In our 10 Minutes With... Lisa Eldridge, the beauty industry veteran tells us how to nail a summer make-up look and why good skincare is a must
London-based make-up artist Lisa Eldridge is no stranger to the beauty industry. Throughout her career as a professional make-up artist, which spans two decades, she has worked with A-listers like Kate Winslet, Dua Lipa and Nicole Kidman. She has also created make-up looks for numerous ad campaigns and magazine covers, authored a book on the history of make-up, and was among the first professional make-up artist who harnessed the power of social media to establish a strong online presence on YouTube and Instagram through her make-up tutorials.
That’s not all. In 2018, Eldridge launched her eponymous make-up line, and in April this year she ventured into skincare with two products: the Skin Enhancing Treatment Cleanser and the Skin and Make-up Enhancing Mist.
Recently, Tatler had a chat with Eldridge over a video interview to talk about her skincare launch and future beauty trends.
Read more: Catching up with Guerlain’s creative director of make-up, Violette Serrat
As a professional make-up artist, what sparked your interest in skincare?
As I wanted to be a make-up artist since I was 13, I joined a prestigious aesthetician course after secondary school which said it included make-up. It turned out that it covered skin physiology in depth and only had two days of make-up lessons [laughs]. From then on, I was interested in skincare.
I had acne, and as a make-up artist, I had to learn how to look after my skin and cover [up the acne in a way that looks] as if I wasn’t wearing make-up. I remember working with a famous singer who had acne, and when I did her make-up, she said, “You’re the best person I’ve ever had to do my skin because I look like I’ve got no make-up on.”
If a client sits down with inflamed skin, we need to sort that out so we can use different make-up, less make-up or whatever. I can always solve problems and emergencies with make-up, but if I can help with skincare too, it helps [the process] overall.
What inspired you to develop your own skincare range despite there being so many on the market already?
While working with Shiseido, L’Oréal Luxe and Lancôme [to help develop their make-up products], I got very interested in cosmetic science and formulas. I was always asking, “why can’t that be done?”, “why are you using that?” or “could we change that?”.
It got to the point where I kept thinking, “If this were my brand, I would have done it like this”. So I said to myself, “Don’t be scared, do it yourself, because you keep telling people what to do and how to do it”. I was also [encouraged] by the fact that a lot of the products I worked on are now bestsellers globally.