The following is an excerpt from the Glow Journal Podcast. You can listen to the full interview now on iTunes and Spotify.
For NARS Global Artistry Director, Uzo, an interest in beauty wasn’t in her DNA.
“My mother was really very simple with makeup,” Uzo tells me. “All she used was a little black eyeliner and lipstick- that wasn’t enough for me.
“I grew up in the ’70s, and I was fascinated with makeup. I loved fashion magazines and editorials. I was always interested in it [makeup], but I come from a very strict family so I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup. I dreamed my dreams through the fashion pages.”
Content, albeit temporarily, with dreaming those dreams though magazines, Uzo pursued a career in a very different industry. “I actually finished medical school,” Uzo explains. “I practised for a couple of years. I was that med student in college who had blue mascara and fuchsia lipstick. The doctors were like ‘Can you see through all that makeup? Can you see the patients?!'”
Living and working in Nigeria at the time, but having grown up in the United States, Uzo made the decision to move back to America to specialise in a different medical field- either surgery or ear, nose and throat.
“I relocated to Los Angeles,” Uzo recalls. “The City of Angels Hollywood reignited my passion for makeup. That was the catalyst. I got a summer job at a Clinique counter, and that just literally set the ball in motion. Next, I found myself working for Bobbi Brown when she still owned the brand, and I did that with her for a couple of years. The rest is history.”
The year was 1998, and Françoise Nars and his eponymous beauty line had began to both dominate and revolutionise the beauty industry with their disruptive, deeply all-inclusive approach to makeup. When queried on what element of the NARS brand it was that drew her in, Uzo cites one vivid encounter.
“One word: Naomi. I met Naomi [Campbell] backstage at a fashion show that was sponsored by Bobbi Brown. It was Tommy Hilfiger, and he was opening his flagship store in Beverly Hills. It was a huge fashion show, so there were a lot of celebrity attendees. Naomi wasn’t modelling- she was one of the front row guests. She came backstage to talk to Tommy. I remember looking at her and how beautiful she looked. Her makeup was… she blew everyone out of the water. Modern, audacious. I thought ‘I want to work for that brand.’ I knew it was NARS, and I said ‘I want to go and work for NARS.’ That’s what drew me to it.”
That year saw Uzo join the NARS artistry team, and the year that followed heralded the release of the brand’s best selling, cult blush- Orgasm.
“Who knew?” Uzo says of the product’s continued success. “To be honest, who knew? Even Françoise [Nars] didn’t know. What’s interesting is that Françoise tells us, even today, that he thought of the name for the product before the actual product. We knew, at that time, that naming a blush ‘Orgasm’ was going to create a bit of controversy. It brought a lot of people to the NARS counter, but the way it sold out, honestly, none of us had expected that.”
Having been with NARS for upwards of 20 years, Uzo has lived and worked through the changes the digital era have introduced to the beauty industry. “I think most of the changes have been in the last two or three years,” she tells me. “I know that social media has been around longer than that, but I think the effect of Instagram, which is a very visual social media platform, has opened up cosmetics and the beauty industry in such a unique way. I remember when Françoise started, way before my time, and there were only very few makeup artists. Today, it is saturated. I think that it’s great. Everybody has the opportunity to dream if they want to be a makeup artist, and put their hat in the ring. Social media can help you to that extent, but I don’t think it can do everything for you- it’s really about you, the makeup artist. It’s completely different, now, to when I started.
“You have to set yourself apart. You have to. This is an industry where we talk about trends. Everybody follows the same trends. As a makeup artist, you have to think of a style and an aesthetic that sets you apart from everybody else. At the end of the day, you have to remain authentic to who you are, as a person. Then everything else will fall into place.”
For those wishing to emulate Uzo’s success, the artist offers a look into her personal kit.
“I carry everything but the kitchen sink. Right off the bat, it would be the Radiant Creamy Concealer,” Uzo says of her ultimate must-have product. “I’m a blush girl,” she continues. “Even when the contouring and sculpting thing was happening, I still just loved blush. I have a good number of blushes in my personal kit. I’m a matte girl, so I always have a pressed powder. I love a good makeup remover, because we’ve got to take all of this off! I love the trend of micellar water because it really does take the makeup off and draw out the impurities, so I live for cleansers, masks, anything that keeps the skin clear after a full day of wearing makeup.”
Given her role as the brand’s Global Artistry Director, Uzo isn’t simply ahead of international trends- she’s the one setting them. “We’re seeing less contour,” she tells me of what we can expect to see within the next calendar year. “Highlighting isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but I think we’re seeing a much more elegant version. It’s not so shimmery and it looks more like skin.” Uzo also believes that the “blues, green, bronze, copper and rose gold” eyeshadows we’ve seen in recent seasons may be taking a backseat in favour of what she refers to as a “cleaner” look. “There’s been a lot of colour for a lot of seasons. I’m feeling that the pendulum is going to swing in the opposite direction and we’re going to just see very clean liner. I think we’re going to have a graphic liner moment when we grow tired of the coloured eyeshadow moment.”
Having already shared a look at her working kit and given an insight into which trends we’ll be embracing months from now, Uzo leaves us with advice for those who dream of a career as a makeup artist.
“Find a mentor. Somebody who has been in the business longer than you have. Right now, because the market and industry are so saturated, you need somebody who can give you advice based on their own experiences. When I first started out, I did everything by myself. I wish that I had listened to the advice that I’m giving others- to find somebody who can give you some sort of direction. A mentor can really help and guide you through the valleys and mountains of becoming a makeup artist.”
