Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521284
THE ARTISAN SUMMER 2024 • 49 PHOTOS COURTESY OF MTV/WORLD OF WONDER Raven: A typical day in the life in the dressing room with RuPaul is a lot of coffee and music. It helps keep the day going, Ru picks out what he's going to wear, and Ru does a lot for himself for shaving, prepping the skin, priming the skin. It helps to give me time to figure out what I'm going to do. I think people think that the dressing room in Ru's world is this super sterile, strict, orderly thing and it's actually like, we'll do this and if we need to pivot, we do. It's a very relaxed environment with a lot of music, a lot of coffee, and a lot of curse words. We have a lot of fun. Natasha: We have a lot of fun in the trailer, too. We're usually all working at the same time, sometimes we have to tag team depending on the timing. We got music on there, we like to decorate the trailer, we got our essential oil diffuser, we like to keep organized in there and create a good flow. Raven, how do you get inspired each week? Raven: Speaking of inspiration for the way make-up looks are designed, it really does come down to what is gonna be worn? You want it to complement the gown, the colors, the style, so the first thing we always choose is the costume. When we get the gowns and the costumes from Zaldy (RuPaul's gown designer), I'll start finding inspiration and making my own little mood board. We go pick out a costume, pick out the hair, and then go from there. Natasha: We also have Tony Iniguez, the costume designer. He'll make things for the queens for specific roles like The Rusical, and the Pit Crew, and then he has a counterpart, Randy Darling, and Joey, who works with styling for Michelle (Visage) and for Carson (Kressley) and Ross (Mathews). They're usually deciding what they're going to wear first. Then we come in and build around that basically. Raven: Hair does play a big part as well. If they're doing a look that's more period or era, the eyeliner might need to be a certain shape, the crease may need to be a certain height or not. And it all needs to flow together and tell a story. Natasha: Ru has mentioned many times how important proportions are: the hair, the wigs are just a component to proportions of the look, the best they can be. What are some go-to products or tricks that you always use on the job? Raven: I still have in my make-up kit and always will: Maybelline Great Lash mascara. Natasha: Anastasia Beverly Hills has great eyebrow products, but also, when we're doing the dancers, our best friend is the coconut oil spray from Trader Joe's. They use some unconventional items like that for making muscles pop out and making bodies look shiny and glistening. Raven: Whenever I get those Anastasia kits, I grab those liquid lipsticks. I use them as a lip liner, I use it to fill the lip, highlight the lip, blend it out, put that on—you don't have to touch it at all. Natasha: Anastasia Beverly Hills is our make-up sponsor, so they generously hook us up each season with kits for the artists, gifts for special guests, so we get everything: the eyeshadows, the lipsticks, whatever new stuff they come out with. It's great, it's been a massive help. On a regular day basis, we have the Pit Crew, we have the dancers. It's all about making their skin look the best that it can be, just making their bodies look the best. And Nicole (Faulkner) does an amazing job on Michelle's make-up every time, and it always goes with the hair, the outfit. Two other brands—One/Size, Patrick Starrr's make-up brand we love, the powders, the foundations are amazing. Those are great for men's grooming and Kryolan, their setting spray is everything! Raven: Kryolan, it's a theatrical type of make-up, it's an aerosol that locks everything in. You can wear it all day long, you can touch-up over it, it doesn't cake. It's a super fine mist. I spray the face down before I put the lashes down. It's that one piece of the puzzle you NEED. Can you talk about the difference of doing make-up on television versus make-up for other media? Natasha: With Drag Race specifically, that's the opportunity to just do more in general. Especially if we have the opportunity to do a celebrity guest, I always encourage them: This is your chance to do something ultra glamorous or more editorial or just really dramatic. It's definitely more, and it's okay for it to be more, and viewers expect to see a lot. Raven: You're going onto the main stage of RuPaul's Drag Race, why not do it up? We know what you look like. Why don't you go in here and say: you know what, cut my crease, smack some glitter on it, and give me a #301 lash, I'm here, let's do it. Sequins, rhinestones, glitter, pumps, corsets, do it all! I remember Ru being interviewed by the Muppets and he said, "I was given this body, I like to decorate it." So many people fall into this idea that they need to wear clothes because it's a society norm. When I get into drag, I consider it a way of decorating myself. Joel Kim Booster