Colour coded: Interviews with Hong Kong's Top 3 Makeup Artists

What's hot for summer? P.Ramakrishnan gets the lowdown from three Hong Kong-based makeup artists.

Karen Yiu


"This season, cat eyes are back - use lots of eyeliner to create big, dramatic eyes, as well as electric blue shades. For the face, there's the English rose look; a natural look highlighting great skin, with heavy, watery skin texture.

The products I'm using a lot of this year are Maybelline's Hypersharp liner and Shu Uemura's Cleansing Oil. The Shu Uemura 2012 artist collaboration series with contemporary kimono artist Mamechiyo is amazing, and I love the limited-edition design. Other items I like are Cyber Colour's Concealer, which is a three-shades-in-one pack - you can cover dark circles or use it to highlight your features. And it doesn't hurt that it's reasonably priced.

Avoid over-powdered look, with thick foundation and coverage, and go for a glowing skin tone.

The face to watch this year for me is Chinese model Xiaowen Ju. She's beautiful, but more than that, she's interesting to look at.

There isn't a trend that I hope won't make a comeback. I don't mind any trend; I just mix the best of them all. I recommend that you follow your own trend, wear something that suits your face, skin colour and age group - don't just follow a trend because you saw it in a magazine, always mix and match. Try the vintage `60s look - which is a personal favourite."

Denise Toms


"Spring-Summer 2012 welcomes a broad array of beauty trends to excite - everything from barely there makeup, to sun-kissed skins. There are also dramatic eye-liners and doll-like lashes, paired with soft, neutral lips. Those craving splashes of colour can play with vibrant scarlets or smoky blues and mauve eye-shadow, or sparkle with golds and silvers. Brows remain groomed but full and boyish, while cheeks are subtle and skin luminous. A rich red or burgundy lip is also a winner this season.

My favourite beauty products this summer are the lush and creamy Romanticism eye tint from Becca's Balearic Love Collection - it provides a gorgeous mauve-bronze hint of crease-proof colour, and their deliciously hydrating sheer tint lip colour in Valentina will be daily obsessions. YSL's new Rouge Pur Couture Vernis a Levres in racy #9 is truly like bold, intense seduction in a wand. Its new line of glossy, creamy lip-stain colours are sure to be cult favourites. Also, don't tan madly and badly - instead invest in bronzers. Becca's Shimmering Skin Perfector will give you a luscious glow.

My current favourite beauty inspiration is actress Rooney Mara. She always wears classic, clean makeup and uses timeless colours - perhaps a pop of red lip.

One trend I'm thrilled is not back is over-plucked eyebrows."

Megumi Sekine


"The Spring-Summer 2012 trend I foresee for is natural, radiant skin with a hint of colour on lips, cheeks or eye shadow. Or even just defined eyeliners and lots of mascara. My favourite beauty products for the year run the gamut. I love Becca's Shimmering Skin Perfector - you can use it as a highlighter on your cheekbones, or even mix it with your foundation to create a dewy look. I also love NARS' Pure Radiant tinted moisturiser and MAC's Blushcreme.

My biggest don't for the summer is cakey foundation. Too much foundation on the face just looks like you have a lot of make-up on - which is not the intention of good make-up. Also, I don't like fake lashes. My make-up do is all about radiant skin; use highlights on cheekbones. And don't forget SPF, especially in summer.

My muse for this season is model Xiaowen Ju. I've worked with her many times when she was a regular model, and she's now a super model. It's inspiring to see how her career has progressed. And she always has great skin. I also love Rihanna - her makeup and hair is ever-changing, and it's fun watching the transformation .

The only trend I hope doesn't make a comeback is goth. It's been done to death, so let it die. My advice to women is wear whatever you feel comfortable in. Bad style is better than no style at all."



P. Ramakrishnan
Apr 13, 2012




Earlier feature, 2011.

The Art of Artifice

Three of Hong Kong’s top makeup artists opine on the fine lines being brushed across faces today.


Megumi Sekine



I think for the coming season, eyeliners are back! Well, it's always there but this season more accentuated with thicker, elongated lines. Also, thick eyebrows and red lips will be seen a lot more.

For Hong Kong women, I’d say, decide which look you want to go for that day. If you want to look softer, you can use black liner pencil and if you want to look sharp and cool, you can use liquid eyeliner.

Different products produce different looks and images so use wisely. Also, if you line your bottom lids all the way, this will make your eyes look smaller. If you like to make your eyes seem bigger, then apply to your top eye lids in a thick manner.

Asian women usually have nice and thick eye brows. I suggest to fill in with powder or pencil and make it little bit more defined. If you are scared to use red lip color, apply red color first and tissue off - that way the color is not as vibrant, your lips are tinted red and it lasts a long time.

My advice to women? I guess wear whatever you feel comfortable in. Bad style is better than no style!



Denise Toms

Makeup trends for this season may be natural or bold, but always sophisticated. Natural makeup never goes out of style, with flawless skin being complemented with beige, brown or butterscotch shades, against nude or soft pink lips. Brows are shapely, whilst eyes are kept clean with simple matte, dewy or bronze metallic eye-shadows. Applying a cream shadow with your fingertips or dusting a neutral shade over the entire lid keeps makeup looking unfussy. Statements are dramatic yet crisp, with either lips in poppy oranges, crimson reds or vampy purples or neat eyeliners slick along the lash-line or displaced above the socket. To look great and current this Fall/Winter, keep skin clean and healthy looking, cheeks subtle, brows defined, and arm yourself with a nude and bold lipstick and a sharp eyeliner, and dare to wear it as small and large as you fancy.



Karen Yiu

I think metallic colors will be in, and scarlet red lips. Get the metallic eye color in mosses or gel form, apply it with a brush or finger, use small amount and thin later on the eye area.

I recommend that you follow your own trend, wear something that suits your face, skin colour, age group - don't just follow the trend because you saw it in a magazine, always mix and match. Try the vintage look, or the sixties look – which is a personal favourite. There are many great products out this season that I’ve been using a lot on shoots and backstage at fashion shows; Llusiion D’Omere from Chanel, this new eye-shadow can be applied with a brush or finger, you can apply in different layers to achieve the depth and color you want to get that metallic eye look. Dark, smoky eyes will be in for fall too, I love the eye-shadow from Shu uemura, you can choose your own shades so it doesn’t have to be a black smoky look - you can choose green or purple or blue smoky eyes for just HK $260. I use cream check color from Shu Uemura, you can get a nature cheek shade by using cream (Cream Cheek Amber, HK$135). Shimmer Eyeliner Cosmetic Silver is one of my favourite products - put it in the inner corner of the eyes for sparkle and its just HK$180. Mascara, I always recommend Maybelline New York, as its reasonably priced and has great quality. Volume Express Hypercurl Mascara for just HK$89.

Cool season calls for a lighter touch

Make-up artist for the stars James Molloy might work with a palette of vibrant colours but he's all for a natural look, writes P.Ramakrishnan.


With a dash of powder, a splash of colour, a swipe of lip gloss that makes the model pout and glisten, a transformation is unfolding before an audience of 800 as James Molloy, regional director of make-up artistry for M.A.C Cosmetics, gets to work.

"I'm all about a lash and an eyebrow - always," he says later backstage, over a cacophony of highly enthused models, make-up artists and M.A.C people hovering around our table.

"Well curled lashes, with the right amount of mascara straight after, with a fuller brow, especially on an Asian face, gives a beautiful frame. We're slowly coming out of that pencil-thin brow, the bald-eye look with an artificial pencil stroke."

The London native is in Hong Kong for the launch of the "M.A.C Me Over!" collection, so we ask for an insider's preview of make-up trends to look out for this autumn-winter.

"I'm seeing a lot of jewel tones, and a slightly burnished copper tone," he says. "Autumn-winter might just be about pop colour. Lips don't have to be stained with red any more; it could be a fuchsia, raspberry or violet."

There are trays of multihued paraphernalia littering make-up boxes, but Molloy says his personal aesthetic is almost bare skin, moist, subtly enhanced lips and groomed brows. "But of course, I also love the rock 'n' roll atmosphere of fashion week and the dramatic looks; the decade-inspired looks - 50s elegance, 60s chic, 70s discotheque - are all great fun to work with."

In the world of fashion, Molloy has worked with big names such as Alexander McQueen, Moschino, Balenciaga, Balmain and Chloe, as well as celebrities like Katherine Jenkins, Dita Von Teese and Poppy Delevigne.

"One of the most intense experiences was backstage at McQueen. This was a few seasons ago, one of the biggest shows in Paris. It was a manic environment. There were 40 girls, and two girls would walk up 15 minutes before the show and, at the time, I felt I was being crucified," he says. "It was a baptism of fire. But I wouldn't change that for anything as I learned so much."

Molloy says that now and in the near future, make-up will essentially be more about skincare. "A bit goes a long way, and you no longer have to really pile it on. Especially in a warm climate like Hong Kong, because of the heat and humidity, people have to be very clever with make-up, so it doesn't just slide off by midday," he says.

"It's about intelligent priming and prepping of the skin. Instead of heavy moisturiser or heavy foundation, it has to be about light layering if you want your skin to look perfect.

"Apply a spot of blush in a sweeping motion, then a layer of sheer powder to lock it in, and then another shot of blush, which makes it look like it's part of the skin rather than sitting on top of it. Get rid of that Amazonian vibe."

Convincing people to change their signature look can be hard. Harder still when you're working with iconic women. "Working with [American burlesque performer] Dita Von Teese was great. She knows make-up inside out and that's a challenge because I had to gain her trust. But she knew what she wanted and she let me into her environment and her world of make-up," Molloy says.

"She did step out of her comfort zone every now and again as we experimented with a futuristic look, but always with the classic vibe she's famous for."

When asked about his stand on how Photoshopped images create false or unrealistic expectations of what beautiful people look like, Molloy replies that today you'd have to be naive not to realise the polished images we see in magazines and ads are touched up.

"I don't agree with too much work, but Photoshop can also create a fantastic story when we're not expecting reality. It's fantasy; in that respect, we use technology as a tool for a storyboard pictorial that can be surreal."

Despite orbiting a world of celebrities and top models, Molloy says it's the idea of transforming a girl who's a little shy and lacking in confidence that he enjoys most.

"I get a great satisfaction from that because you make them feel like a million dollars. That's the greatest reward," he says. "I like to bring out the beauty in girls who don't know that they are beautiful. Perhaps that's why I like the nude look so much; you're enhancing what they already have."

This Time with Zing: Interview with Hong Kong's Chanel-clad Makeup Artist to the Stars: 2011

Celebrity make-up artist Zing works on canvases that double as the most beautiful faces in Asia, writes P.Ramakrishnan.

If Zing hasn't created a signature look when it comes to fashion, perhaps he does adhere to one: tall, slim, his ears studded with mini-marble size diamonds, large-framed glasses and a Chanel jacket. "I love to wear Chanel," he says. His private studio is littered with Chanel bags choking with other designer embroidered jackets. "They fit my frame. I don't wear make-up ever, I really don't care for it on my skin, but I do love Chanel."

His make-up school is in the heart of Central, long corridors festooned with frames of the famed and the fortuned, coated with distinctive make-up styles that vary from the exotic to the quixotic - yet each unmistakably gorgeous. Zing, 41, the one-named man and brand has been touching-up the faces of Asia's most beautiful women - and men - for the past two decades, their visages providing a remarkable canvas for his creative bent.

"Like all faces, the beautiful ones I can enhance, the plain ones provide a blank canvas," he says. "I have no preference between a celebrity or a model. With models, I choose the subject as they have faces of a certain proportion, symmetrical faces I can work with to create whatever's on my mind. When it comes to singers or actresses, they choose me; they ring me to do their make-up and I get to work with them to enhance their looks. Working with singers is interesting as you have to enhance the persona, keeping in mind their image."

When he started in the 1980s, Zing was not following in the footsteps of any particular role model. "I had no idea why I wanted to get into make-up. I knew nothing about it," he says. "I just knew I had to do it. I learnt through trial and error. There was no one to train me, no school to educate me."

Zing says he would go to discos and clubs and ask models and other beautiful girls if he could do their make-up. "They all said yes; there were no divas back then," he says. "We'd do test shoots, and the models would introduce me to photographers. One thing led to another and I'd keep on working."

Although Zing came to Hong Kong from Singapore in 1989, there was another connection with the island that elevated him from the flock, a project he distinctly remembers. "There was a quarterly, high-end magazine in Singapore that every model wanted to be in, every photographer wanted to shoot for," he recollects. "They flew in the gorgeous Janet Ma from Hong Kong. She was the `it' girl on the scene. That shoot got me noticed.

"In Hong Kong, people do the work for the money. In Singapore, the pay wasn't great, but the credit was. Your name in print meant something - like it does in Paris or London. I always tell aspiring make-up artists to do their job, put blinders on and focus purely on the work; the money and fame would follow."

Zing refuses pinpoint a favourite face from his vast list of high-profile artists he's worked with, such as Carina Lau, Faye Wong, Kelly Chen, Sammi Cheng, Shu Qi and Zhang Ziyi (not to forget French actress Sophie Marceau, business tycoon Pansy Ho or Hong Kong socialite Claudia Shaw). "I've enjoyed working with every one. The only time I've thrown down my brushes and walked away is when someone won't sit still, is busy talking on the phone, or chatting with others around, when I'm trying to do the work. But with age I've mellowed; I used to be much more prima donna," he confesses with a toothy grin.

And, of course, there are the men he's worked with. He mentions that there are actors and male singers who feel that they can get anyone to do their stage make-up and don't want to pay extra for a good make-up artist. "They always looked caked-up and over-powdered. You can see that their cheeks are one colour, neck a different colour and hands a different colour! They don't understand the value of a good make-up artist who can make them look like they have no make-up on. `Nude' make-up is an art."

Like seasons of fashion, there are trends in make-up that come and go. "I foresee a lot of metallic this year," says Zing. "Bronze, gold, silver or gun-metal shades. In the '70s and '80s, the times influenced make-up and psychedelic colours were all the rage. When the health and gym rage started, people wanted to look in the pink of health, so the make-up was more natural and nude."

Zing says that everything can influence the look he creates for a person, whether it's the outfit they're wearing, their hairstyle, the season, or the event they're going to. "Everything informs the work I do."

A comprehensive collection of the looks Zing has created can be seen in the book that was released last November, The Most Beautiful Women in Hong Kong Wear Zing, in which a bevy of Asian beauties made their presence felt. "The main reason I came to Hong Kong - and didn't go to Paris or Japan - was that I wanted to engender a culture of recognising Asian beauty. I wanted to work here with Asian faces. I'm not overawed by Western celebrities and their Hollywood glamour," he says. "When people say, `I want an Audrey Hepburn look' or a `Marilyn Monroe look', you understand that vocabulary and immediately have a reference point. Similarly, when I say, a `Sammy Cheng look' or a `Faye Wong look', I want people to get it instantly."



An adage says one learns more from one's mistakes than one's successes. Zing nods emphatically. "I made a mistake. I learnt from it. I used to do faces with what I considered a lip or an eye should look like. Finally, I learnt to step back, look at each individual and recognise what works and doesn't work for that face. Sometimes a disproportioned lip works - they shouldn't all be perfect `M' shapes. Perhaps the eye should look a little less dramatic, because it suits their personality. There is no one mould of what beauty is," he says.

"I can see people are being creative for the sake of being creative and really, making the person look bizarre. The essence of make-up to me is to make someone look beautiful with touches of creativity. Return to beauty."


Apr 01, 2011
STYLE
South China Morning Post

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6. Natasha Moor Instagram