With over 15 years experience in the industry and having worked for some of the biggest brands in beauty, pro makeup artist Natalie Vella shares her makeup journey. From being taken along to makeup jobs as a child, to doing makeup for Anthony Joshua, Natalie has always had a burning desire for creativity in the form of makeup and is working on honing her craft. She shares her unique start to her career, where she draws her creativity from and what she thinks the industry will look like in the years to come…

What informed your idea of beauty as a child?

I was lucky enough to be raised in beauty; my Mum was a makeup artist, she worked for Estée Lauder and I’ve always been immersed in it. When I was a child she couldn’t get childcare for me, so she’d take me along to training. She’d say, “Natalie, sit in the corner and be quiet”. And naturally being me, I ignored her every single time.

I would basically just get stuck right into these training sessions, one of the trainers always used to take note of this, and said to my Mum, “If she wants to go down the makeup artistry route, when she’s old enough, she can use me as a reference”. I’ve always known I’ve wanted to be in the arts and my medium just happens to be makeup.

I had my first client when I was 15. I was always coming back from school and just drawing all over my face and just experimenting. At 19 years old, I started working for Estee Lauder. At the age of 21, I was the youngest national makeup artist.

What did makeup mean to you as a child? Has it changed what it means to you now?

I love beauty. I have always done. There is a famous quote from Valentino, “I love my beauty, it’s not my fault”. And that quote has always stuck with me, I just love aesthetics.

When you see something beautiful, a beautiful flower or a beautiful sunset, it’s visual endorphins. And I see that in makeup, beauty and fashion. And so that’s always captivated me. It’s like the art for your face.

It’s a way of pulling out a different side of you and what you put a certain look on yourself. For example, when a client comes in and they don’t really experiment much, you give them something different and their whole posture and how they look at themselves completely changes. You might get a fiercer and a more eccentric side of them just by how they visually see themselves.

"The Blushka brushes are such a clever system where you have two wands and then multiple interchangeable heads, they save so much space in any makeup kit which is a dream for a professional makeup artist." - Natalie Vella

How does makeup make you feel when you put it on yourself?

Some days I feel like I want to be running through the daisy fields; floaty, fresh and natural. And other days I want to feel like that girl. Sometimes I want to feel like I’m a bit unapproachable and I can express that through my make up.

If you’re wearing an absolute showstopper of a ballgown, wearing a fresh look will still work with it, but wearing a fierce look with it that compliments it, does wonders for how you hold yourself in that dress.

It can almost give you the confidence to wear that dress because you feel like you can match it. Aspects where someone won’t feel like they feel confident enough in the outfit they’re wearing until they’re done up with their hair and make up.

Tell me about your career. What have been some of the highlights?

I moved to MAC after Estée Lauder to really hone in on the artistry skills. It’s the one everyone wanted to join. It’s almost like a rite of passage as a makeup artist to work for MAC at some point in their career. 

I love how different brands present themselves in different ways. Estée Lauder, for example, is a very aesthetically, classic brand. And then you’ve got brands like Tom Ford; the element of sensuality and basically like an inner expression of what a woman is.

When I was with Estée Lauder, I did magazine front covers. I did a Harper’s Bazaar Wonder of the Year award, I did a front cover of Tatler magazine and then worked on a shoot with Anthony Joshua as a freelancer.

I can’t really pinpoint a specific highlight in my career because every different job has a different level of satisfaction to it. At the end of the day, for me to pick a highlight would degrade the whole journey.

For me it’s the whole experience of doing different things and pushing my creative boundaries. A highlight for me I would say is getting to the stage I’m at now in my artistry. Seeing how my skill set has developed is the highlight for me and finally understanding the concept of colour theory. I’ve got many more exciting things to come!

What does success look like to you as a makeup artist?

Success would look like a creative vision on an editorial shoot coming to life exactly, if not better than you planned it. Or being a part of someone’s big day and them feeling incredible, beautiful and getting to be a part of that emotional experience. They’re very different sorts of feelings, but they’re the same level of satisfaction.

What keeps you creatively inspired then? Where do you draw your inspiration from?

I get a lot of my inspiration from taking breaks. To be honest, when I was younger, I felt like I constantly needed to be excessively busy and doing the most. And actually, those creative thoughts and processes don’t come in those times sometimes.

Because our brains are super occupied, stopping and pulling back is where I get most of my creativity from, so it could be being abroad and seeing the aesthetic of that culture.

What does a typical week look like for you?

I spend my time doing a range of things. I think the beauty of doing a mixture of jobs is that you don’t get stagnant doing one look. Bridal is always gonna be the same, but I also love bridal makeup because it makes me really focus on keeping everything as natural and wearable as possible, which can be transferred into when I do something like headshots.

You should always be learning and always be improving your artistry. And by having that mixture, it keeps you fresh on everything. I’ve always said if I wasn’t doing the editorial and bridal side of makeup, I’d have done SFX like Marvel. I probably would have done that as there’s beauty in both. I still get very inspired by SFX.

What advice would you give to a young woman entering into the world of makeup?

Learn theory before technique. There is no point in knowing the technique of something, if you don’t know why you’re doing it. Learn your colours. Learn the concept of light and shade, placement and texture.

Where do you see the industry going in the next five to 10 years?

At the moment, it’s all about soft and natural looks. There’s gonna be a breakout of pure colour, play, experimentation and expression again, like back in the 80s. It’s going to be used as another accessory and I know that’s always said, but I feel like the younger generation are definitely a lot more expressive with themselves in general and they play a lot more.

I feel like play is going to come back in makeup, that’s what I’d like to see. It always goes through lulls and waves. Everything goes natural and then people get bored of that and it peaks back up again. I can see it beginning to peak back up again.