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Since it launched in January 2021, About-Face has been a go-to for bold but wearable makeup with eye paints, glitter, bright eyeliner, and so much more. But fans of Halsey’s brand have been asking the singer for just one more thing to add to their collection: nudes. No, not those kinds! I’m talking natural lip and eye products for all skin tones. Enter About-Face’s Nude Beach collection, a not-boring mix of nude hues. Some were even created with astrology in mind, something Halsey loves as much as beauty.
The line features the brand’s Paint It Matte Lip Color, Matte Fix Lip Pencil, and Light Lock Lip Gloss, each in five new shades. “There is a nude for every skin tone,” Halsey tells me at the Nude Beach launch event in Malibu. “But also, all the shades work in different ways for other people. Truthfully, I was more excited about the darker shades that aren’t nudes on me.” Halsey loves the way a “’90s burgundy lip” pops against her skin.
“About-Face, generally speaking, has always tried to be, initially from baseline, a mission objective inclusive brand, a brand that’s growing into inclusivity,” they continue. “This expansion and this launch was months in the making, years in the making, so it was just a standard we wanted to have. But also because we develop all the shades the way that we do, they also work on every skin tone no matter if it’s your natural nude.”
Because these shades have been in the works for a while, Halsey couldn’t have predicted the “latte makeup” trend on TikTok. It’s just a happy coincidence this collection works with the trend beautifully.
“[Being a beauty brand founder] really put me in a position of having to be so conscientious of trend forecasting in a way that I never really had to before,” she says. “Because with music, I’m actually actively not paying attention to what’s going on because I don’t ever want to be subconsciously motivated by a trend in some way. I try to kind of keep myself a little bit more insulated.”
With beauty, they feel like they always need to be on their phone figuring out what’s next. (I can relate.) “Latte is trending and then you blink and it’s actually matcha, and it’s like, how many breakfast beverages are we going to go through?” she says. The trend cycle is so fast, the brand can’t possibly keep up because its formulas aren’t quickly developed.
“We put so much work into the formulas and because they’re clean and they’re vegan, it takes us a little bit longer to get them together than some other brands that don’t subscribe to clean or vegan guidelines,” she says. She’s grateful the brand doesn’t chase micro-trends because it just leads to more waste. She wants people to use the products and continue to love them.
“As a creative, I wish I had the flexibility sometimes to turn things out like that but for the integrity of the brand and why we do what we do, I’m grateful that it has to be a little bit more meticulous,” they add.
Halsey’s current go-to fave from the Nude Beach launch is the Matte Fix Lip Pencil in Scorpio Rising (a matte milk chocolate). “Because I’m a Scorpio rising,” she explains, adding she’s a Libra sun. I might not know a lot about being a Libra but I know I’m one, too. We start talking about birthdays and realize we have the same one, September 29. (We’re besties now, right?)
I have to admit, I’m pretty clueless when it comes to astrology, especially for someone who lives in Los Angeles now, but Halsey is very knowledgeable and you’ll find it peppered throughout the brand.
“I do think about astrology a lot when it comes to makeup because if you follow astrology, as a belief system or as an actual spiritual practice, a lot of people will say that there are physical attributes that show up in the signs based on what their placements are,” they say. “One thing for Scorpio risings is that they have these really piercing dark eyes. So when I developed the [lip] liner, I was like, ‘Oh, I want to balance that out with a really sculpted brown lip.’”
When Halsey was developing a red lipstick for the brand, she thought about her friends who wear a red lip. “It’s funny because almost all of them are fire signs,” she says. “They’re a Sagittarius or they’re an Aries. I mean, the iconic Sagittarius red lip is Taylor Swift.”
If you were wondering if Halsey is as involved with their brand as, say, some other celebs, it’s pretty clear she is. She even names every single shade. “It’s been a really fun experiment for me,” they say. “Because as a songwriter, it’s so wordy. With shade names, it’s one little clippy phrase. I get to use so many things that don’t make it into songs, like little expressions or phrases in this as a creative outlet.”
Yes, that means some of the shade names could have been song titles. Take the Light Lock Lip Gloss in Bitter Half that she likes to apply with the Scorpio Rising lip liner. It sounds like it could be Halsey’s next hit song.
Haley does their own makeup on tour, packing their own kit and cleaning their makeup brushes, making every product launch all the more important. “I’ve worked with makeup artists before and every single time like, I just always end up feeling like I don’t see enough of myself in my face,” she explains. “And that’s no discredit to their talent. When you’re going on stage singing about such personal things, you want to feel like yourself, you know?”
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