Why I Love Make Up

1. Can you tell me more about yourself?

How do I start? (Laughs). I am Shaira Rai. So I am a Sociology student and I am going to complete my Bachelors in Social Work from Tribhuvan University board. I was and still am very much interested in Sociology, social field, politics and I had even thought of pursuing Sociology in my +2 but due to some reasons I couldn’t. However, I am very happy that I am doing my Bachelors in Sociology.

Talking about my make up journey, I had started doing make up before 4-5 years, since I was 17 years old. On the other hand, it’s been 3 years that I have taken make up as my profession.

2. How did you get into make-up?

I had never thought that I would become a professional makeup artist someday while I was growing up as I had no knowledge about makeup. However, I did know that I was very much interested in the Glamour world because I loved dancing in various events of my school. I wouldn’t say that I wasn’t interested in makeup, I was, but I didn’t have any idea about make up. Then, right after my SLC, maybe out of boredom, I started watching various makeup videos and started following them. After that, I started trying out different makeup looks on me and also on my friends. I used to call my friends to try out the makeup looks on them as well. To be honest, I really enjoy doing makeup on others; enhancing their natural self and making others look pretty rather than doing it on me.

3. What fascinates you about this line of work?

As I’ve said earlier, I just love enhancing beauty. Whenever I see a blank face (face without makeup), I always want to put some make up on him/ her. Besides, every time I have a shoot, I firstly scan the model’s face to identify which makeup look will give justice to his/her face, analyze different looks and on the day of shoot, I would just go and create the look that I had already imagined. I would say that from the day I started doing make up, I started feeling happiness and satisfaction; I don’t even feel like I am working as I am enjoying this profession so much. All I can say is that I can settle without doing make up on myself but, I just can’t stay without applying makeup on others.

4. How have you learned make up?

Actually, I started by watching make up videos on YouTube. After a moment, I realized that just learning from YouTube wouldn’t be enough as I didn’t know the core study and techniques about makeup. After my college, my friend suggested me to join a makeup class and I started doing research on the makeup institutions. I found that VLCC was very much in trend and also an internationally affiliated course. So, I took 2 months professional training from VLCC. But I would like to say that it depends on yourself how you take it further, you just get training from there and just getting training isn’t sufficient; you should practice a lot.

5. What is the most favorite make up look that you’ve done?

 My all time favorite make up look is nude make up aka ‘no-makeup makeup look’. I don’t usually go for bold lips. But recently, I had done an experiment where I tried vintage kind of look with winged eyeliner, and red ombre lips on Paramita RL Rana for a shoot. I have named the look as “Pam’s Signature Look” by Sahira. Since that shoot, red ombre look has become my favorite look as well. To sum it up, I would say that nude make up and red bold ombre lips are my two favorite looks that I’ve done.

6. What do you love the most about your job?

I absolutely love my job. I love the fact that I get to play with creativity, the colors, the freedom to carry out makeup the way I had planned, and of course traveling. Besides, this job is too exciting as you never know what’s waiting for you! I would say that it’s not only my job but it has been a part of my life; like a family and all the makeup products are just like my babies.

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7. How have you been spending your days post Covid 19?
   Due to all of a sudden lockdown, I couldn’t go to my studio and bring my entire make up stuffs and lights. My studio was also shut down at that point. I could have created some looks and filmed videos but I barely had some products as I had taken my entire make up products to the studio itself. Due to that reason, I couldn’t even film any make up videos too. But, after the lockdown, I went and brought my entire make up products from the studio and since then, I have started creating various looks such as bronze looks, Teej looks, Dashain and party looks any many more and I have even started posting it in my social media. So yeah, new looks and posts are coming soon!
    
8. The virus followed by lockdown has hampered a lot of businesses. Do you think this has hampered the make-up industry to a great extent too?
   Lockdown has hampered a lot of businesses and there’s no doubt that even make up industry has also highly been hampered. This is because, in artistry works, we have a large group consisting of photographers, make up artists, hair stylists, fashsion stylists, assistants, etc; we need a big team in order to do a shoot. But we can’t do a proper shoot since we require a big team as we never know who is affected by Coronavirus.
   
   For make up artists, the main source of earnings is from bridal makeup. But at this time, only few people have their weddings. So, there’s not much work. Even if some people call for appointments, it’s very scary for us to go over there as there’s a gathering of lot of people and we can’t be assured that we would be safe. After the first lockdown, I had done 2 bridal makeovers by taking full precautions, wearing PPE, maintain distance and allowing just the bride in the room.  We don’t know when this virus will end but we have to continue our work. Before agreeing to do this bridal makeup, I firstly assured that everyone’s fine.
   But I am hopeful that the situation will get better overtime. Even though I have shutdown my studio, after things get settled and everything starts to become better, I am going to start my new ventures which will comprise of not only make ups, but will also comprise ventures which would be targeting nails and skin as well.
    
9. Some tips for future make-up artists?

I would like to say that once you are in the creative field, you should be creative and you should always try to bring something new to the table. Like in every field, in makeup field too you’ll meet different kinds of people with different thinking and mentalities. So, you should come prepared to face everything. Also, sometimes it might get difficult at times and you may have some mental breakdowns but that’s a part of how you grow.