Become a masterpiece with art-inspired make-up

Art and beauty have always been intertwined: be it just-bitten lips in Renaissance paintings, flushed cheeks or flaxen hair. But a new wave of make-up and skincare products are finding fresh inspiration. For fine-arts graduate Sheena Zadeh-Daly, it was the colours in her portrait classes that led her to launch clean cosmetic brand Kosas with the aim of making make-up shades less boring. Similarly, Violette Serrat’s marbled Bisou blushers are based on Leonardo da Vinci’s sfumato technique, a way to smudge and blend colours. Urban Decay and Victoria Beckham are inspired by artist tools, creating liners as precise as a Winsor & Newton paintbrush. Off-White’s Imprint Face and Body Solid Pigments, meanwhile, look to “the world of graffiti”.

Other brands take their cues from colour: this month Ilia teamed up with art collective Tappan on a set of eyeshadows that reflect the shades of baroque paintings, including Girl with a Pearl Earring. Hourglass’s Phantom Volumising Glossy Balm borrows the “soft hues and depths” from Georgia O’Keeffe’s Pink Tulip. But for Terry de Gunzburg, who has plans for a new launch in December 2024, the impulse is more abstract. It’ll be a “tribute to Joan Mitchell”, she says, “an eyeshadow palette of bold, stormy colours” inspired by her love for intense tones.