Makeup by Madz
Below is a portfolio of my work as a makeup artist! I will continue to update this page often. You can also follow my makeup artistry Instagram @MakeupByMadzDenault for more! Scroll to the bottom for a bit about my history with makeup.
For booking inquiries, please visit the Contact Me page!
It all started when I was just a little kid…
I was always a performer, and my sister would do my makeup for me for all my dance recitals/shows from the time I was three. She started teaching me right away! My sister, mom, and my dad would allow me to play with makeup on them as well.
Around age ten, I began to break out pretty severely and began wearing makeup everyday—at first to simply cover up the acne and hide my insecurities. The older I got, it became less about covering and more about creating art with my makeup. I was in high school at the height of 2010’s makeup influencer YouTube—and learned most of my techniques online through people like Nikkie Tutorials, Manny MUA, and Scott Barnes. I quickly became known for my daily colorful and bold looks—friends and family started hiring me to do their makeup for special events like homecoming, prom, and even weddings!
In my late teens/early twenties I also began exploring my queerness, I learned SO much from starting to follow drag artists. Some I really look to for ‘mug’ inspiration are Sasha Velour, Katya, Latrice Royale, Manila Luzon, Trixie Mattel, Crystal Method, Murray Hill and soooo many more. I often consider looks I do to be drag inspired and just straight up drag. Around this time I was also hired to makeup design a few junior shows for our local theater—They were such fun projects and I hope to someday do more!
My sister started training to become an esthetician during those years. I was often her model and ended up learning a lot about skincare and makeup sanitation/safety through her and my own participation in the programs.
2020 and after, I learned life changing tips and techniques from Robert and James Welsh. They helped me branch out into makeup looking good in all settings from daylight, to ring lights, to stage lights—and understanding that makeup in real life doesn’t look what the internet taught us, and that’s okay!
With this all of this knowledge and further research of my own—I have decided against photo retouching when posting my looks. Meaning, I won’t do any smoothing, blurring, removing dark spots, or things of that nature that change the way makeup sits on the skin. The maximum editing any of the photos have will be minor lighting/saturation related things (some older photos have higher saturation, hello 2016). I will also let you know as often as possible what products I am working with in a look, these will be listed in the associated Instagram captions.
I hope you enjoy my work!