Beauty and Cover Director Mikki Taylor reflects on the passing of celebrity makeup artist and the grand dame of Black beauty, Roxanna Floyd, who she collaborated with for 60 covers of ESSENCE. “Roxanna was such a bright and talented artist. She came along to ESSENCE at a time when technology was really beginning to call us to play. And play she did! On covers, on beauty pages, on style pages. She really had a hand. In fact, I always said that Roxanna built a face. She not only did makeup. She always gave you a look. She created the things that you wish that you had. From flawless skin to larger eyes or sensuous eyes. She knew how to have her way with our lips in terms of color. She knew what colors complimented our skin tones. “She not only created a look but whenever we did makeovers, she was able to articulate to women how they could create the look themselves; something that many makeup artists couldn’t give you. She studied makeup and approached it almost, again, like an artist. She’d put on her glasses and on shoots she’s famous for having an eyepiece that she used to look at the Polaroids. She would also have binoculars because she would stand behind the photographer and really zero in on the looks. So you never had to call Roxanna to correct a lip line or to say that the mascara was smudging or that they eyeliner was uneven because she knew precisely; not only when the subject left her chair, but also on set, how the makeup was working, how it was looking.”
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