A makeup artist is backed by years of experience and technical skills to create stunning looks that highlight their clients’ best features or help them achieve a creative vision in a fashion or editorial situation. But they do something more than make their clients look beautiful.
Their work contributes to the client’s overall experience, whether it be an important event, like a wedding day or engagement shoot, an editorial photoshoot, or anything else. Makeup artists carry the task of transforming their subjects, making them feel confident, fierce, ethereal, unique–or simply making essential milestones in their lives feel more memorable and appreciated.
The following are things that you could share in your portfolio—from showcasing your makeup skills and technical expertise, to how you elevate your clients’ events. If you don’t know where to start, have a look at these 10 makeup artists with stunning portfolios you can take inspiration from.
1. All Brides New York
All Brides New York is managed by Ann Benjamas, a Thai and Chinese makeup artist from Bangkok, Thailand. She has a wealth of experience as a professional makeup artist, starting her career at the age of 18. Shortly after, she moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, and started her own bridal beauty company, All Brides New York.
Ann’s style focuses on enhancing her client’s natural beauty so they feel like their most beautiful self on their special day. She primarily works with brides, giving them a stunning and confident look for their wedding days.
Her portfolio is organized, with photos showing her specialty work for Asian brides (like herself), and destination weddings. She even has a before-and-after category that highlights her skills and really demonstrates what she can do.
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2. Sumitra Joshi
Sumitra Joshi is an award-winning hair and makeup artist backed by over 18 years of experience in the industry. She is based in Canberra, Australia working with clients for weddings, fashion, and maternity shoots.
Sumitra can conquer a range of makeup styles, from natural makeup to glitzy, glamorous, and shiny looks. But her style is mostly focused on radiant and natural makeup that helps accentuate her clients’ raw beauty.
Sumitra has a lot to back up her skills and experience in the industry, which she highlights in her portfolio. She dedicates a whole section on her website homepage to displaying customer reviews, helping build trust and confidence in her as a makeup artist.
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3. Valentina Costa
Valentina Costa is a makeup artist from Vincenza, Italy. She has a decade of experience in the makeup industry, using that time to hone her skills and create makeup and hair masterpieces for clients worldwide. She has traveled to Milan, Miami, Los Angeles, London, and Paris, working with celebrities, influential personalities, and commercial models.
Valentina also has the WWE hair and makeup department on her resume. Models she has worked with have appeared on TV, billboards, social media, and other press campaigns.
Valentina’s experience has led her to find her unique style, mainly focusing on bold looks that look stunning on camera. Her portfolio reflects exactly that, showcasing models on magazine covers and in TV appearances. She also includes close-up shots of her models, highlighting the intricate makeup work she’s done for them.
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4. Carly Stone
Carly Stone is an internationally-acclaimed makeup artist that uses her professional platform to advocate for cruelty-free and plant-based beauty. She is very passionate about the environment and animals, which led to her solely using vegan cosmetics in her work.
Carly has plenty of accolades under her belt. She qualified at the Brisbane Academy of Makeup and worked as a Makeup Director for the Sunshine Coast Fashion Festival in 2019. In 2018, Carly was named Editor’s Favourite Makeup Artist at the Sydney Beauty Expo’s Face2Face Editorial Makeup category.
Along with these achievements, Carly has worked with international trainers to hone her skills and keep up with industry trends. Her work has been featured in international magazines and billboards around the world. Carly’s portfolio is intuitive, with a fun scroll-panel homepage that features her best work.
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5. Tami K. Wells
Tami K. Wells is a Los Angeles-based makeup artist who specializes in an array of different makeup styles. Whether tasked to create a natural look or full-glam with bold colors and glitter, she executes each project perfectly. This is owing to her passion for makeup, which coincidentally allows her to create art that evolves and improves over time.
Tami’s portfolio is simple but effective. At first glance, you’re met with a photo of her best work before entering the website homepage. Then, you’ll find a collection of stunning photographs, from close-up shots of her subjects to magazine covers featuring models she’s worked with.
This makeup portfolio format gives a complete picture of what she can do and takes the viewer through an exciting and engaging journey of her experience.
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6. Paul Rodgers
Paul Rodgers is a London-based hair and makeup artist with over 12 years of experience in the creative industry. He has a long track record of working with various clients in fashion, runway, beauty, and red carpet. His work has been featured in countless ads, music videos, theater productions, and TV appearances.
Paul primarily works in the fashion industry, doing hair and makeup for renowned models and artists. His portfolio is a collection of his best work, containing both images and videos that help foster an engaging experience for the viewer. The grid-style format makes it easy to appreciate every shot and better understand what Paul can do.
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7. Sharon Casey
Sharon Casey is a hair and makeup artist who studied modern makeup at Fred Segal Beauty in Los Angeles. In her years as a student, she accumulated expert knowledge in makeup and hair, which led her to pursue big things in her career.
Sharon has done hair and makeup for two Presidents and a member of the Royal Family. She has also worked with famous companies like Amazon Fashion, Abercrombie & Fitch, and Anthropology.
Sharon’s portfolio is all about highlighting her hair and makeup talent and skills, featuring a grid layout of her best photos. All of them are close-up shots of her models, which allow the viewer to get a closer look at Sharon’s work and appreciate the diversity of her talent.
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8. Vlad Andrei
Vlad Andrei is a fashion photographer who has worked with various famous brands, including Glamour, Dior Makeup, Mac, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Pandora, and Dove. His career began to skyrocket after graduating with his Master’s of Arts in Fashion Photography at the London College of Fashion/ University of Arts London.
His background in documentary photojournalism allows him to capture stories, specializing in still and moving images with interesting backgrounds. His portfolio is a feed of the work he has done, with each shot not only showing his expertise but also evoking emotion and telling a story.
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Tips for Creating a Makeup Artist Portfolio
A makeup artist boasts excellent talent in the art and technicalities of makeup, fashion, and beauty. They have both hard and soft skills needed to succeed in the industry and can flaunt their own personal style and techniques. These things should be showcased proudly in their online makeup artist portfolios.
If you’re a makeup artist who’s looking to collate your best work for the world to see, then here are some things that you should keep in mind:
- Pair down. Collect and showcase your best work. Don’t clutter your portfolio with everything you’ve done throughout your experience as a makeup artist. Hand-pick the projects you’re most proud of and find photos that effectively showcase your skills and talent.
- Use high-quality photos. Photos that highlight a model’s makeup should be crisp and clear in order to truly flaunt the work that you’ve done. Observe the best photography practices when choosing what to showcase in your portfolio.
- Make your portfolio website easy to use and view. Don’t give your viewer a difficult time navigating your portfolio. Make it as intuitive and organized as possible so they can focus on appreciating your work instead of navigating your website.
- Keep updating your portfolio. As you create new looks, make sure you’re uploading them to your website.
Creating an online portfolio for a makeup artist can be overwhelming. If you’re ever confused about how to start, look at the samples we’ve provided above to help you get ideas for creating your portfolio website.
Format makes it easy to build an online portfolio to showcase your work. With professionally designed templates that you can customize to suit your style, our platform helps you post your photos and videos in the most appealing way. Format also integrates e-commerce tools so you can sell your work and skills to interested buyers.