Of­ten de­scribed as free spir­it­ed, lov­ing and eclec­tic, Re­na­ta Shenice Marie Richards is a 24-year-old make­up artist from Ari­ma. Renta­ta told the WE Mag that her love for make­up start­ed when she was a child af­ter see­ing her aunt ap­ply­ing make­up for work, events and even her part-time job as a princess char­ac­ter. Re­na­ta ex­plained that she has al­ways been en­thralled by the trans­for­ma­tion that make­up would al­low. She has al­so been for­tu­nate to have the con­stant sup­port from her par­ents who fa­cil­i­tat­ed her pas­sion for make­up. Ac­tu­al­ly, it was her dear moth­er who bought her first make­up kit. She is proud to ad­mit that even to this day she still has her first ever sil­ver make­up brush, one that she con­sid­ers an heir­loom.

Re­na­ta de­scribes make­up as be­ing di­verse and dis­parate, so much so that she de­cid­ed to take the plunge and come out of her com­fort zone to try il­lu­sion make­up. Il­lu­sion­ary make­up is done in a way to cre­ate an il­lu­sion of some­thing that looks re­al, but is on­ly cre­at­ed with make­up and is of­ten used in the movies. This type of make­up artistry re­quires great pa­tience. Ac­cord­ing to Re­na­ta, some­times you think you aren’t ca­pa­ble (of do­ing some­thing) and it scares you but you will nev­er know un­til you try. You do not grow in your com­fort zone. With that frame of mind, she took to the In­ter­net, or­dered some face paint, looked at some ideas and got her hands in­to the il­lu­sion­ary looks. It’s a per­fect mix where she can be cre­ative and have fun yet nev­er lose her pas­sion for make­up.

Al­though Re­na­ta loves make­up, she speaks bold­ly on women lov­ing them­selves and hav­ing those es­sen­tial per­cep­tions of one’s self with­out make­up. “Make­up should en­hance, nev­er take away from your truest self” stat­ed the make­up artist. Here’s a bit more from Re­na­ta as she shared with the WE Mag Team in an in­ter­view:

Tell us what you love the most about be­ing in the beau­ty in­dus­try?

The beau­ty in­dus­try of­fers me the space to be cre­ative, au­then­tic and my most beau­ti­ful self. It’s such a fun and care­free en­vi­ron­ment where you can ful­ly im­merse your­self in­to cre­at­ing some­thing beau­ti­ful, be it an artis­tic look, a time­less look, a fu­tur­is­tic, mod­ern look.

What part of the make­up rou­tine do you love do­ing the most and why?

My favourite part of my make­up rou­tine is eye­shad­ow ap­pli­ca­tion. I love to see the blend­ing of the shad­ows, the shim­mer, the de­f­i­n­i­tion - how it all comes to­geth­er to cre­ate a beau­ti­ful look.

What’s one thing your clients can re­al­ly count on you for?

Trans­for­ma­tion and tran­scen­dence. My work is to trans­form my clients, mak­ing them even more beau­ti­ful. They leave feel­ing beau­ti­ful and full of con­fi­dence. It is mag­ic.

What are three make­up tips that you can give to us?

My first tip sets the prece­dent for a flaw­less make­up ap­pli­ca­tion and rou­tine–that would be skin­care. Think of your bare face as a beau­ti­ful, flat can­vas on which you ul­ti­mate­ly paint your mas­ter­piece. You must have a smooth foun­da­tion. Skin­care is in­ter­twined with make­up. Be con­sis­tent with your skin­care rou­tine. Cleanse, ex­fo­li­ate, tone, mois­turise–in that or­der.

Eye­brows–Our eye­brows frame our faces. Know the shape of your eye­brows. Work­ing with it (the shape of your eye­brows) as op­posed to cre­at­ing an en­tire­ly new shape aids us in ap­ply­ing beau­ti­ful eye­brows.

Fi­nal­ly, foun­da­tion match­ing. Nev­er match your foun­da­tion through a swatch on your hands. With foun­da­tion, the first step is to find out your un­der­tone –are you yel­low un­der-toned, pink or grey? Sec­ond­ly, dis­cov­er what is your skin type. Do you have oily, dry or com­bi­na­tion skin? Third step: when in beau­ty stores, match your foun­da­tion to your neck not on your hands. Fi­nal­ly, re­mem­ber foun­da­tion ox­i­dis­es. Ox­i­da­tion hap­pens when the foun­da­tion ad­justs on your skin over the course of the day. Your foun­da­tion can turn shades dark­er (or even or­ange), as it re­acts with your skin’s nat­ur­al oils (and their acid­i­ty lev­els) and with the air. From the store, ap­ply some of the foun­da­tion and ob­serve if it does or does not ox­i­dise.