“Guyliner?” I repeat half-surprised, half-shocked. “Yes! It’s the eyeliner that men use. I call them guyliner,” laughs well-known make-up artist Marvie Beck from Mumbai. Make-up isn’t the sole domain of women anymore…we knew that, but eyeliners and kaajal? “Everybody wants to look good. Men too are conscious. In fact I get two to three male clients asking for foundations that match their skin tone. Some of them who attend board meetings come asking about compacts to look fresh. There are also those who use kaajal, bronzers and lip balms.”
Among her clients the most curious lot are 16 year old girls. They love experimenting and trying out new looks mostly inspired by celebrities. They ask for Priyanka Chopra’s fringes, or Deepika Padukone’s hair style… “I have even seen 10 year olds with Barbie make-up kits, doing their own make-up!” she says. “No wonder the beauty industry is the sixth best business in the world…recession proof!” she smiles.
Belonging to a family of artists — some painters, some dancers, Marvie loved painting as a child. And slowly from blank papers and canvases she moved on to a live canvas that is the face. “A common perception is that make-up artists are not usually well-educated. That’s not true. I am a Literature graduate. Then I became an air hostess and then a dancer. But I was looking to do something that made me happy. Finally I figured out what it was and enrolled myself in the Delamar School of Make-up, London. After I returned to India I realised what a good career option this is,” she adds.
Her clientele includes celebrities such as Aishwarya Rai, Kareena Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor and Kamal Haasan. “The bigger the star the better they are because they are on time, organised and cooperative.”
Twenty years in the industry and Marvie says she is glad she can make people happy through her work. “Make-up is a wonderful thing. It gives people confidence, and confidence gives them success. But very few people know how to use make-up, even something as basic as applying lipstick,” she says. So what’s her advice? “Make sure your lips are well-conditioned. Apply lip balm and wipe it off before you start working on your lip. Use a lip pencil. Then smudge the line so it’s not visible. Follow it up with lipstick which is of the same colour as the lip liner and fill in the lips.”
In all these years she’s worked on several models and celebrities for commercials, photo shoots, song sequences and given people various looks such as the geisha, Russian doll and retro. And which look is the toughest to create? “The natural look, of course. When I started working, my first assignment was to give the model a no make- up look for a print advertisement,” says Marvie.
In Chennai to train the beauticians at Green Trends on the nuances of bridal make-up as part Green Trends Bridal Expertise Programme, Marvie says, “There’s no specific make-up called the bridal make-up. It has to match the elaborate bridal clothes. Together with Green Trends I have created four to five looks and working on a few more.”
