Interview with Harriet Hadfield: Beauty as Inclusivity

When you first meet Harry (Harriet Hadfield), the first thing to do is to look inside her makeup kit. In my opinion, something already transpires from there. Her kit is perfection, made of a beautiful order and it seems to have just come out of a Glossier store. Not only because you can find every creation of the brand, but because her idea of beauty shines through the brands she chooses and how she used them: products with a “natural” effect and, for the most part, very researched. Here we see products of all kinds: Glossier, Kosås, Pinch of Colour, RMS, Milk etc.

We met makeup artist Harriett Hadfield for the first time during the photo shoot with “This is Us” actress, Eris Baker. Harry, with her captivating laugh, her super cool haircut, her warm brown/pinkish eyeshadow, her English allure (straight from London), and her desire for the colors and sun of Los Angeles, has made us immediately fell in love with her.

Harriet has also a YouTube channel (Harry Does Makeup) and a blog that perfectly reflect her style and that we consult regularly for advice on products, collections, brands, looks, and to learn more about what it means to love themselves. Love yourself, first of all. Because, as she also told us, what sense would have to hide your flaws, using makeup to cover them? Harry is not ok with that, she sees herself beautiful (and she is, very beautiful), she love natural skin, buy even the most independent brands (and thanks to that we discover always wonderful products) and love the colors of Los Angeles, which (after a year and a half) she feels she is part of.

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How did your love for beauty and makeup start?

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I was a real tomboy girl, I was actually quite boyish and into sports and I actually think I remember my mom, doing my grandma’s makeup for a surprise party for my dad and watching her painting my grandma’s face and I was, like, “I wanna do that!”.
I had no idea how, but I just knew I kind of wanted to “paint people,” I guess?! And so, it started like a collection very early on, I collected makeup, when I first got into it. Even though, you know, I have really cheap nasty makeup from the market, yellow lipsticks that I never wore, but I like having them! It was weird; it was like a collection.

And my poor sister would let me try everything I wanted to do on her and this was before the days of Photoshop. Before really the digital world would come what it is now. So everything I did was trying to copy what I saw on the magazines, or in print, or the museums when you see like photography exhibitions. I tried to do as much as I could on my poor sister, she didn’t really enjoy that!
From the age of 14, I knew it was makeup I wanted to do. And it was actually quite hard then to find makeup courses or educate myself easily. Nowadays everyone is self-thought; it’s so much easier. So I went to college, I did a makeup course and then, at 19, I moved to London. I went to London College of Fashion, I did a makeup course there that was great and then I started assisting quite early on: I was doing shows in Milan, I was working on shows in London, Fashion weeks. I did assisting for about three years and then went to do my own stuff and started building my portfolio and London was my base for a long time.

“I had no idea how, but I just knew I kind of wanted to paint people.”

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How was moving from London to LA?

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I think, for me and my husband, it was definitely a feeling of wanting something adventurous. The work was a big part of it obviously, but of course, we knew that moving to LA is the complete opposite of London. Here we have sun, it’s a big part of it [laughs].
And obviously it’s all celebrity culture over here, but I like that I get to do a lot of different things over here. I get to do advertising work, I get to do nice editorials, I do red carpets and I always have time to work on my own projects, like what I do with the blog and the YouTube Channel.
You know, things are always hard at first because it’s different and I think that with any big move, you say goodbye to friends and family and that’s hard, but also we’ve loved the adventure. We’ve loved trying something new and you only live once.

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Have you ever found any difference between London’s makeup industry and here in LA?

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I think I’ve been very lucky. The majority of the people I work with it’s because they’ve seen the kind of work I do and want that kind of makeup. But I have in the past worked with people who maybe wanted a very heavy, overly contoured face, and I think that there are other makeup artists that do that brilliantly, but that’s not something I’d do. We all have our specialism and I’d say, for me, I’d like to focus on real skin and enhancing someone’s beauty. The great thing about makeup is bringing someone’s character out and making him or her feel like the best version of himself or herself. And I do love that with makeup you can change every day, different colors, be different every day: there’s no right or wrong way to do it and again I think that there’s room for everyone in the industry and it’s nice also to support each other.

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How did everything start with the blog? And what’s the most beautiful part about sharing with your followers?
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Yeah, I mean, I don’t remember exactly when I started. I think that, after six years of being in the industry, Myspace was my first real introduction to the digital world. I think as well I started seeing other people who I admired in the industry, other makeup artists people like Lisa Eldridge, I saw people starting to use YouTube as a platform to, not to showcase their skills but I think to have something that’s theirs to own.
And the beautiful thing for me is when I meet subscribers that tell me they found their love for makeup again and how to express themselves. Once I had this lovely, lovely reader I met who, she’d been in the hospital for a long time and she was watching my videos and that’s…you know, I can’t get that kind of job satisfaction from what I do in a normal day to day sense. But the feeling that you’re making someone’s day better or you’re inspiring someone…I’m not a model, I don’t consider myself to be particularly special, in the nicest way possible, but I like what I do with makeup and it makes me feel good and the fact that makes other people feel good it’s actually a really powerful thing, and the digital space makes that so much easier.

“I like what I do with makeup and it makes me feel good and the fact that makes other people feel good. It’s actually a really powerful thing…”

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Where do you find inspiration for the editorials?
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Everywhere. Because it’s once again the downside of the digital world, we’re so engrossed in Instagram and social media that sometimes we like forget to look up. When I’m in a city I’ve never been before I watch the architecture, it’s one of my biggest loves, like if I could go study again I think I would go for architecture. I love traveling and road-trips, that’s where I found a lot of my inspiration, color palettes when you’re in completely different environments, different sceneries, either that’s something very urban or very green I think color palettes and shapes and textures are all around us, but a lot of times we’re not looking at them. That’s the biggest thing, I think, and I have to train myself to keep doing that as well, because it’s easy to forget.

I’m on my phone; I’m answering emails…I don’t look up as much and I think. I love when I have time to go to a nice exhibition. For example, I still love the V&A in London, it’s amazing, it’s such a nice space even just to go and have a cup of tea, a walk around. Here I love the beach, I love the ocean and I think that the light is a big part of it as well: the light changes how everything looks from different times a day, and I think for me that’s where I get a lot of color inspiration as well. Anything and everything, really.

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Is there an editorial look you are most proud of?

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That’s a good question, I feel like I should always be more prepared! That’s very hard. Maybe the cover I did for Marie Claire Mexico with Winnie Harlow, that was really cool. I loved doing that because she’s stunning and I think that more people should talk about inclusivity in the industry, that’s a really important message. And I think even for me, that was an important learning experience: I’d never done someone with vitiligo before so it was great having her “oh, I do this like this.” It’s nice when you learn from other people as well. And I think even finding your own aesthetic takes a lot of time, that’s the other thing. As a makeup artist, when you first start out you’re just trying to pay your bills, trying to get work, but you come to a point when you figure out what you do want to say, what you want to show. Maybe it’s only in the last years… I’m coming to my thirties knowing what that is in me.

“I think that more people should talk about inclusivity in the industry, that’s a really important message.”

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And what about the red carpet?
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When I did it for the singer Foxes, it was really fun. We did a lot of 60s references, a lot of Brigitte Bardot and a lot of Jane Birkin references, and she loved it. We did the bottom lashes, which was really really fun.
I mean, I love skin. I like freckles and skin texture, I always think that skin should look like skin but the best version of it.
It’s fun because there’s kind of a different aesthetic here. You realize that, again, from the Instagram makeup to the glam culture, I think that in London that was quite different from what it is here in LA. So it’s kind of trying to encourage people to feel beautiful with less makeup as well. It’s something I’d like to be a part of. I think owning your skin is a really nice thing.

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If you could bring three products to a desert Island, what would they be?

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Well, of course, they’re going to change every time!
Can I just bring the bag? [laughs] Ok, I’m going to take the presumption I have SPF with me already…at the moment it would be Glossier Haloscope in Quartz, I just love that at the minute. It would be my Kiko Milano Supercolor Eyeliner in 102 Bronze because I’d have to choose that over mascara. Believe it or not, I’d rather have eyeliner rather than a mascara. And then I would be clever and chose a lip and cheek product.

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What’s your look of the moment?

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I’m really into pink eyeshadow. I think that since I cut my hair, I have been just having this moment of playing with makeup. And makeup became exciting again for me, because I get excited about other people’s face but, since we do our own face every single day, it’s quite hard to want to do anything, I guess. When I cut my hair I was like I was having a new face!
So yes, pink eyes. I’m loving pink eyeshadow, either it’s matte or not. I like it with boyish outfits as well, it’s like a bit girly girly on the eyes and then super masculine tailoring or clothing. I think it’s like the diluted version of the red eyeshadow trend that did Chanel Le Rouge, which was great and I loved that. I loved seeing people including reds because it’s actually really flattering. I think people fear color but, as long as your base is nice and clean, then it looks great.

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What’s your Skincare routine?

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At the minute, I am really into Lixir, that’s a newer brand. It’s imaged by Colette Hayden, who’s a very well-named formulator for lots of other brands, so she made amazing products that we already all have in our bathroom cabinets and she did her own line, she made it super simple. So it’s like: a cleanser in the morning, and a motion face moisturizer that you add your serum to, really quick. And she has this Electrogel Cleanser that you use in the evening to take your makeup off. And it acts like a magnet and makes all the bad stuff come out and it’s amazing. And Kate Somerville, it’s my other go to. I love her.

I do also exfoliators, I don’t do them every day, like two or three times a week. I like AHA Base assets, just dealing with dead skin, making the skin new again, and I’m trying at the minute and I’m so far really liking the Dermatologica Daily Resurfacer: I like them because they’re quick, very brightening. I like to include that, not every day, but as long as my skin needs it.

“I’m really into pink eyeshadow.”

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Have you ever tought about a makeup line of your own? And what is your dream project?

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You know, I think it’s so hard now, I think that for bringing skin products such as foundations and concealers you have to be inclusive and I think that, if you have to do that it has to be perfect, that’s a lot of pressure. I think that so many brands do great things now, the market has never been more competitive. For example, I love that Pixiwoo just does brushes, it would be quite nice to do just one thing and to do it amazingly. Even like Eyeko, when they did just the liner and the mascara. And I’ve got friends working in PR that tells me that the number of launches one brand has in a year is ten times more than what it was ten years ago. There’s so much pressure to keep creating and I would never do something just for the sake of having a new release.

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You would lose the fun…

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Yes, I think that’s it. And I think I’d rather be known for someone who has a small edit of something, and the funny thing is that I don’t know what it would be. I’ve never really thought that far ahead.

One thing I know that I would love to do, maybe even more so than a product, it’s my Youtube Channel.
I would love in the future to be able to do almost like documentary stuff; I’d like to travel to different countries and showcase beauty through other Countries’ eyes. Like through the Italian women, someone who’s in Bulgaria, someone’s who’s in Mexico. And I would like to then see how to enlace it to my makeup: that for me would be like a dream of what YouTube could do, maybe, one day.
I’m fascinated about countries I’ve never seen.

And it’s new…

Yeah, I mean, everything has been done. It’s very hard…and you know, in my own kit, there are products I’d repurchase again and again and again but aren’t particularly new. Because they work and for me, for something to replace something in my pro kit it has to be better than what I already got. There’s no point in me putting something in only because it’s new. If it’s not good, then I won’t use it. I feel like it has to perform and something has to really impress me to make it to that bag.

I don’t even know how it would work but I love to travel and to see places I’ve never get to see, and that could be also from different ages points of view. Like, how it changed for my grandma when she was a child to what she sees now: that interview thing, just talking to women.

I’d like to bring it to people I may never get to see and bring them things they may never get to see, for example what makeup means to someone in the mountains or in different cultures. The world is so big and we have so little time, and for me, YouTube is like the new TV now. People are going to choose what they want to watch while, when I was a kid, you had to wait once a week for that program you wanted to watch. And I guess we have become accustomed to overconsumption, I get that, but I do think as well that people have the ability to be specific with what they spend their time on. There’s a choice element, which is great.

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And what’s beauty for you?

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It’s hard to say without sounding like a cliché, because I’ve been asked about this a lot on my blog! I think it’s owning who you are, accepting that, owning your beauty not apologizing for what you look like, who you are, because I think there’s a temptation in today’s culture, like we can’t take compliments anymore. Someone says “your work is good” or “you’re really pretty” and you’re like “Oh no, oh God, Well…”
It feels really awkward. And I feel like it’s something that has also to do with age: I feel more beautiful now on my thirties then I did in my twenties and it’s something that has to do with acceptance, I guess. Acceptance of who I am.

I love people like Lena Dunham, she always says that the body is a vessel, we’re here and we come into the world, we live the world. This is just my body and I can look after it and I can treat it well, but ultimately I’m going to age. Aging is a privilege, we shouldn’t fear it. It’s important for me for young girls not to fear aging, and I think that we work in an industry that works on the opposite. The word anti-aging to me is controversial: I mean, I understand it all comes from fear but ultimately beauty is whatever you define it and what makes you feel great.

Photos by Johnny Carrano.

Follow Harriet on Instagram: @harrymakesitup.

Follow Harriet on Youtube: Harry Makes It Up.

Follow Harriet’s Blog: www.harrymakesitup.com