Make Up Artist secrets

Product & tips from the pros - plus Who Wants it? winners

makeup by Emily Porter

by Rebecca

I’m working on a tv show at the moment, which means I spend every day in a makeup chair salivating over creams, sprays and powders like Augustus Gloop sipping from the chocolate river. It’s heavenly to be around people this well versed in beauty, and let me tell you the product game is strong. There’s everything there is to see.

For those who haven’t been on a tv set, the make up trailer is the safe space sanctuary; a row of mirrors with minimum four swivelly chairs and workstations. The actors are assigned a make up artist (MUA) for the duration of filming, and you’ll spend at least ninety minutes in that makeup chair every day (last year I spent three hours in prosthetics in the morning, and another two de-rigging in the evening). Imagine seeing your hairdresser every day for two months. You’ll laugh, you’ll often cry at the arduousness of it all, and they will get to know you intimately.

They work tirelessly, are the first ones there at silly o’clock in the morning, and while the actors skip off at night moaning about the gruelling schedule they’ll be still washing their makeup brushes.

But the thing I love most about MUAs is that when it comes to the job they take no prisoners. They’ll know almost instantly whether a product is good enough because they can see it on the tv monitors when camera goes up - and in HD close up. It doesn’t matter how lauded, how expensive, how viral a product is. If it doesn’t do its job or look good on camera it’s good as discontinued. Similarly, if a product does a good job then they stockpile it like wintering squirrels, whether it’s a loose powder they once picked up at a Korean supermarket or an organic balm from a health food shop in Brighton. And especially if it’s under £15, which most of the following are.

So I cornered the amazing Jody Williams and Emily Porter (the latter being the genius responsible for the main image) and forced them to tell me the products that turn up in their kits time and time again.