To say that Charlotte Tilbury, arguably the most influential celebrity makeup artist working today and an A-lister in her own right, is a busy woman would be a grand understatement. The self-confessed "24-hour girl" spends her days launching new products, breaking beauty records in locations like Dubai, is a contributing editor at British Vogue and received an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List this past June.
This is in addition to an awe-inspiring work calendar that includes dozens of magazine covers, celebrity appearances, the Met Ball in May and, of course, a makeup marathon for Hollywood awards season.
One would wonder if she ever gets any time off?
"I do actually kind of work on my holiday, I’m terrible", she confessed while speaking to RTÉ 2fm. "But I love to have fun. A lot of the jobs that I’m doing, the Met Ball or the Oscars, I’m at the parties, too! I’m a real 24-hour girl, and thank god for the joys of makeup!"
Part of her incredible success is that Tilbury relentlessly aims to make the seemingly otherworldly and glamorous beauty of her clients accessible to any man and woman in the world. It’s also a huge part of her charm, her desire to "democratise makeup".
"My thing is I work with all these celebrities, like Jennifer Lopez. We’ve always mixed things like an alchemist for her skin, and I’d think "okay, we’ve got to give this to the world". And so that’s how I came out with Hollywood Flawless Filter. This is J-Lo in a jar. She’s got that amazing Latin skin, but I wanted it [to work] if you’ve got, like me, pasty white skin."
A hidden catch to many miracle products currently on the market, however, is that you often need to apply them like a makeup artist, using tricks and deft brushwork to really get Kim Kardashian’s complexion. This isn't the case with Tilbury’s products.
"This, darling? Literally, slather it on. Idiot proof! My whole thing is, a lot of women, they're not makeup artists and they don't’ have time. And so if my four-year-old son can do it, so can you."
Tilbury has an innate understanding of the shift in makeup from month to month and is in no denial that social media has influenced it more than anything else.
"I’m so obsessed with filters, Instagram filters and filters on the face, that this is one of the reasons that I created this [product]."
Hollywood Flawless Filter comes in a range of colours and finishes, offering everything from "a filter of youth" - for dehydrated skin looking to rediscover its plumpness - to "a holiday in a jar" - inspired by the lit-from-within complexions of Gisele Bündchen and Jennifer Lopez.
"I’m obsessed with making women’s skin look beautiful as if they’ve got an Instagram filter, but walking around in real life, in real time".
In this sense, Tilbury is truly an innovative makeup artist befitting our generation: she’s not just taking inspiration from trends and apps and the arguably dodgy way we alter our appearance online. Rather, she’s crafting products that do the filtering for us, enhance in real life our own inherent natural beauty so that we don’t need a filter online.
This message is at the core of her brand, as she says she wants to "give all of this Hollywood glamour in an easy to choose, easy to use format to all women around the world".
She’s refreshingly realistic, too, no doubt a by-product of her long tenure in the industry. She says that the Hollywood industry understands that when an actress or a model goes out in public with the right makeup on, they’ll get more promotion.
She even points to studies that monitored how a woman puts on makeup and how if, according to the quality of the makeup she puts on, she could be paid up to 50 per cent more and be trusted more.
"You could say that’s a ridiculous thing, but actually it’s the world we live in. We judge ourselves, we get judged, and if you don't look tired, people like to think ‘oh, she takes care of herself. She’ll take care of her job’."
All the same, some basic skin care routines ring true, such as hydration. Tilbury recommends drinking at least two to three liters a day.
The MBE came as a shock to her, despite her epic success, and was only made worse by the binding rule that you can’t talk about the honour before it’s officially awarded to you, as it could be taken away, which Tilbury described as "so tortuous".
"It was very emotional. It’s so wonderful to be recognised by your country and your queen for something you have done."
Although she loves being British, she revealed she’s actually half Irish, with an Kilkenny-born grandmother and Irish blood on her father’s side meaning she’s roughly "40-something per cent Irish".
My sister’s not. She didn't’ get the Irish genes in the same way that I did, so when we did the DNA test you’d think that brothers and sisters would be the same, but actually I’m more Irish than she is. But look at me, it’s red hair and green eyes, It’s all Irish! All the Irish genes just went ‘we’re going to that woman’."
So we can officially claim half of Charlotte Tilbury for Ireland!
"I do feel quite emotional when I come here, I think of my grandmother, I just think ‘I miss her!’"
As a 24-hour girl with a bursting professional calendar, it’ll come as no surprise Tilbury has a bustling social life too, something she keenly advocates.
"You’ve got one life to live, live it to the full. I work with a lot of these amazing acupuncturists and I say ‘how come when I’ve gone out all night to the Met Ball, and I’ve laughed and danced and stayed up all night til six in the morning, and then I’ve had to get up and work the next day and go and do an appearance and god knows what, on no sleep almost at all, like two hours sleep, how come I have so much energy?
"And they said you’ve just plugged into that happiness gene, and when you plug into that, you don’t need the same amount of sleep.It’s just about enjoy[ing] your life cos you’ll find so much engenery. We need the joy gene, darling! Go out and have a good time."
