Katie Jane Hughes is a woman who transitioned from being a manicurist to being a makeup artist.
A few years ago, she began experimenting with the kind of editorial looks she wanted to do professionally on her own face and she started posting them to Instagram. From there, she grew a huge following pretty organically; now, she works with brands like Glossier and the newly launched Rose Inc., creating looks for campaigns.
She started experimenting with makeup when she was a little kid, because her mom was a singer and Katie always used to watch her put her makeup on before she would go on stage. Scarlet-red lips, black lashes that were super-thick, bushy and beautiful, plus loads of bronzer. She was super glam. She thought that seeing her mom transform into that stage siren was really cool.
Her first job in the makeup industry was at an Estée Lauder counter back when she was 17 in her hometown of Birkdale, in Merseyside, [England]. It was the first time she started finger-painting with eye shadows, and she remembers getting kicked under the counter by her manager, because the manager wanted Katie to sell people brushes, too.
She didn’t really love that counter experience and that counter lifestyle, but she thinks you have to go through it because it’s training, and it’s an integral part of doing makeup. You have to learn on real people before you learn on models.
From there, she got a job in a nail shop and learned how to do nails. She was a manicurist for about five years, doing nails in salons, and when she moved to London in 2008, she started to do nails in London in a fashion environment, which helped her connect with all those people.
Then she began assisting people who wanted someone that could do nails, for jobs where there wasn’t a manicurist on set. It was a weird, fortunate situation to be in, because people wouldn’t necessarily [hire an artist to do] their nails with their makeup. Nonetheless she wasn’t being taken seriously by her peers.
She always knew that she wanted to rebrand when she moved to the U.S. in 2013. She was Butter London’s global ambassador for about three and a half years, and she moved there to be with the brand because they were also wanting [to launch] makeup. She thought this was the perfect opportunity to go from nails into makeup.
She then started putting makeup more at the top of her priority list, and when she left the brand in 2016, she just disassociated herself with nails completely. A lot of people don’t even know that she used to do nails now, and it’s only been some years. It’s quite amazing how [social media has helped her] going straight into makeup.
She honestly doesn’t think she would be where she is now without social media. She never really assisted for anyone because of the nail thing, so she definitely took a different path. She thinks that it would’ve taken a lot longer, and she thinks that social media is changing the game for so many talented creatives. It has become a mini-agent and it has given people a platform to show what they can do, and what their styles are.
For her, her social media blew up because she was posting creative looks on her own face that she wanted to do in an editorial setting, but she wasn’t really getting to do it because editorial was so neutral and natural. Only the biggest and the best makeup artists would get to do the creative stuff.
If her Instagram was what it is now, but four years ago, the people that take her seriously now would not have taken her seriously then. She strongly believes that. She doesn’t think there’s anything wrong it, she thinks it’s just that things have to get there on their own, and people have to get there on their own. Even though she was shooting a few editorials and a few branded things every month before her social really took off, she didn’t get the opportunity for jobs back then, meaning the creative stuff that people get to do now because of social media because people weren’t simply as expressive on the different platforms they had back then.
Her Instagram feed is obviously her portfolio.
You also can visit her personal website HERE