Finger Painting for Your Face With Makeup Artist Emily Wood
September 28 | 5 minute read
Words by Madeleine Boles de Boer
For the uninitiated, Emily Wood is a visionary makeup artist and creative. British-born but found on social feeds across the globe, she will pull you in with her colourful and creative looks and keep you there with her authenticity and innovative approach to beauty – usually applied on the go, and often with her hands. On any given day she can be seen creating a look lying on a lawn under a tree, with her Nana on the train, or on a rooftop in central London.
Scribbled, smudged and haphazardly applied, Wood’s ethos is written all over her face: refreshingly carefree and perfectly imperfect.
Breaking The Beauty Rules
While Wood’s rule-breaking approach feels like the perfect antithesis to the rise of AI-generated content, her mindset hasn’t always been so untraditional: “When I first started wearing makeup, I used it the way a lot of people around me did: to feel prettier, to fit in,” she tells the MECCA Memo. “As I’ve grown older and gotten to know myself better, my relationship with beauty has changed.”
Now, she creates her looks on her own terms – not those placed on her by society and what is deemed ‘good’ or ‘bad’: “It feels honest to wear loud colours and pair unexpected pigments... I’m less interested in whether something is traditionally beautiful,” she says.
What Inspires Her
While inspiration comes from all over (a recent post cites the colours of a fragrance bottle as her starting point), it’s those closest to her that spark many of her ideas: “The way my friends dress, the conversations we have, the things they’re making, the music they’re listening to, the places we go together – creativity is contagious and surrounding myself with people who make things that feel honest rather than expected pushes me to do the same,” Wood reveals.
In practice, this looks like a joyful celebration of colour and texture – sometimes monochrome, sometimes rainbow, but always, always fun.
A Surprisingly Minimal Makeup Kit
While you might describe her style as maximalist, Wood’s kit is the opposite. Starting with her favourite MECCA COSMETICA SPF (which she calls “the perfect base”), her daily non-negotiables include eyelash curlers and lip liner, usually tossed in a bag with a colourful eyeshadow palette, mascara and a handful of eyeshadow brushes. She’s a big fan of creamy pencils, often seen using Fara Homidi Smudge & Contour Lip Pencil (a fitting name) or the ILIA Beauty Thru Line Waterproof Eyeliner in her content, and favours intense pigments like those found in palettes by BYREDO.
Constant travel limits what she can carry, which has only made her more inventive with how she uses it; a lip liner becomes a contour and blush, while eyeshadow brings unexpected colours and textures to her pout. Coverage is never her main concern, and while she uses some base products, she usually lets the colours work with, rather than cover, her natural skin.
How To Wear Colourful Makeup – Without Feeling Overdone
If Wood’s approach feels equal parts inspiring and intimidating, her advice is reassuringly simple: “Firstly, it’s makeup – if you don’t like it, wipe it off and start again. Some of my favourite looks have happened because something didn’t go to plan,” she tells us. To incorporate more colour into your everyday, she recommends starting small: a wash of pastel across an eyelid or lifting your blush a touch higher than normal.
Texture can also unlock experimentation: “Metallic and shimmer finishes are often more forgiving than mattes because they catch the light and blend beautifully,” she advises. “Layering creams with powdered pigments on top creates a completely different finish. Sometimes the smallest change is enough to make you see your face, or the products already in your makeup bag, a little differently.”
There’s No Right Way to Wear Makeup
Wood doesn’t want to position her approach as the 'right' way to wear makeup. For her, the freedom lies in deciding what beauty means to you: a rainbow eye, bare face, or somewhere in between. “I understand why people forget that makeup can also be creative,” she explains, adding, “We’re taught that it’s there to cover, conceal or correct, rather than to play. Choosing to see it as something you can experiment with, without it needing to be flattering or perfect, can be freeing.”
But that freedom looks different for everyone: “For some people, a polished everyday routine is their version of feeling good – and that’s just as valid. For others, makeup is a creative outlet. Neither is better than the other, and how gorgeous that makeup has room for both.”
