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Posts tagged as “African-American make-up artists”

They Couldn’t Find Beauty Tutorials for Dark Skin. So They Made Their Own | The New York Times

By goodblacknews on December 4, 2018
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The beauty industry often shuts out women with darker complexions, but Nyma Tang, Monica Veloz and Jackie Aina are video bloggers working to change that (Credits From left: Nyma Tang; Juan Veloz; Angela Marklew)

by Sandra E. Garcia via nytimes.com

Women are not born knowing how to do a flawless cat eye or a shadowy, smoky eye, so they often turn to makeup tutorials on YouTube. A search for “smoky eye” pulls up endless videos showing how to perfectly blend eye shadows to achieve the look.

Simple.

But what if you had dark skin and most of the videos showed lighter-skinned women applying hues that would make you look as if you had a black eye? What if you couldn’t relate to these women, because you couldn’t see yourself in them?

The answer to that is also simple: You make your own YouTube channel.

That is what Jackie Aina, 31, Monica Veloz, 26, and Nyma Tang, 27, did. The three women collectively have nearly four million YouTube subscribers, with Ms. Aina alone having over two million.

The women, all self-taught, turn on their cameras at home, and show us how to put on foundation, apply lashes and highlight our cheekbones, step by step. They teach us what tools to use and which hair products work.

“I think everyone looks for someone that looks like them,” Ms. Tang said. “I was definitely looking for that, especially on YouTube, and it was hard to find tutorials on products for women with deeper skin.”

The beauty bloggers provide darker-skinned women with something they may not have a tutorial for: the confidence to wear bold colors, to stand up to haters, and, more important, to choose how they present themselves.

They try different makeup brands to show that they do work on dark skin or, of course, that they don’t. They teach women not to be afraid of color, like red lipstick, bright yellow eye shadow or holographic highlights.

Their videos and social media posts are finding an audience of black women who are ready to spend money on beauty products, studies show, but have few choices to pick from.

“Most beauty launches never worked for me,” Ms. Tang said.

“A lot of times they don’t want to take the time to make the product,” Ms. Veloz said, adding that beauty companies often treat women with darker skin as “an afterthought.”

“Dark-skinned women are always kind of at the bottom of the totem pole,” Ms. Aina said. “I don’t understand that.”

To read more, go to: They Couldn’t Find Beauty Tutorials for Dark Skin. So They Made Their Own. – The New York Times

Local Hero: Thelma Pollard, 'Phantom' Production Makeup Supervisor Since 1988

By goodblacknews on June 8, 2013
Local Hero: Thelma Pollard, ‘Phantom’ Production Makeup Supervisor
At every performance of musical “The Phantom of the Opera,” on Broadway and around the country, the tortured title character rips off his mask to reveal his disfigured face. That deformed mug is the handiwork of production makeup supervisor Thelma Pollard, who’s been with the New York incarnation since it began in 1988. It’s her job to teach every new “Phantom” cast member how to apply character makeup correctly and then ensure they keep doing it right. But it’s the Phantom himself that’s her baby: Before each performance, she carefully paints the prosthetics pieces (made of one-use latex) and applies the actor’s makeup herself, a process that takes about an hour.
Besides fidgety thespians — “some actors are better at sitting still than others,” she says diplomatically — hurdles include dropped wigs and a clock-ticking makeup application for an understudy who was rushed into a performance when the lead was sidelined by laryngitis mid-show. And then there was the time she had to figure out the Phantom’s skin color palette for Robert Guillaume, one of the few black actors to take on the title role.
Pollard was born in what she describes as a small village in Barbados — “I didn’t know about Broadway!” — and eventually followed her parents to New York, going on to earn two licenses in cosmetology, specializing in hair and makeup. A chance meeting with makeup designer Stanley James in the salon where she was an apprentice led to gigs on the original Broadway production of “The Wiz” and a string of legit credits that include “Dreamgirls,” “Cats,” “Song and Dance,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Smokey Joe’s Cafe.”