin was the main guy for all the big stuff and you know I got to get to do his cast off. You know what I mean. But it was Because I hadn't grown up seeing how you did glamorous makeup. I kind of got the idea, but I'd never been around anyone that was strong with that. So for me, watching France. Why do a bold, vibrant, pink, red lit and strong smoky? I was like, wow, I want to do that.
Speaker 1:So that's, and how long. Like to do a system for a long time, was it?
Speaker 2:Oh no, here and there show seasons, you know Francois, on and off, here and there, I remember he had his main people, which was, I think she's still there, but I was at that weird phase where I was already working.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then was I available? It wasn't that I didn't want to help, but then if you're doing a full day of advertising for a German catalog and they're paying you three thousand Now, would you go and assist a legend for three hundred to do a show? Yeah, probably not, right. And so I had agents guiding me away from that. Like when I was asking Kevin Aquan to assist him. I was signed to Jed route, so it wasn't that I wasn't already established, it was just that I worshiped him and I wanted to learn what he did. And if he needed somebody to assist, why would you get somebody that doesn't know what they're doing? I understand what you need. I want to help you do? You know what I mean? But then it was very hard for the agent to say we'll go and assist him when they were going to get 20% of what I was going to earn that week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah OK.
Speaker 2:So that's where I was stuck. I really did want to do more of that, and Kevin and Bobby and Francois were both all of them lovely to work for. And I've assisted other people like different amazing people, but Never for long enough because I'd already established a working career where I was making enough money that I didn't really need to assist. When you sign up to the assisting thing if especially if somebody's successful it's supposed to be long term and look, whenever I had proper assistance, I signed them into my contracts. If I'm signed to L'Oreal, you're signed to L'Oreal too.
Speaker 2:So I came from that sort of yeah you know? Ideology. I didn't take people on for one second. I took them on for, like, I'll train you. I mean people that have assisted me are established makeup people that have their own careers and are doing my carry and people like that. Do you know what I mean? So it was that kind of Commitment and I didn't have the time. Same with Val Garland. I had the opportunity to assist her when it was Charlotte Tilbury, malcolm Edwards myself I come out to at Camilla Lother I think it was back there in London before I signed to Premier and I just was busy on my own doing spice girls. In all sense, I couldn't commit to being an assistant To Val Garland, even though I thought she was one of the greats.
Speaker 1:And when you say being an assistant to Val was that, was she doing the fashion week?
Speaker 2:She's like lead makeup artist for the Queen and so when you, when you, when you assist, you're going to do, instead of you doing Kate Marce, you might do Shalom or Amber. You know what I mean. So you are definitely doing the show, it's just it's not your show, it's not your idea. You're following the lead makeup person's direction, but you are doing it like when I was assisting France, while I was doing Shalom and Amber. Right, and the reason why I was doing Shalom and Ambra is because I was in vogue with Shalom and Ambra, but it wasn't my makeup direction, it was Francois' makeup direction. He was busy doing Christie Turington, naomi Campbell you know what I mean Because he was having the covers with those girls. So it's the same premise with anyone that is the lead person. They've come up with the editorial direction and, as the assistant, your job is to follow that execution as best, to the letter that they've provided for you.
Speaker 1:Have you directed shows? Yeah, okay, we missed that In.
Speaker 2:London, yes, yeah, in London and New York, yeah, not something that I ever like again. So I came in a weird period where I forged my own career and it was always towards music and pop stars. So the amount of money, time and consummation of my personal work time it takes to do a show as opposed to rocking up, it's a music video I'm getting paid X amount of money for 16 hours. So passers ever doing a show right and yes, that fame of doing a show got you the creative directorship of whatever, but likewise unbeknownst to people at the time being, somebody that is working with, say, david LaChapelle, carly Monogue, gerand Gerand, christine Aguilera. That also allows you the ability to be a creative director in the makeup department, because you are setting looks, but in a different format, which is the moving film music industry.
Speaker 2:I guess you'd say TikTok era. Do you know what I mean? I'm somebody that's established in fashion, advertising and celebrity, but there are people that are way more successful and known on mediums such as YouTube, slash, tiktok. I can't compete with 500,000 X, y and Z. So that's always been a thing, and back in my day it was if you want to be successful, you must do shows, and I was like well, I don't really want to do shows, because doing a show means you've got to do the test, you've got to get approved for the test, then you've got to execute the test, then you've got to source the product that you've created for the test, for all your assistants, you've got to have the budget from the business to allow for assistance. Oh, you have to eat that on your own to make that look. And I didn't want to invest that kind of time, I guess you'd say, when I knew that I could get the same amount of money, if not triple, doing a music video.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, you mentioned Spice Girls and I think we spoke about that.
Speaker 2:I was a part of that clique. There was a group of us. There was me, eli Wakimatsu, there was a whole bunch of us in London that did it. I did it one of the longest stints and, to be quite honest, I ended up having to do more than less of them. So it wasn't like me and Eli and assistance. It was me doing X-amant and Eli doing X-amant. Some days Eli would be available, other days I'd be available, but we'd have to do them all. You know what I mean. So it was basically. I mean, look, I just remember being so upset because I was just covered in barcoles and glitter constantly. Do you know what I mean? My day, every day for a long time.
Speaker 2:It was in a period of when pop stars were becoming epic, like as far as on magazine covers and brand endorsements, and so the spy schools were doing things like, you know, mercedes commercials. So it wasn't that you were just turning up and doing a music video. Sometimes you have to turn up and do a Mercedes commercial and it was like, ah, and that was so popular, you'd be on a plane to South of France or you'd be. You know what I mean. So it was a full time job. It was really intense and it was the beginning of wow, this is a crazy industry. And look at the time Val Garland, charlotte Tilbury, malcolm Edwards, guido all these people were becoming really famous because they were doing all these big, big things, but they weren't interested in doing pop stars and stuff because it wasn't a thing that came about later on, once those pop stars started getting vote covers and do your campaigns and you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yep. How did you end up working with the Spice Girls? Was it through an agent?
Speaker 2:or Well, randomly, I wasn't getting any work in London and I was doing like small shoots for some weird magazine called Dazed and Confused and I'd never even heard of it. And I was so depressed. And every time I'd get a job it would be things like with Rankin or Katie Grant and I'd never even heard of them. And so I was feeling really like nothing's ever happening. I've gone all the way because, you know, I'd moved to England but I'd already been in Vogue and W and I'd had like German vote covers and I'd done all this stuff in America and then I had to go to England. Well, I wanted to go to England to start again, to be more editorial, but I wasn't willing to give it all up and just be an assistant and then I wasn't willing to basically compromise. So the compromise was I forced my agent into accepting pop star bookings and it was kind of like a dirty word and everyone thought, oh God. And I remember people making fun of me because they were like oh, he does like pop stars. He's like I wasn't commercial and I wasn't editorial. I was celebrity, which was like a filthy word back in those days. Yeah, but it was 800 pounds of pop which I don't know, if you understand in pounds. Yeah, that's amazing. Some people do a lot, lot worse for a lot less. Exactly, you can get what I'm saying. No, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, so as a guy coming from Australia, coming from New York, I thought, what do I care? I never heard of the Spice Girls or all saints or Robbie Williams or any of these people. Right, I'm coming from New York. I didn't ever hear of them. So I'm like, well, what do I care if I go and do their makeup and get 800 pounds? And then it became like, oh, desiree, you know. And then it was like, oh, we're going to fly you to Australia, you're going to do this music video that's going to be Desiree, but it's in a movie. This guy, basil Irman, is going to direct it.
Speaker 2:So then it started being like the beaches and I'm doing all Spain. So I'm doing the music video for some weird movie called the Beaches and the United Capri. Do you know what I mean? Because I was doing these weird music video-y things as a job. I was getting the jobs that were aligned to those people. So now I'm doing movie videos and I'm doing movie stars and stuff. It wasn't ever meant to be. But it all worked out at the right time, if you get what I mean. And so I started making a business on what wasn't a business, and my agents didn't really get it. But what they did get was wait. Okay, hang on. This random kid from New York who has the hideous book full of American editorial just made £7,000 this week. Well, that's kind of a business right there. Let's keep doing that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is a business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it wasn't. It was literally something of like oh well, I've done music videos before, they're not grim, I'll do it. And then I would do like a music video with Shola Amma and she. Then Shola Amma would become huge, and then it was a thing. And then I do, you know, return of the Mac, and that song became huge. And then I would do Robbie Williams. Whoever everybody said was like grim and he was like the worst one in take that. Then randomly he became huge. So I didn't sign up to Robbie Williams the paycheck. I signed up to Robbie Williams like I think I can make some money just doing random hair and makeup on that guy. Yeah, because he wasn't really famous and everyone didn't really think he was the thing. I was just trying to get a regular check out of anyone that was semi famous, does that?
Speaker 1:make sense? Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then in the end, randomly, those people do become famous. And then when you moved to New York and you've done the Spice Girls and you've done Robbie Williams, and you've done Victoria Beckham, and you've done these people that are now established names in themselves, and then you get Renee Zellberger for the cover of interview with Samahayek and Eva Mendes, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So it did eventuate into a thing, but at the time when I signed to Camilla Lava and I was with people like Val Garland and Guido and all those sort of people that were at Camilla Arthur and those agencies, it wasn't a thing.
Speaker 1:Okay. So how did you end up in London?
Speaker 2:You went there to do Because America was super commercial, I'd done the grunge thing. I was in Vogue, I was in L, I was in Marie Claire. I was getting all the covers from all the different countries because New York is the hub. There's Italian Marie Claire, french L and all these sort of things. And if you're on the list, people hire you on site, site unseen, never met you before. They say turn up on Tuesday in Palm Springs and shoot with this guy, you'll get the cover.
Speaker 2:In September I got onto that kind of scenario in New York and then I realized well, I'm so bored of doing clean makeup on celebrities like Brad Pitt and all these men for men's grooming and GQ, and I'm bored of doing no makeup on Mademoiselle and the grunge thing. It's so boring. I'm nearly 30 years old, I've been doing this for X amount of years and all they ever let me do is natural makeup and no hair right. So I gave up the money and thought, fuck it. If I'm going to live my best life as a creative, I've got to walk away from the 60,000 a month commercial catalog, e-commerce, beginning industry and do the grunge thing which had seemed to me.
Speaker 2:The only way I was ever going to be cool is if I went to London or Paris and started just being cool. And so that was the beginning of me thinking, well, I get it, let me try. And when I got there, unbeknownst to me because my work was so American and so filled with, like Michael Kors, amber Valetta, american Vogue Mademoiselle, they thought that was ugly. What they wanted was rank and days to confuse Katie Grant, katie England, you know, and I didn't have any of that. So that's where I had to start again, and the only way I knew how to make money was doing pop stars in any which way or form that came. So that's where that started.
Speaker 1:Oh, what a story. Love this, justin. So when did Maybelline is Maybelline creative director? Is that what?
Speaker 2:you? Yes, that's when I became the creative. Yeah, Was that? Not long after?
Speaker 1:that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I decided, after doing all the pop stars in England and I've got pigeoned hold in that I just started getting Italian Vogue with Michel Comte and these sort of pretty high end photographers David, helmut Newton and stuff like that and I'd get these little gigs doing stir and and celebrities. So it'd be Lenny Kravitz with Michel Comte, which this generation doesn't know who that is, but these were like really established high end condonast repotage celebrity photographers and when you turn up on those jobs there's no chitchat, there's no giggles. I know you from a bar of soap, but it's Lenny Kravitz, he's walking in now Go. And I was able to turn up to those jobs and I didn't need to speak French, I didn't need to speak German, I didn't need to speak Italian, it didn't matter, because I understood what my job was, which was to make sure that the celebrity and the photographer and the editor were happy. And as long as they were happy with my department, which was sometimes men's grooming or hair or makeup, then it would move forward and I would certainly be aware of when it wasn't going right in my department and then exponentially try and fix that quickly to the person that was complaining, whether it be the editor, the photographer or the stylist or the celebrity. So that became a thing, because what happens with that is like oh, everyone was happy with him, rebook, everyone liked him, rebook. Oh, lenny likes him, he feel comfortable with him, rebook him. And then all the publicists realized like, well, hang on, you're doing Brad Pitt, lenny Kravitz, so then we can give you so and so. So that started that thing both in Europe.
Speaker 2:And then I decided that I was never going to crack the cool Eurokids and I'd have to do the show thing. And I didn't want to do that. I wanted to pursue the pop star celebrity thing, because I'd seen that by this stage, right, I'm being driven around in a car. I don't have to pay for that, I'm getting full rate. I don't pay for airfares, accommodation, food or anything, and I'm hanging out with pretty lovely people like the All Saints were divine. There were such gorgeous girls who used to just piss themselves, laughing constantly, right, but I'm getting paid to do that five days a week. Now I'm no longer doing the Spice Girls, I'm full time All Saints. And then, you know, then it's full time Desiree and we're flying around the world because she's in Romeo and Juliet and then her album's huge and all of a sudden I'm like actually just making money off of that person.
Speaker 2:So then I realized, well, that's actually a seriously kind of pretty comfortable gig. Let me just stick to that. And that's how I ended up realizing well, the king of all of that is Hollywood, new York. Let me see if I can go in America, not in the Vogue W RAP, which is what I've done in my 20s, but now in my 30s I wasn't even going to attempt that. I was just going to go in with what I knew, which was I know how to deal with publicists, I know how to follow whatever the person wants me to do. I'm just going to do that.
Speaker 2:And randomly, just as I'd moved into that decision, condonast and American Vogue decided that they weren't going to premiere supermodels anymore, that they were going to start using young Hollywood starlets.
Speaker 2:And the way I got back into America as far as editorial and fashion and photography was that I started doing this thing in New York called Vanities, and Vanities was the thing where they'd get like someone like Christian Stuart or Eva Mendez or someone like that that was unknown, and they'd do an editorial shoot with someone like Norman Jean Roy, or maybe one day it's like Annie Lieberwitz and that person would be hered on a small page and that became a consistent thing and then those people actually ended up.
Speaker 2:Vanity Fair clearly had the who's who of who was going to be next. I got introduced to a lot of young starlets by that, which then allowed me to get in with cool publicists who said, oh well, that guy was actually young and he was mixed race and he was like English Australian. He was really cool and actually we want him to do the cover of Naomi Watts, for the cover of MG for you with Ellen. Oh, and Ellen's worked with him. He did all Saints and Spice Girls cover with him, so Ellen's fine with him. And so the European celebrity thing, mixed in with the new kid in Europe, slash America, slash Hollywood thing started emerging because certain publicists and certain editors had experienced me and thought I was nice, fun and could do mixed race fun, young, cool, hair and makeup situations.
Speaker 1:So when's this? It's early 2000s.
Speaker 2:It's certainly years. I was in interview on a regular and I had all them little covers with all those little pop little starlets, and I was in Vanity Fair and I was twirling around with I guess what you'd say the hoi poloi of pop stardom, you know, christina Aguilera and Eve. And then I decided that I thought like, oh well, this is a vibe, let me start doing all these hip hop people because they seem to like well, they like what I like which was the Louis Vuitton and Dior and all this sort of stuff. And I thought, well, I can hang out with them. And, sure enough, started doing rock aware and hanging out with Jay-Z, and they had a back then they had a clothing brand, so they would do campaigns and sometimes it'd be Naomi Campbell, sometimes it'd be Victoria Beckham.
Speaker 2:Well, I've worked with both of them before and I mean, besides that, there would be like really cool up and coming mixed race black girls, right, and I had known a lot of them because obviously I'm mixed race, I'm Caribbean, english, australian so not only do I know them, but we relate to each other and I know how to make them look cool. So I'm doing like Trace magazine, and Trace magazine was like an English publication in the 90s 2000s and they put all the it black girls shot by all the cool black photographers on the cover and I started doing all the covers for that and was doing it with, like, alexey Hay and Elevon Ormworth and, like you know, jessica, there's so many people that came out of that era and basically what that was was just cool mixed race people with no makeup or simple makeup or cool Euro makeup done in a low-fi, street style way. But it was very unusual for America. They hadn't really seen that, and that allowed me to move into that fashion pop star celebrity genre, but in a younger, cooler way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how did Maybelline happen and what did that involve?
Speaker 2:Maybelline happened because somebody's famous, so I was signed to a French. At that time there were agencies like Mao and all these different agencies that had come over from London and they had the Guido's and the Odyl-Gilbert's and the Stéphane Mare. Well, stéphane Mare is my total, friggin' favourite. I absolutely adore him. He's cool, he's one of the most it-maker people in France and I've always been aligned to French cosmet. I just love, like Tien, and I've got this history where I do love all that helmet-yewed and French Paris Vogue stuff. Yeah, that's definitely what inspired me. So, working with that scenario, moving into that, that's where you realise, okay, I can make a thing out of this. So I signed up to Stéphane Mare's agency. She was a French person based in New York and the person that they wanted from Paris Vogue wasn't available. The next best look was me and I was a new kid, supposedly from London now. So they'd forgotten that I was in Vogue and that I was in W. They'd forgotten that I was the American dude. Now I'm the new kid with this French agency from England and that's how I started doing Maybelline. I wasn't their first choice, I remember before I signed the contract they had on the table in front of me Charlotte Wheeler, val Garland and Charlotte Tilbury, and I looked at those books. Back then we had portfolios and all of our portfolios were on the general manager's desk. The secretary had allowed me to go in before he arrived and when I sat down, being the girl that I am, I perused that table very fast as I sat down and thought, yeah, nah, not getting this, I can't compete with them. I mean, I was doing really well, but I just didn't see myself as a Val Garland or a Charlotte Tilbury or any of that.
Speaker 2:So I went away on a holiday to Sardinia with my bestie it was summer and then, randomly, I get a phone call while I'm on holiday saying oh no, maybelline want to fly you back, they want to shoot a campaign and they definitely want you. They don't want the Parisian one. They liked you, they think you're cool. So I was like, oh God, okay, that's the dream come true. I'm going to have to fly back.
Speaker 2:So I quit my holiday and I came back and it was a disaster. I was totally nervous, I was completely freaked out. It was so much bigger than I'd ever imagined. I may have cried I deny that but there may have been tears in the Winnebago when they bought in Adriana Lima, I nearly fainted, but obviously I was being filmed. They'd started filming here and make up people and I'd signed up to being filmed. But I didn't understand what that meant, which was it was reality, tvcom, go Right. So that was all weird but unbeknownst to me. I passed the green light globally as being somebody that looked the part, sounded the part, embraced Gayness, embraced mixed race, black, latino, global. Wait, is he English Hang?
Speaker 1:on.
Speaker 2:No, they say he's Australian. Wait, no, he's got an American flag. Because I sounded so weird, because I was a kid that had grown up in England and Australia and America and I'd lived in all these different places. At the time I signed, what they wanted was the face of a brand that was now going to go globally and embrace the fact that we do need Latino, asian, mixed race people, and we need to embrace that. So, me being one of the first well, I was the first global creative director of Mabel in worldwide. That was my title, and what that entailed was that I was signed to liaise with the brand globally on colors and direction and editorial content. Sometimes they would say, oh, we're going to shoot this thing. Who do you think is going to be? What would you like? Would you like, I don't know, say Stephen Klein? Or would you like Iris Van Erpen?
Speaker 2:or you know they would give you different brands, they would give you different designers, they would give you different things and you'd sort of say to them what you thought was cool. There's obviously a level of okaying that needs to be going on. It's not like I walked in and said do this, do that. It's global branding. We're talking about a billion dollar industry and we're talking about a fortune 500 company. So where they saw me fitting in was coming in with color conversation and inclusivity being that if you're a Latino girl, if you're a Brazilian girl or if you're a mixed race Jamaican girl in France or in Germany and you see a light skin kind of mixed race looking Latino guy saying that this is the best mascara and there's an Aegean Lima model, why would you not buy that one? Do you know what I mean? But I didn't understand that at the time. But that's how I got over Val Garland, Charlotte Tilbury and those thoughts of girls.
Speaker 2:Was the brand wanted that? They were thinking big, huge, global. They were thinking embracing all the mixed race people. They were bringing in mixed race girls cover girl that already had Tara Banks and that sort of thing. And I think Maybelline realized, okay, well, we're going to blow it out of the water because we're going to go global but then we're going to bring in mixed race black girls. We're going to bring in so I was doing people like Zang Ziyi who was in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and then there was mixed race black girls, and then there was Aaron Wosson, and then there was Aegean Lima and then there was that sort of thing where it wasn't just one Christy Tirlington look, it was inclusivity.
Speaker 2:And even within Christy Tirlington, Christy Tirlington is actually Latino mixed. So the brand was actually now going. Well, we're going to embrace a mixed culture of beauty and within that, obviously I was there to help them go. Well, that is going to look horrible on anyone with a yellow skin tone or a yellow undertone. We need to bring these pigments into the quads, because at the time we were selling quads, we were selling you know, it's a drugstore brand, so it's got to be under $10. It's got to be accessible, it's got to be available. So we were trying to sell as many variables as we could to different ethnicities and my job globally was to come in and sort of help them with what sat well with individual I guess you'd say ethnicities within the colors that they were promoting.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you mentioned at the beginning it was a disaster, was it?
Speaker 2:Well that, just because I wasn't ready to be videoed. I wasn't ready to listen to myself talk, I wasn't ready to wake up and be in New York. And then I'm on New York One television. I wasn't ready to walk into Dwayne Reed and see my face everywhere across America Like, yes, I'd signed up to it and I'd seen the zeros and thought, wait, I get that much.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my God. Yes, you know what I mean, but I didn't realize that I'd have to fly to China or go to Poland and do a public speaking course in oh God, where was it? Lithuania? Or places like that, where there were like young, burgeoning beauticians that wanted to learn about colors and stuff. And maybe it was very clever at the time. I had to go to Asia a lot China because they actually had freestanding stores like you would. A Dior or a Fenty Beauty Maybelline was that popular in China that you'd actually go into a Maybelline store and so within that Maybelline store there was myself selling the colors to the people with the videos of me doing Age of Honor's Leapness makeup and Asian models in that aesthetic.
Speaker 2:So it was a lot more than I entailed and I had agreed to it, but I didn't understand the logistics of what that meant and it wasn't something that I wanted to do. Do you get what I mean? Like I wanted to do makeup, I wanted to paint people and look. Part of the job was doing like the look book. So we would come up with colors, the brand would have a global concept and then they would bring it to New York and then they'd put all the contracted models and makeup people together and then we would shoot all day the looks. So it'd be Stefan, so Nuri's shooting on Adriana Lima and me doing the makeup, but there would be a team of marketing people with the next season's colors telling us make this look epic. And then we would have 25 minutes to put that on her, because you've got to remember maybe 25 looks and Adriana leaves and goes back to wherever it is that she comes and then I go back to wherever I come.
Speaker 2:Stefan doesn't live in New York, so it was that level of intensity and it wasn't about like, you have time to figure it out. There was no, oh well, does it work? Well, no, actually it doesn't work. And then that's kind of where the pressure and the unexpected, not joy, started to come in, which was makeup sparked joy, the makeup industry and the business of being a creative director and the physicality of being in London and being expected to turn up looking beautiful and presented. And you know what your lines are, you understand what color direction this season is, you understand who you're talking about. You need to mention inclusivity. Those sorts of things I wasn't really ready to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, how long did you end up staying there for?
Speaker 2:A few years before I said no more. Yeah, like, I came to Australia, I did a press tour. I came to China a few times, I went around the world a couple of times with it and it was, just, let me say, an amazing experience. Yeah, absolutely. I thought it came with a fishing tackle box tour, random shoot of a girl who would then become an Australian pop star. None of that was ever meant to be. And then here I am all the way along using Maybelline mascara because it worked, it didn't smudge and it made everyone's lashes look epic. And then now I am the face of the brand and they've never had a creative director. They're using me. The guy from Elwood, the one that everyone said don't do it, you're too young, you can't, you're black, you're very like wow, but also like oh, what the hell?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, does that make sense? Oh, absolutely, I mean, and like I said, I signed up for fun. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I've been a bougie girl. I came from the right side of the track so I've always understood cash and I got the Balenciaga and Chanel and Dior and I grew up with all of the beautiful designers and Urbez Givenchy. I knew all of that from all the pop culture, celebrities like you know, breakfast at Tiffany's and all that sort of stuff. So I understood right. So I got that part. But at no point did I understand that I was moving into an industry that was about to boom and everyone was going to become billionaires. I didn't know that makeup would become what it is and that as a YouTuber, makeup person, you could become Patrick Star or all these things that have now evolved. You know I did. I did a YouTube and imploded for Murray Clare. I was the American, american Murray Clare beauty editor. I was with the editor, joanna Cole, who was like a big editor from England, and I couldn't cope. I was doing Sandra oh for the cover, who was the first Asian cover on Mary you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like it was so big and so daunting. But then the public would be judging the way I looked or the fact that I was ethnic, or because I was like not doing it in the way that they thought I should be doing makeup. Because I was touching it with my fingers, which was part of my. My tools is that I made it more palatable as far as the pigments, because I would use my fingers to blend it in, warm it up. Well, that wasn't part of the American culture in beauty, so they thought that was gross, like ooh, why is he doing that? And then me, being able to read them, say that I was like wait what the people can see me doing? Oh, no, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:I wasn't ready for that world. So that's where sometimes you know you sign up for a career, but then there are the logistics of the business at hand that you have to adhere to.
Speaker 1:When did you end up back in Australia?
Speaker 2:2010, around about yes.
Speaker 2:And I just decided that after a few you know, global financial crisis, jaded and just so much just completely over the L'Oreal experience and didn't really fulfill or spark joy. Being raped and pillaged by my New York agent, signing a contract with a former proctor and gamble person and getting a cosmetic brand up and going after three years and then basically screwing me and making a fortune All of those things made me sort of think hmm, I need a break from the rat race of jet set and corporate cosmetics. And so I decided to come back here, which I hadn't been back ever, and I just reset, restarted and started testing and basically had to start from the bottom up, because I didn't have a history here, I didn't have a network here, I didn't have support here from anyone, in the sense that I had left at such a young age and didn't come back until I was so much older that most of the people I knew weren't really in the industry anymore.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you came back. You didn't have an agent, you just got straight back in there and started testing.
Speaker 2:I sure did.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, and how long do you feel like it took you to establish yourself again?
Speaker 2:Well, as somebody once said, cream always rises to the top, and I do know a good smoky eye or two, and I can certainly, and I'm not afraid to say darling, bless this more. Let's, let's choose one. It's either the eye or the lip, and then, before you know the next thing, you know I'm doing celebrity weddings, and then it's.
Speaker 1:Sarah.
Speaker 2:Murdock, and then it's who magazine and people covers, and it just sort of naturally happened. I didn't actually really chase it. What I did was sort of think, well, when you restart, justin, what happens? And I thought, well, the way I restart is I find a group of people that I can communicate to in my art form and then somehow the money comes right. So I just started finding people that weren't intimidated by my history, and then didn't. And then, look, I didn't understand social media, so I haven't posted anything. I still don't understand my social media and I haven't even posted a third of what I've done.
Speaker 2:So I've got loads of Polaroids and back in the day, that was how I proved myself, because I would be able to say to Helmut Newton I just did the cover of French show with hero, or you know, a hero was somebody that he knew. So then obviously then his producer, you know what I mean. So it was always word of mouth with me and I was always able to say I've just done this job with Steve Hyatt, or I've just done jobs, this commercial, with so and so, and so I was able to get to utilize that and work and start again, whereas in Australia people didn't sort of really know who Helmut Newton was, and me saying Ellen Von Unworth didn't mean anything, and it was the first time where I was like wait, hang on a second, okay. And then I started having to say you know the pop stars, and that seemed to spark joy with certain people. And then I sort of started doing it that way again and obviously it's a small country in a small town and I decided that I'm really a Melbourne person.
Speaker 2:I don't really want to live in Sydney and I don't really feel that, after everything that I've done and all the fun that I've had, do I really need the validation of a fashion magazine to say that I've established myself? I don't think so. So for me, what's been fantastic in my life is that, randomly, I'm the most unfamous and I'm the most unknown that I've ever been in my career. But I'm the happiest I've been because I'm just doing me and you know it's random, it's e-commerce and it's a celebrity here and there or a cover or a cool editorial, but I don't have to prove myself and I don't socialize in a way where I feel like when you're in Sydney, it's that condonass world of you've got to turn up to events and you've got to be friends with so and so, and it's those alliances and those familiar faces that get you the job, whereas I'm just here plodding along doing what it is that I do, and sometimes I say yes and sometimes I say no.
Speaker 2:I don't necessarily. I don't thrive or desire or aspire to be recognized in a magazine. What I do want to do is to keep current and relevant, and then when I look at something that I post, when I post it, I go, oh yeah, well, that looks pretty good for a guy that's been doing it for 40 years. I don't look dated, it looks pretty modern and I feel happy with that. That sparks joy, whereas before it was all about like, oh, I don't have a vote cover this month or I'm in no editorial content anywhere in the world. Right now I am, it's finished, I'm over and living on that energy and feeling like that pressure, because I used to be with all the agencies Brian Bantry, jet Root, premier, camilla Arthur, all that sort of stuff which you know Parole in Paris and all that sort of stuff. Right, if you know, you know. If you don't, you don't. But I was that guy and so it was always about oh, I've got new content, here it is, and then they would send it to a couple of people and then you'd work for the rest of the year. I kind of gave that up when I came here and then, obviously, instagram became a thing and I wasn't a part of that. I don't love being videoed. I don't really want to show what it is that I'm doing. I don't really want to talk about what it is that I'm doing necessarily, so it's not the format for me, right?
Speaker 2:I came back here to be financially successful, working consistently with brands that read book, and basically it started with Myer. I moved into David Jones, I've done Bardot, I do Cuba, country Road politics, et cetera and so forth, and I'm somebody that is here and available for somebody that is looking to be professional and a business. I'm not really somebody that's looking to be fashion. I'm not looking to be trendy. I don't want to be it. I'm just after 40 years of consistently being employed, I'm just grateful for that, yeah that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Because you've got to remember. Everyone told me you can't, you shouldn't and don't.
Speaker 1:You mentioned just before about staying current. How do you stay current?
Speaker 2:Girl, you got to do your research. So I grew up back in the day swearing by all the magazines and the editorials and knowing who Max Factor was. And look, I'm serious. I used to literally sit at the movies and wait to see who the maker person that did that. And then in my mind I'd have a guessing game. I'd be like, oh, I'd bet you any money that's Max Factor, that's done that, and sure enough it'd be Max Factor. I knew it. So I had that weird thing, whereas I knew who a lot of these people were and I thought that out.
Speaker 2:So through film noir, through posters, through Hollywood legends, through reading those stories and Vanity Fair, I discovered that second tier, those creatives that were in the dark, that made those starlets star. I figured out who those people were and I wanted to be, a way bandy, a Kevin Aucoin, a Stefan Moret or a Richard Chara. I decided that that, to me, was like the dream was to be able to say, oh, I've worked in film, television, mixed media, which is now a thing. So now I'm talking like old school days. But today, if you're a smart, savvy, young person that's in makeup and hair, you should be able to do mixed media when you turn up to a shoot, you should be understanding of the format, the direction and the content that these people are paying you to deliver. It isn't about you, it isn't about your idea. It is about delivering the direction that this person wants, and that's where I am grateful. For that. I figured out at a young age 1985, to sit comfortably with that Thank you to forge a career within that. In saying that, I have definitely been the rebel and I've definitely gone. No, not doing black eyeliner, I'm doing white eyeliner, and do you know what? I'm getting paid no money to do this. So I'm doing flaunt editorial with white eyeliner, all right.
Speaker 2:Now, years later, once I started doing all those sort of weird editorial things, when I walked into L'Oreal Corporate Global Office just before they signed me, they'd researched all my editorial directions that I'd done in Marie Claire and French L and because I was based in New York and Hollywood, I used to do loads of different editorials for all different publications and I'd never gone into anything before where they had just in Henry, everywhere, and they basically said to me so this is how we see Maybelline. And in my mind I went but wait, that's me. And they'd had all these different editorials that I didn't think anything of, and weird white eyeliner and all these sort of I guess you'd say ugly, weird, kind of now normal scenarios. They'd come up with an editorial mood board with my work and said, oh, we're gonna sign you to this and this is how we see us moving forward. And that was the beginning of me going oh, wow, okay, so I must still always stay creative, I must always play.
Speaker 2:And a lot of the things which was weird for me, a lot of the things that they'd kept, were moments where I'd found random young photographers and I'd used young upcoming models that were with good agencies, but they hadn't done any editorials, they hadn't been recognized, and I had been the person that had sort of pushed for that model and forced the photographer to take them. And so that was the beginning of me going oh, I am actually a creative director, I can actually pick the model and then randomly guide the stylist and the photographer. I let them do their things, but then I come in with like a big black white eyeliner and that makes it cool all of a sudden, because I figured out that, whereas I hadn't understood that that was actually a job, or no one had ever said to me this is specifically what you are gonna do In the end. That is what I ended up doing and that's how I worked all the time and got to that point, but it was doing that that made me realize, oh well, that's actually an industry, I can do that. And now, obviously, there's a thing creative director of cosmetic companies is absolutely a thing, and I'm nothing new and it's absolutely a standard practice. And there are young people like Ismae of French that absolutely know how to nail that and know what to do. And there are brands across the world.
Speaker 2:Now, that wouldn't be the brands that they are had they not signed Lechia, pica or myself, or all these different creators that nobody'd ever heard of and used their creative direction ideas to do that. You know, I fought with corporate America about the talent, about the colors, and they had degrees in marketing and PR and all this sort of stuff, and they won because they had the degrees. But I won in the sales because that shit bombed. Now, if they'd have listened to me right, they wouldn't have bombed. They wouldn't have bombed and I would have said, no, you used white, you used neon. They would have thought why neon? Well, white neon eyeliner is still a thing, just FYI. So you know, that's the part that sometimes those degrees don't teach you.
Speaker 2:What I do have is a degree in high-end commercial advertising with celebrity and movie star experience on the ground, on set, in the PR pit. Ready, let's go live. We're on the Golden Globes, we're on the Emmys and you can't eff up on that. And if you do, there are rags across the world that call you out and say, oh, did you see that hairdo on Stone?
Speaker 2:So, luckily that has never happened to me.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that would be horrible, wouldn't it?
Speaker 2:And I mean, look, that's part of the thing, right? Sometimes a celebrity throws you under the bus and goes can I have a black, smoky iron red lip? And you go, girl, no. And then you have to because that person is very famous and is paying you $4,000 to do as they want. And you do it and you know it's wrong, but it's not your place necessarily to tell the publicist, PR and the celebrity, no, that's not ideal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So those scenarios is where I've been a bit spicy, a bit naughty, a bit wildcard-y because I'll go. No, not doing that, you're gonna have a clean skin, it's gonna be glowing. Yes, I see that she's shiny. No, I'm not gonna powder it and yeah, I'm not putting mascara on her. She's just gonna have a red lip and shiny face. Yeah, brushed up eyebrows too. And obviously there are people that went that guy's grim, what the hell. And then there are people that are gone oh, I love her glowy, natural makeup look and oh, my God, I love that red lip. Right, so you can't please everyone and sometimes some people get it and sometimes some people don't get it. The thing is you've got to be comfortable within your skin, to push boundaries, own it and then also take the pie if it comes back in your face, if it's wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you've had an incredible career. You've done a lot of different things. Justin, do you have any highlights that stand out?
Speaker 2:Got to say for a little gay black girl that came from Elwood via London never thought I'd get to go and sit in the Oval Office, Never thought I'd go to the White House and never thought I'd see the vice president of the United States in his cowboy booth in his underpants.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a pretty highlight. Yeah, well, I mean, you know what I mean. No, I know what you mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, at no point. Do you think that you're going to be a part of the zeitgeist like that. Do you think that for once? I remember when Vogue called me up for that job and I thought to myself, why the hell am I going to go to the White House for? And then I thought, well, you are doing the premier man of the United States of America. So, because I was doing men's grooming and I was doing GQ and I was doing Brad Pitt and you know law and order and NCIS and all the different things, I didn't know who any of them was. I never paid attention to that stuff. I did not, however, know who Brad Pitt was, you can rest assured of that Thankfully yes no, well, actually I didn't.
Speaker 2:So the story with that one is I was hungover, I'd just gone to some Grimm club it was a Friday night and we'd just seen Samra and the Wheeze and I had a roommate and I got a phone call from my agent randomly and she said you've got to turn up to the studio, this guy needs your hair, his hair cut and you're going to style him for a book. And I thought, oh, I'm not doing that, I'm hungover, there's no way. And I said Brad Pitt, brad Pitt who I don't know who Brad Pitt is. No, I'm not doing it. And then my friend who was hungover screamed he's the hot guy from Selma and the Wheeze. And I said to the publicist, the agent, I'll be there in half an hour.
Speaker 2:I hung up the phone, jumped in the shower, got dressed, turned up and he sat there for a good eight hours talking about his girlfriend, how grim she was and they'd just broken up, but he was one of the coolest dudes. I cut his hair into a bobby kind of layered thing and I gave him some makeup and he reminded me of Michael Hutchins and we just sat around talking about how grim love is and how brutal chicks can be when you're in love with him, and he was just delightful. You know what I mean. And at no point did I think he was going to be who he is, and I think that's probably why I get to do those sorts of people. Is that quite often I really don't know who it Like?
Speaker 2:Right now I do a load of Tik Tokers. I'm not even on Tik Tok, you know. I don't know who any of these people are, but when I go to work you should see the amount of people that turn up screaming oh my God. And I think who are they screaming about? It's my client, the Tik Toker that's shooting the campaign. I'm doing Same with celebrities.
Speaker 2:I never really knew who any of those people. I never knew who Kristen Stewart was. I used to turn up all the time doing magazines with her Never heard of Twilight, but she was a lovely girl and I was happy to do her makeup and I got paid well and she was polite, you know. So I think having that ability to not be a thick of a fan or not to be wowed because you're helmet-neutin, in fact, if anything, it freaks me out if you're epic, and then I just think, okay, my job right now is to be epic and just try and do as good as I can.
Speaker 2:So the amount of times I've turned up and it's been incredible people. Usually I don't know who that person is and I'm just trying to do my job without being a letdown, I guess, because quite often people don't know who I am and I'm turned up and I'm supposed to do this stuff. I'm supposed to just jump into your hair, smear makeup on you and there's such a level of trust and insecurity with those people because they don't know who you are. They're trusting their publicists that they're not gonna get thrown under the bus and therefore, for me, my biggest thing is to make sure that when I go away from that that it was a pleasant experience they felt like they've left themselves looking better than how they had hoped and that they enjoyed being in my presence for the 15, half an hour 40 minutes that they get.
Speaker 1:I think that's really good advice, though, to new artists.
Speaker 2:Well, what they should take away from that is I turned up with a can do attitude. I didn't know, yeah yeah, I didn't know what catalog was, I didn't know what e-commerce was, I didn't know what EDMs were, but I'm there to do the jobs that you tell me what it is you need, and I will try and do that. When it comes to editorial, and I've put my day off and I'm shooting and I'm helping you get the model and helping you get the clothes, because I do have alliances with a lot of really great people. Still, I don't necessarily blast that out, I don't necessarily promote that, but I have had long-term relationships with people that have, in the end, become people of notoriety or fame or success, and if I ask for help, quite often they're happy to give me that hand and allow me to do certain things, and so that then allows me to help other people.
Speaker 2:So the one thing that I can say is that you should always collaborate. You should never think you're better than, and the amount of legendary people I've been on set with and they never heard who I was they gave me those opportunities is why I still test to this day. I've been in every single vote that there is, except for Australian. I've had covers that you can mention and I've been the creative director of cosmetic brands. I've done all sorts of amazing pop stars, but I still test with people that I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And why I do that is because you're only as good as your last shoot. You can't. I don't rely on what I did in the 90s. I don't rely on what I did in the 2000s. When you go on my Instagram, you go on and you can see what I'm doing. You can see the textures I'm playing with, you can see who I'm working with and I've made a specific decision that, editorially and social media wise, I show my work, not my personality.
Speaker 2:I understand that that isn't the normal, but I didn't come here for me. I came here to play with pigments, color and product, and that's my passion is that. I was lucky enough to be chosen to be somebody that people wanna see or people wanna hear from and all those sort of things, but it's never been what I wanted to do. What I've always wanted to do was, I don't know that cool shoot where the girl just is transformed into this amazing. Whatever it is that you're doing and that sparks joy for me is the creative aspect and the collaborative aspect, because it isn't just my makeup, it's the hair, it's the model, it's the styling, it's the lighting, it's all of us getting. Oh, I get it. And then we come together and then when you see that moment, that feeling is magnificent.
Speaker 1:So, justin, thank you so much for sharing your story. It's been very, very interesting and very exciting, but have you got any final words of wisdom for newer, younger makeup artists out there that aspire to have a career like yours?
Speaker 2:Well, keeping in mind that the world has changed and everyone's decided they're now wanting to be a hair and makeup person and or creative director. And the one thing that I can say to you, when you add those titles and you start flashing, just make sure that you have the credentials to prove that you can say that. So have I been in vogue for hair? Yes. Have I done celebrities that are famous for pop stars? Yes. Have I cut famous people's hair? Yes. Same with makeup, same with creative direction. Have I been the creative director of editorial shoots for big companies and cosmetics and magazines Amica, vogue, flaunt Maybelline yes. So when I say those things, it means that I have the experience of many years in that field across many mediums, mixed media being not just live performances or live experiences, but also commercials, television advertising posters, movie posters. You can't pretend to be something if you don't have the knowledge, the experience and the work ethic to be that. That's why the industry has decimated itself so badly is that everyone's saying that they are and then, when it comes to being, nobody knows how to do and they expect and they don't understand that there is actually a lot of work, that it isn't just turn up and do a little this and then you're done. No, there's a lot of other stuff that you've got to do to make it be done and I think a lot of people in this generation, in this medium, don't understand the logistics of what they're signing up for and they need to be fairly astute. If you don't want to be stuck in a department store or a cosmetic store doing random ladies, then you need to do your research. You're not going to just get discovered on social media and become the next Ismae of French. That isn't really a viable option. And even with Ismae of French, if you go through the back history, she was a dental technician that worked for years and came up with all sorts of scenarios and fun things because she had an interest in the unique, the special and that's why she comes up with the things that she comes up with is that she's done the groundwork with prosthetics and latex and all that stuff, so that she is the best at what it is that she does.
Speaker 2:I don't profess to do that because I haven't done the groundwork. I would decline a job or a client if they requested me to do that, because I don't have the expertise and I think a lot of people need to be okay to do that. I get that. You've got to get into the industry right. But you want to get into the industry and get rebooked. You want to get into the industry and do good work. You don't want to just be in the industry and say I did and then never do it again. That's not being in the industry. So do the work.
Speaker 2:As Kim Kardashian said, get up off your ass, stop looking at the tube, stop doing a smoky eye on yourself and start smoking other people's eyes. I have been smoking other people's eyes since my mother gave birth to my sister. The minute there was a female human in front of me, I was ready to back, comb your hair, add some blush to your cheeks or give you makeup advice as to how I could make your eyes pop more. So that's a passion of mine. If it's a passion of yours, you need to want to do it. It's got to be.
Speaker 2:I've been doing it for 40 years. I've been doing it my whole life. It still sparks joy. I still get up with a smile on my face and a clean kit and a can do attitude with options. I read the briefs. I come up with the ideas that they want. But then I always bring a wildcard just in case, and that's my keeping myself current, looking at what other people do and recognizing. Well, it's not for me, but okay, I need to figure out how to do that, just in case somebody that I know wants that. I know what to do.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's about buying products and brands that you're not familiar with and experiencing what that formulation is. So play, experiment and try, and don't be fooled by the fakery. Understand that there is retouching. There is so much behind the scenes stuff that happens to imageries that you idolize that you try and I guess, say, copy or inspired by, and do the work behind the scenes to understand how do they get to. That point Just makes you a better artist. Sometimes having that knowledge will make you sing on a moment when everyone's stuck and you actually know how to fix it, and it's because you've managed to go a little bit deeper and do a bit more research.
Speaker 2:I work every single day, practically. I still get up every day with my coffee and delved into who am I making up today, who is my client and what am I expected? Well, they definitely don't want teal, turquoise, blue or burgundy, so we don't have to bring them right, and so it's just that. I guess duty of care, where you think, yeah, you know what, I know what these people want. Let me bring a few things extra just in case they wanna play. But they've given me a brief and my job is to try and do that brief.
Speaker 2:And really, in today's day and age of industry, when it comes to cosmetics and beauty, hair, whatever there is no time you're expected to deliver every time. There is no excuse as to why your car broke down or why you don't have this or how come that they don't wanna know that. What they want is for you to deliver, and that's the hard part. There is not a lot of play, so play as much as you can, cause once you become professional, you aren't really required for the play time. What you're required is to deliver, and usually it's a brief of something that you don't necessarily want to do. But you understand, that's what is required.
Speaker 1:Great advice, Justin. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for asking. It's lovely to be asked.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much. I'll see you soon.
Speaker 2:Take care, vanessa, lovely to be a part of your project.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining me today on the Makeup Insider. I hope you've enjoyed the show. Please don't forget to rate and subscribe, and I'll see you soon. Bye for now.