This story is told by makeup artist Joana Lopes:
Hello, my name is Joana Lopes, I’m 25 years old and before I am a makeup artist, I am a makeup lover. I´ve loved makeup ever since I can remember, I used to steal my mother’s makeup all the time and trying it on her bathroom mirror before taking a shower. I stole her wedding lipstick and still have it with me today.
Photos and film Thomas Probosch
Music Tony Corlett
Art direction Antonia Rosa
Makeup and words Joana Lopes
Models Sara Lapão from Central Models • Gerda Kriger • Kelly Sun from Face Models • Laura Monteiro
Featuring fashion from Constança Entrudo
Special thanks to Isabella Glock for the behind the scenes video.
My interest to be a professional makeup artist started when I was doing my friends’ makeup for a theatre piece we were doing on 6th or 7th grade, I can’t remember exactly the year but I remember the exact moment my Portuguese teacher asked me to do her eyeliner and my English teacher was right near us and said: ”Have you ever thought of being a makeup artist?” and it was like a light started to blink in my brain and I never thought of being anything else ever again. That was the dream I never knew I had.
Some years later, in 2018, I took my first Makeup course with Alice Roriz in Braga, and I must thank her for pushing me a little bit harder than I expected to and for putting my creative juices flowing. It just made me want to know more and search for a place where I could fit, because I felt like I was a little different than the other makeup artists I met.
And then I found Antonia. Here’s a little secret, I had been fangirling over Antonia for a long time, the way she holds a brush, the way she has an idea and executes it right there perfectly on the first try. Antonia’s work stood out to me the first time I ever saw it, and I wanted to be a part of that.
So, somewhere during the crazy 2021 quarantine there it was, my opportunity. Antonia opened a makeup course in Porto with Frederico by her side and I signed up right away. I couldn’t sleep until the first day of class. It was crazy with the quarantine and all the restrictions, but we made it work and it couldn’t have been any other way. With Antonia I learnt to use little to no foundation at all, just to correct some colors on the skin to create the perfect canvas without taking the dimension of every persons face. Fell in love with the technique right there and since then I’ve been perfecting my own technique and exploring a lot of textures to find what I like the most when it comes to skin.
When I do makeup the first thing that I think is: ”How can I enhance this person’s beauty?”, and then I think which feature is the first that you notice when you look at that person and work around that.
With these four girls I got excited because they are all so different from each other but very beautiful in their own way. So, I did my best to enhance their features and showing my style of makeup at the same time. These makeup looks represent my style a lot, some are more angelic and fairy like and others are very colorful and stand out a lot more.
And just because I’m a sucker for the no makeup makeup or, as the girlies call it nowadays, ”clean girl makeup”, doesn’t mean I can’t do a full beat and make it look as good. I just like a good challenge of doing someones makeup and make them look like they’re not wearing anything.
♥♥♥
Sara’s makeup draws all the attention to her beautiful doll-like eyes with a bright blue eyeshadow and some shimmer.
With Gerda I wanted to keep it simple but very dreamy at the same time so her unique features could shine. To create this I used a lot of holographic highlighters and shimmers that give that almost hypnotic look.
On her second look I did a graphic makeup with bright pink and orange to match Constança Entrudo’s shirt and focused on spots that would hug Gerda’s eyes.
When I saw Kelly I instantly thought ”bright pink blush” and that’s what I did, bright pink blush with a light purple eyeliner and some orange on the inner corners to illuminate the face.
With Laura at first, I didn’t know what to do because she already is insanely beautiful so the idea was to do a little bit of baby doll pink blush and nothing else, but then I decided to do a white graphic eyeliner with some rhinestones on top of a silver Paco Rabbane eyeshadow and it was the perfect angelic makeup to match with her fairy energy.
I hope that you can find some inspiration with this editorial or maybe some ideas for New Year’s Eve makeup. 2024 is the year to be bold and to not be scared of using that bright eyeshadow!
All in all, this editorial made me notice how much I’ve grown and how much I love being a makeup artist, there’s nothing in this world that I would rather be doing. So, with this I want to let you know that it is possible to make your dreams come true! Work hard and never give up, the universe works in mysterious ways, but it will get you wherever you want to be.
A very special thank you to Antonia Rosa and Frederico Simão for helping me make my dream come true. Thank you ZOOT for letting me tell my story and share my art and thank you to my beautiful models for being my playground for a day.
Kisses, Joana Lopes
Behind the scenes of our editorial “No makeup makeup” by Isabella Glock.
