How ELLIS FAAS Became the Makeup Artists' Favourite Makeup Brand

In 1999, while searching for a local creatives for an upcoming L’Uomo Vogue shoot in the Netherlands, legendary fashion photographer Mario Testino discovered Ellis Faas’ portfolio. Created during her time at Christian Chauveau’s Technical School of Artistic Makeup in Paris, it fused the worlds of beauty and special effects.

“I used to be Ellis’ manager, from the time when she was internationally discovered. I came from music," explains Thijs Faas, Ellis' brother, makeup guinea pig, longtime business partner and co-founder of ELLIS FAAS Cosmetics. "We were driving in-between shows, from Milan to Paris, and we started talking about this idea she had for a brand. As a makeup artist, she would travel with these builders’ crates, completely filled with pigments and textures and glycerine and brushes. Hardly any of the products in her kit were bought in a store."

But outside of being an artist, she was also a woman who used makeup in her everyday life. The birth of Ellis' eponymous brand came from a desire to find flexible, multiuse beauty products – the essentials she found herself "missing" on the market. Her first order of business as a brand founder? A perfectly organised, custom makeup case.

"Even though her professional kits were meticulously organised, her personal bag was always a mess. It would bulge with different sizes, everything would break, the mascara she was looking for was always at the bottom of her makeup bag," Thijs tells me. "In her personal life, she would always wear this big belt, filled with cigarettes in there, her keys, her lip products... This is how she came up with the holder... It’s designed so you sort of load it with your ‘makeup ammunition’: easy-to-apply formulas that you didn’t need to look in a mirror to perfect."

 

Ellis brought that same combination of artistry and ease to colour. She discovered that her favourite shades were those naturally found in the human body – a pinched-cheek flush, sandy freckles, blood coursing through our veins. She based her range on this 'Human Colours' approach and, with it, created the brand’s enduring signature: ‘Ellis Red’. Described as “the red that already exists in everyone,” the shade was designed to settle into the skin as though it belonged there.

Housed in distinctively slim, chrome, pen-like packaging, Ellis and her team developed a collection of makeup essentials that invite experimentation. There's the smoothing, skincare-infused Concealer, lip colours ranging from subtle stains to vibrant, glossy lipsticks, the endlessly buildable Creamy Eyes and the cult-favourite Skin Veil Foundation.

“The only rule is what you see in the mirror, and whether you like it or not. We always urge people to try new things," Thijs says, expounding on Ellis' mission to demystify the makeup experience. “If you have your Ellis Red formula, you can dab a little onto your lips or eyes during the day, then take the very same product and go all the way later,” says Thijs.

“You don’t need all those products – maybe that’s not very business-savvy to say,” he laughs. “Just build with what you have. There are no rules."

"It simply felt right. At the time, I didn’t know why. I discovered they turned to their own experiences to create their collections, used personal memories to inform their designs. The clothes, they feel like they’ve been lived in. Similarly to Ellis Faas, they don’t look for perfection," Thijs says. "Ellis’ biggest message was always that it’s only makeup. It’s there to play around with, to experiment with and to give people pleasure and a boost of confidence. Your life doesn’t depend on it."