Spotlight On: Mary Phillips!

We had a chance to catch up with Mary Phillips, Jennifer’s super talented makeup artist, to get the scoop on her work and what it’s like to work with Jennifer! As Jennifer’s top makeup artist for the past 4 years, you’ve no doubt seen her work.  She has worked with Jennifer on her music videos, American Idol, the Dance Again World Tour, magazine covers, red carpets all over the world, and more. If Jennifer worked on it, chances are, Mary

Mary was nice enough to let us call her on her only day off in weeks to tell us all about her work and why she loves her job.

How did you get started in the industry?
I’m from LA County, so I was lucky. I knew what I wanted to do from a very young age. When I was in high school, I went to beauty school as an elective, so I would take my classes at school and after lunch, I’d go to beauty school. So, I got my license in high school. I went to junior college because my parents wanted me to go just in case the makeup thing didn’t work out. So, when I was going to junior college, I started assisting Eugenia Watson of Senna Cosmetics. She used to do Bette Midler and Barbra Streisand’s makeup, she’s an amazing makeup artist. I assisted her on the weekends and eventually, I had a full time job at her salon in Beverly Hills.

Jessica Simpson was my first “big” client. I had done other celebrities here and there, but she was my first movie star client. I worked with her for about 7 years. I worked with her nationally and on Dukes of Hazzard.

How did you begin working for Jennifer?
I actually met Jennifer through Ken Paves. He used to do Jennifer’s hair and he also did Jessica’s hair. Ken and I used to have the same manager. One day Jennifer was looking for someone new and I went over to her house and I did trial makeup on her. We’ve been working together now for almost seven years now, maybe seven and a half.

I didn’t realize it had been that long!
She used to work with Scott Barnes. I used to be her “B” person then and about 4 years ago, I just became her person!

You worked with Jennifer on American Idol. That must have been so nerve-wracking, with so many people watching!
Actually, American Idol was so much fun! It’s a really fun job. It wasn’t really nerve-wracking. It was so much fun to do something different every day.

Getting a look together involves a lot of people – stylists, hair, and nails in addition to makeup! How do all of you collaborate to get a look together?
Our team – Jennifer, Rob [Zangardi] and Mariel [Haenn, her styling duo], Lorenzo [Martin, her hairstylist], and Tom [Bachik, her nail technician] – we all have SO much fun together. We are always throwing ideas off of each other, or different looks, and I feel like we all have the same sense of fashion, so it all just kind of works. If we’re doing a certain outfit, I’ll think of a makeup, or Jennifer will think of a makeup or a hairdo, and we’ll kind of go from there. Whether the outfit is the idea, or the hair is the idea, or the makeup is the idea, we’ll all work around that to make it work.

Jennifer has a huge part in it. We all think together. She has a room that we get her ready in – sort of like a huge closet – and we all brainstorm and come up with looks together. In all the looks years that we’ve been working together, it always works. During Idol, it was fun because we got to do something new every day.The juices were constantly flowing, and you were constantly flowing.

How far in advance do you guys come up with looks?
On American Idol, most of the time, looks were decided the same day or the day before. But sometimes, Jenn would get to the show and say, “You know what, I feel like wearing that!” So things can change really fast. Sometimes we had a look we really wanted to do, but it wouldn’t get done until the last week of Idol.

Is there a certain look you’d love to try, but Jennifer won’t agree on?
You know what, she is very open to anything. There was a time when I never thought she would really do a dark or very purple lip. But when it started coming into fashion, we did it for the ‘What To Expect When You’re Expecting’ premiere. There’s nothing she is afraid of as far as makeup is concerned. There’s always a way to put the JLo spin on it, so we can always make it hers.

Speaking of lip color, tell us about that yellow lipstick you used for the beach scene in the Live It Up music video. How did you decide on that color?
It’s kind of a tangerine yellow, so it’s a little bit orange-y. I see everyone recreating it online and they have a greenish yellow. I tried to tweet one day to tell everyone to add a little bit of orange to it.

[The color] was Jennifer’s idea. Tom made the nail polish and I made the lip color, so that was really fun.

You wouldn’t expect that yellow lipstick could look so great. It’s unique and bold, and Jennifer looks absolutely stunning!
That’s because it’s a warm color, kind of like the orange-y red that everyone is wearing. Straight yellow has so much green in it, but if you make it an orange-y yellow, where it still looks yellow, most people can wear it. No one wants to wear green, only Nicki Minaj or someone with extreme makeup could do that. I feel like the reason it looks beautiful is because you want it to complement her skin. Jennifer has very warm toned skin and the orange base is perfect. If you want to recreate that, I suggest you start off with an orange underneath and put yellow over it.

How did you decide on the makeup for each of the other looks in the video?
For the runway look we wanted something very high fashion. A lot of times on the runway, there’s a strong eye or lip, so we just wanted to make it very clean skin with her natural glowy skin and add a strong eye.

For the beach scene, we wanted her to look like she was in St. Tropez having a good time- very sunkissed, beautiful, glowy, golden.

For the dance sequence, I wish you guys could’ve seen the eyelashes. They were actually silver tinsel – they had Swarovski crystals on them. When she moved, they bounced, so it was really cute. They were so sparkly. It wasn’t the moment for those, but it was fun. We can save it for something else.

I got those lashes in Hong Kong when we were on tour, so they were in my kit. We were actually going to do her beach-y look for that scene and add a bright peach gloss, but I remembered I had those, so sometimes it’s just on a whim. You think of something you have, and they were having a problem with the lighting, so we had a couple of extra minutes.

How was it going on tour?
I actually went on tour with her when she was pregnant with babies, so it was fun, because I’ve gotten to do all of her tours with her. It was really cool to see the world. I’ve done other tours with other people, but I’ve never done a world tour, so it was my first world tour also. It was really cool getting to see all of the fans finally getting to see her for the first time. They were so excited and so happy and it’s really amazing for all of us to see that and be a part of the show and seeing all of her fans all over the place. It was a really good time and a really good trip.

Jennifer is so busy with so many different projects. Do you have a favorite kind of event you like to work on?
You know, I’m just happy to be there. If I could work for anyone, I’m blessed to be working for her. She is kind, she is giving, she is sweet, she is very inspiring to me, which is great. That’s something that you don’t find a lot in people that you work with. She loves what she does so much- every moment- even the getting ready part. She’s a great person and we are all around each other so much, but I love everybody that I work with. It’s really nice. I’m her fan and I get to be with her every day!

What is your favorite look?
It’s so hard to pick! She’s so versatile, she can wear a 60’s sex kitten look so well, and she can wear a great nude look so well. She’s so genetically blessed. I love her with a dark smokey eye and a nude lip, I love her with a nude face and a red lip, I love her so many ways that I feel like every day I say ‘this is my favorite look!’.

I love so many looks from back in the day, too. I loved so many looks of hers even before I did them. She has so many great iconic moments, not just makeup, the whole package. It’s hard to pick one.  [If I have to pick], I loved the post Oscars Vanity Fair party in 2012. There was something effortlessly beautiful about that night. I loved the dark gown because she wears white a lot. I loved loved that look. I loved the hot pink Michael Kors dress she wore on Idol. I’ve never seen her in fluorescent pink before, and it was such a great color. I loved the American Idol finale when she performed with Marc, the white fringe and the red lip. Another one I loved is The Back-up Plan premiere in London. I thought that was a really amazing look.

You are pretty active on Twitter. Do you like that interaction? People can be mean sometimes.
It’s hard for me to bite my tongue when people are mean. Not about me, about some of my clients, but I just try to keep my mouth shut.  On a positive note, I love helping people with their makeup questions. If there was something like Twitter for me to ask makeup artists I loved questions when I was growing up, and they would actually answer me, I would’ve died. That would’ve been the best thing in the world to send a message to someone and have them answer me. And I actually write the things that I use. I try to answer all the questions people ask me, unless it’s a question I’ve answered 100 times.

You need a website for Mary’s Frequently Asked Questions.

I do! Unfortunately, I’m really bad at computers! I do need a website to list my favorite products. Because Twitter is so easy, I can find time while on a photo shoot or something. I always think about how much I would appreciate that, so I do try to write back to everybody.

Working with Jennifer is pretty stellar, but what are your ambitions and goals for the future?
I don’t know if doing a makeup line is the way I really want to go. I’m not really quite sure yet. I think about it a lot. I have a few things up my sleeve, but I’m not sure the way I want to go just yet. I love my job and I love working and creating different things, so that would be something I’d be interested in, so we’ll see how that goes.

Mary’s Kit

If you want to recreate some of your favorite looks, here are the products Mary never leaves home without!

• Chanel Vitalumiere Foundation – “my favorite!”
• Yves Saint Laurent Semi-Loose Powder in #3
• Armani Blush in # 3
• Tom Ford Blush
• Yves Saint Laurent Golden Gloss in #7 – “a great go-to gloss!”
• NARS Eyeshadow in Fez – “a great go-to eyeshadow”
• Tom Ford Eyeshadow Quad – “my absolute favorite! I can carry these around and not have to carry any other eye makeup with me. They have everything.”
• Tom Ford Blush in Flush – “Use just a little bit for a wash similar to orange sherbert”

Thanks again to Mary for taking the time to talk to us! Make sure you follow Mary on Twitter @1MaryPhillips!