As I sit in the booth of the hole in the wall restaurant/bar Ed & Mary’s, across from me sits a vibrant woman with a light pink button down sweater, long dark hair and sharp/precise makeup. She looks at me with excitement and a gigantic smile on her face. This radiant woman is Hannah Lauren, and she is fortunate enough to live out her dreams on a daily basis.
As we ordered our breakfast and bonded over thrift shopping, I was curious as to what blossomed her love for makeup.
“When I was 12, I started using my mom’s mascara [and] lipstick for special events, and I loved how something so small made me feel so much more confident,” Hannah said. “At the age of 13, I remember buying my own eyeliner that would cover literally my whole eyelid.”
From then, she decided to take makeup a little more seriously.
“When I was 14, I made my makeup Instagram and tried to follow this October makeup challenge. There were prompts for different themed makeup everyday, and I had literally no makeup other than some black eyeliner and the bare essentials loose shadows my mom had on her vanity. So I went to the dollar store and bought as many colored liners as I could afford. I did makeup after dinner well into 1-2 a.m. every day, and I learned so much from that month, then I decided to just keep posting.”
As far as the makeup looks she creates, it didn’t always start off with the simple foundation, shadow and eyeliner.
“It started out with these Halloween looks, then I tried to do more natural makeup, then it just kind of snowballed into doing makeup for my first bride at 15. After that, my confidence skyrocketed, and I decided I would try to do makeup as often as I could, and I started to do makeup for my family’s musical theatre company whenever we had shows. When I was 16, I started doing special event makeup like proms/debuts and then took my first real photoshoot gig when I was 17 at the YouTube Space in NYC.”
After pushing herself to learn all that she knows and gaining the experience she did, she decided this was the right career for her.
“I knew this is what I wanted to do for college but wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. I eventually found the perfect school for me, continued to work towards going there, and I graduated from my school Makeup Designory last January. Now I’m 21, I specialize in fashion/editorial makeup, and I spend everyday planning shoots and running around the city to my gigs – and I literally couldn’t ask for a better life.”
Hannah has always been immersed in the arts as she grew up in a big family that embraces individuality and creativity. Her family is full of talented singers/musicians, dancers, artists and actors. Being one of 15 cousins, all of them have built each other up and supported each other’s dreams with the help of their parents, aunts and uncles, etc. Because of this exposure, she knew she wanted to go into the arts somehow.
“I wanted to be a fashion designer when I was really young and would repeatedly say all I wanted to do was be in the room for New York Fashion Week, which I ended up achieving as a makeup artist.”
Her dreams are beyond just being a makeup artist. They are to live her truth to the fullest potential, which includes not being seen in comparison to her two older brothers.
“My older brother Kyle is a crazy music prodigy, while my other older brother Josh is getting his masters in nursing. They both went in two different paths,” Hannah said, “… so I wanted to create my own.”
Her goal as a makeup artist? She plans to bring more Asian presence to the makeup industry. Our ideal standards of beauty in the makeup and modeling industry have been the same for many years, and only now are we starting to push past the norms.
After graduating from the Makeup Designory last January, she has assisted Kento Utsubo for Kim Shui SS22 (September 2021) and Nihl A/W 22 (February 2022). She has also assisted Joshua Hilario for Timothy Westbrook 22 (February 2022) and did makeup on Katie Rose for Anastasia Magazine 22 (February 2022). Other than the amazing runway makeup she has created, she also works closely with photographers on themed photoshoots.
Hannah is a beautiful and creative soul, and I’m so grateful I got the opportunity to speak with her and learn her story. If you’d like to take a look at her work, you can check out her Instagram @hannahlaurenmua.