Kevyn Aucoin

The late Kevyn Aucoin was a makeup artist and author who changed the beauty industry by making pro techniques approachable. His influence spread far and wide, firmly establishing him as one of our all-time makeup greats. The luxe products are of the utmost quality, inspired by his favorite colors, and deeply rooted in who Kevyn was as a person.

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The World of Kevyn Aucoin

"Mine is the story of the ugly duckling, about being able to see that you're not what everyone around you is telling you that you are." -Kevyn Aucoin, 1994

His Work

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The Secret To Kevyn Aucoin’s Success

When we think of the late, legendary makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin, a few things come to mind. His incredible attention to detail, his overwhelmingly positive reputation, or how about that time he successfully transformed Martha Stewart into Veronica Lake for a tutorial in his third book Face Forward? What really stands out to us though is passion, in the strongest sense. A passion not just for beauty, but for life.

Before the days of Dan Savage’s It Gets Better project, Kevyn was just one of many gay young people facing a very scary reality—a world of people who simply didn’t understand him. Louisiana in the ’60s and ’70s was not the ideal place for a boy to be perfecting his makeup techniques, or starting a Barbra Streisand fan club, or sneaking around his first girlfriend to spend time with a handsome senior boy during high school. But he did all of those things. Truth be told, the young, soon-to-be top dog makeup artist faced so much physical and emotional torment in school, that he eventually dropped out. Kevyn didn’t get his diploma until the mid-’90s.