Megan Thee Stallion is a woman of many impeccable talents. She raps, dances, serves as leader of the Hot Girls and is also practically a makeup artist of sorts — making her the perfect ambassador for cosmetic powerhouse Revlon. Well, she’s launching her second collection with the brand and ESSENCE got a first-hand look at how it came together.
“I literally started doing makeup on myself when I was like in the seventh grade,” Megan tells ESSENCE. “My grandma would take me to CVS and Walgreens and I’d be like, ‘Please, can I get the little eyeshadow palettes?’ She’d buy me the single ones and I’d practice with her because my mom didn’t want me to wear it.” By the time Megan was in eighth grade, however, her mom came more around to the idea of a glam face for her daughter. “She was like okay, Megan, whatever, just wear it,” she says. And while Megan may have perfected her skin and eye looks pretty fast, there was one aspect that required a little more practice. “When I got to college is when I figured out and do my eyebrows properly,” she says.
Nonetheless, one thing remained consistent over those years: Meg’s love for Revlon. “Revlon was what I first started wearing,” she says. “I remember it was a single palette and in my head I see there was one blue color (blue is my favorite color) and one like coral color.” Ironically enough, those two shades are the most prevalent in the new collection — particularly, the new Revlon x Megan Thee Stallion 10-pan Big Bad Eye Shadow Palette. “I have an orange in there, like a really warm tone,” she says. “I’m wearing it right now and it really pops on my skin. Of course, I have a really pretty blue in there and I’m actually wearing it underneath my eyes right now. I feel like it makes my eyes look more sexy.”
In addition to the palette, the collection includes six of pre-existing eyeliners and mascaras — all having Meg’s expert stamp of approval. “The mascara is waterproof,” she says. “Throughout the day, sometimes I feel like I get hot and of course, you think your makeup is going to sweat. This mascara does not do that. It literally stays in place, it doesn’t smudge, I don’t have any complaints. We want to look pretty all day.”
The same applies to the liners, which Meg always relies on for that perfect cat eye. “You can either use the pencil I use or the liquid marker,” she says. The star then reflects on when she used to toil over gel liners, saying that the marker is so much easier and so much quicker. “It used to be like I was doing surgery,” she jokes. “You really needed a medical degree to get that gel liner right. But this isn’t like that.”
But even with all this knowledge of makeup, Meg has recently been learning to let go of a little bit of that control she’s needed for so long. “I’m just like nervous,” she says. “I’ve been doing my own makeup for so long.” However, it’s been makeup artists like Priscilla Ono who have given her a bit of peace. “The first time I worked with Priscilla, I had to do diamond eyebrows and everybody knew that I usually did my own makeup,” she says. “So they were like, okay, we’re just going to have a girl there just in case you need help doing these eyebrows. She put the diamonds on my eyebrows and I loved it.” Since then, the relationship has grown into the perfect makeup marriage. “She definitely taught me how to get away from cut creases,” she says. “I’m definitely learning so much from her.”
The Big Bad Beauty Looks Collection will officially hit shelves and revlon.com on September 15.