Ngozi Esther Edeme, aka @paintedbyesther, knows her blush. Since emerging on the scene, the UK-based makeup artist has worked with a slew of famous faces, painting each with her hyperfeminine makeup aesthetic. We caught up with the artist and her muse Olandria to talk about how Black beauty influences her artistry and how to master her signature gradient blush look. Read on to learn why one blush is never enough and debunk the “blush blindness” myth once and for all.
THE ART OF GRADIENT BLUSH
Edeme’s approach to artistry is simple: “Something HAS to pop on the face,” she tells M·A·Czine. “And blush was just always what I reached for.” She cites stars from the early 00s as her earliest inspirations for bold blush placement. “Devon Aoki actually inspired my love for it. I love how it sat on her cheeks – she had the best apple cheeks, and it was just the prettiest coral colour, and it genuinely lives in my brain, rent-free. I always wanna translate that into all my looks.”
Friend and model Olandria echoes this blush obsession. “I love blush – shout out to Esther – I truly feel like it brings out my features, and I really want a lotta women with deep, dark skin tones to not be scared to put blush on. It’s beautiful and it highlights our beauty that we already have within.”
To help emphasize the blush colour, Edeme blends from the outer side of the face toward the center. “I tend to start light-to-dark or dark-to-light. It always has to have some sort of gradient,” she says. “It helps to blend and reinforce whatever colour is the main colour.”
This blending technique provides dimension and allows the colour to really shine through. “So, if I want, like, a vibrant berry, for example, on Olandria, I will use a magenta-pink to get the colour on her face first, and then blend each side with its corresponding tone. The closer you are to the middle of the face, the lighter it gets.”
“MY HOT TAKE IS ‘BLUSH
BLINDNESS’ DOESN’T EXIST.”
— NGOZI ESTHER EDEME
“YOU ALWAYS WANNA WORK WITH A FEW DIFFERENT COLOURS OF BLUSH, NEVER JUST ONE, ’CAUSE THAT’S BORING.”
— NGOZI ESTHER EDEME
A LITTLE BIT OF WHIMSY
“I try and always bring some sort of whimsy and some sort of fun
into every look I do,” she says. “I always want the makeup to
reflect her [Olandria’s] whimsy and personality, rather than
cover it and mask it.”
Whether that’s mixing three shades of blush for one look
or applying one of her signatures to her growing roster of clients,
Edeme knows that it’s all about making them feel like themselves.
“I never want you to think, ‘Hmm, her makeup looks good.' I want
you to think SHE looks good. That’s my main goal, always.”
A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
