The Skin I’m in

I was thrilled when author, screenwriter, memoirist, Emma Forrest ( @addiepray) agreed to do a ‘makeup tutorial’ for my new makeup instagram, @kaymontanomakeup_. I use quotation marks because yes, makeup is discussed, I show ‘how-to’ apply it, the products are mentioned, you watch transformation, you see ‘The Reveal.’ Makeup tutorial boxes conventionally ticked, however.

Close your eyes, wait a few minutes (while some nice skin care chat is had). 

Then what you’ll begin to hear, is me interviewing Emma, the chat unhindered by the usual beauty banter- I had a lot of questions (she answers with potently recordable nuggets). I got a preview of her book, ‘Father Figure’ a week before we filmed, and being one of those people who get more interesting the more you know about them, after editing I have more.

Off into the nitty-gritty of life we went. Veering back here and there to the thickness of mascara, importance of luminosity. Real talk, mostly, segued by a blending brush.

Turn off the sound? You’ll see the demonstration being had, Emma being transformed, plus makeup info in the text on the screen.

These videos are called ‘The Skin I’m in’. I love my freedom, and have no wish to work every day as a makeup artist anymore. On these videos, the makeup’s a vehicle for me to get beneath the boundaries of my work surface and uncover, explore, be more expansive. Being creatively fulfilled is something that makes me feel whole. It connects the dots.

Like all the platforms I’ve had, this has been a labour of love. I’ve taught myself whatever tech I need at the time with other platforms I’ve run: Wordpress, Photoshop, and more recently podcasting software and editing. Doing it all yourself is the price for being able to be yourself, for as we all know, the minute anyone’s financing, trade begins. I see my makeup artist job as paying for me to live this way.

I love being with the actresses I do work with when I do and respect them greatly. Many of them are around my age, extremely talented, creative, intelligent, kind, and painting their beautiful faces is an unusually rare way to share time with those whose work you also admire. Prior to meeting Emma IRL, I just knew that the same could be said of her from reading her books (she’s written 7 in total, 5 novels, 2 memoirs). 

She’s been on my radar since she was a 16 year-old columnist for The Sunday Times. Apart from me, she was the only one I knew of who’d found herself thrust into an adult world as a teenager, whose burgeoning talent was given levels of creative exposure rarely offered to girls whose contemporaries were still in sixth form. We both became a ‘bit well-known’ in our respective bubble worlds; hers being at a huge national newspaper, mine being the (then, very) exclusive fashion business and our careers were birthed during heady times of both.

Training, dopamine, and high bar performance.

Rather like animal training, being lauded young instils a precociousness that sticks around, gets infused into your character. The nascent need for approval that most beings are hardwired to seek, gets extended. More sparkle = more treats for those who reach success before adulthood.

The unsaid, proverbial “goood giiirrrll”. Addictive dopamine hit. Young brain just felt wanted. Kind of like love but you’re not sure. I want that again. The enabling of a ‘high bar performance setting’ gets set. Unsurprisingly, you improve at that impressing thing. 

I lived in New York during the height of what was considered (by others) ‘success’. Platinum airline cards and great Christmas presents from agents are a sure sign that A: your entire life is your job. B: you are agency cash flow. To be kept continuously flying and working. C: the only relationship you have is with your agent.

I felt utterly unable to find the driving seat of my own life, let alone the satnav, and for my health, the brakes. I was in a lucrative holding pattern which at the time I nick-named, ‘the carrot and donkey syndrome’. So while understanding that everything comes at a cost, I’m both in awe and slightly envious of those rare beings who can actually make a living, not only while, but from being honest, open, and real.

Growing up writing at the dawn of the so-called ‘self-confessional’ era of journalism, the balls that Emma had to express in words, who she was (not just the pleasantly absorbable make-it-all-pretty side that I’ve made my living from) were published.

Precocious whiffs.

I get whiffs of the remains of my precociousness (which hopefully, I manage to steer). Life’s knocks humble- and in the spookily rare case that they don’t, getting to your fifties is Humbling’s Case Closed. 

Fortunately, this also gives you the balls you always wished you’d had, to edit less of who you actually are. How the ‘ugly’ you learned shame about and the damage hovering underneath it, are just part of being a human. The realisation that all the ones you like the most don’t hide theirs, makes you wish you’d come out sooner. We’ve all got degrees of trauma and damage and my favourite artists are those who articulate, paint, play, and live side by side it, never pretending that it isn’t there. 

The elephant in the room goes from sucking up the oxygen to being the ideal muse to expose it.

Although 10 years my junior, it is the shadow side of myself that I recognise in Emma’s writing. Not just the dark places, what dark places say, and what darkness makes you do, but how fucking funny it can be when blessed with her ability to merge high and lowbrow, a thread of mischief that got caught in the rain like sorrow. Just like life. So much is going on at the same time.

In our interview I asked Emma how she navigates the exposure-how she protects herself when sharing such personal stuff. “I make dangerous things that are troubling me safe by writing about them. That’s why I write. To understand them, literally close the book on them, put it up on the shelf so you don’t trip on the books that are on the floor..”

She grew into womanhood while ‘success’ was being accrued from revealing her truthfulness. I became successful doing the exact opposite, and for someone who’s spent a lifetime being defined by ‘success’ in a job that makes people pretty on the outside. 

One tale from the powder room

is that I’ve never seen success the way that others have. Success to me is being able to thrive in the skin I’m in and although I’ve always been inspired to, I now live to be creative on my own terms, alongside others who do the same.

Listen or watch (OR BOTH) our interview, it’s in 2 parts (instagram doesn’t allow 20 minutes). 

PART ONE HERE and PART TWO HERE