I do makeup at your kitchen table.

I started doing makeup on other people because I was bad at it on myself. That is the truth, and it is still slightly true. At nineteen I could do one eye brilliantly and the other one like it had been done by a stranger in the dark. What fixed it was not talent arriving. It was somebody finally telling me where things go, which is a much less romantic story than the one the industry prefers.

That is more or less my entire job now: telling people where things go.

What I actually do

I am freelance, which in practice means I come to you. Most of my work happens in somebody's apartment, at the kitchen table or on the end of a bed, with the curtains open and the overhead light off. Studios are lovely. Studios also lie to you — everything looks correct under a ring light, including things that will look alarming in a bar two hours later.

Daylight is honest. If it works in daylight it works everywhere.

The four things I get booked for are weddings, events and shoots, color and creative work, and one-to-one lessons. The lessons are the ones I would keep if I had to drop the rest. There is something very satisfying about handing somebody their own brush back and watching them do the thing correctly for the first time.

The bits that make me a person and not a website

Kiwi. French bulldog. She is nine, she is not employed, and she will find the one client in ten who does not want a dog leaning on their leg while they get their face done. If you would rather she stayed at home, say so — nobody has ever offended me by having a preference.

Teal. My signature, and my running argument. Nearly everybody thinks teal will not suit them and nearly everybody is wrong. It sits well against warm skin, it makes brown eyes do something unexpected, and it reads as deliberate rather than trying. I put it on more faces than any other color, usually as a thin line rather than a lid full.

Iced coffee. In February. Yes, I have heard.

Brushes at one in the morning. I own a drawer of brushes I have used once. I know exactly what happened: it was late, the video was convincing, and the shape looked like it solved a problem I did not have. I keep the drawer open when I teach so people can see what a professional wasting money looks like.

Glitter. I love it on other people and I resent it in my own flat. I will find it on a skirting board in March from a job in January. This is the actual cost of doing creative work and nobody warns you.

How I work with people

I ask a lot of questions before I touch anything. Not because I am stalling, but because "natural" means eleven different things and half of the disappointment in this industry comes from two people using the same word for different faces.

I will tell you what I have used on you if you ask. I write it down for lesson clients as a matter of course. There are no products I am paid to recommend, no discount code, no affiliate link on this website — which is also why the journal can be blunt about things that do not work.

And I will tell you if you do not need me. Some people book a wedding trial and what they actually needed was ninety minutes of being shown how to do it themselves. That is a cheaper booking and a better outcome, and I would rather have the second one.

Where I work

New York City and the tri-state area, mostly. Travel further is fine, it just goes on the quote at cost rather than as a mysterious surcharge. Early starts are normal — weddings do not care that I am not a morning person.

If any of that sounds like what you are after, the next step is short: tell me the date and roughly what the day looks like, and I will come back with availability and a fixed price.