Pro makeup artist hides among us at school
You may not know it, but there is a professional makeup artist among us at our school. Her skills are jaw dropping, but her talent is hidden during the school day.
Freshman Molly Foy creates a wide variety of dramatic looks ranging from Halloween makeup to stunningly accurate recreations of famous paintings that cover her body.
Foy’s passion started when she was 11 years old and looking for a cool Halloween costume.
“I looked up [Halloween makeup] and I saw some zombie makeup. I looked up how to do it and I used dry glue and stuff,” she said.
Whenever she creates her looks, Foy uploads them to a public Instagram account dedicated to them.
She said that she creates the makeup looks for fun, but sometimes she feels like she has to post more.
“I try not to do it because I feel obligated to,” she said. “I do it when I actually feel like I want to do a look.”
In addition to doing her own makeup, Foy also lends her talents to others as well. “I’ve done some face painting for parties and I do makeup on my sister or my parents when I need prosthetics or something for a special model.” Foy paused, before casually remembering, “I’ve also helped out on an actor for a movie.”
Although Foy wasn’t able to disclose much about her work on the movie because she signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), she was still able to share some information.
“There’s a lot of makeup artists in Atlanta. I met one of them through a class and he invited me out to this set of a Marvel movie and he let me help out doing the makeup for a superhero which was really cool,” she said.
While she gets a lot of her ideas from paintings and album covers, she also occasionally watches the popular YouTube makeup artist James Charles.
“I’ve done some looks inspired by him. I love his creative looks on his Instagram,” Foy said. “I really like his makeup and think he’s really talented.”
Foy said that she didn’t have many techniques other than “a Bob Ross thing where paint in X’s to get [the paint] a little more opaque and less streaky.”
For the props and materials she uses in her various looks, Foy says that she goes to various places.
“Because there’s a lot of movies and TV shows being filmed in Atlanta, there’s a good amount of makeup and costume stores. There’s one up by the airport called The Engineer Guy and I get a lot of makeup stuff from there,” Foy explained.
“When it comes to props I probably only use them once or twice for a look. Wigs I’ll use multiple times because,” Foy said before lowering her voice to a whisper; “They’re expensive and I’m not gonna waste them on one look.”
Surprisingly, Foy says that she rarely runs out of makeup because, like her props, she typically uses a specific type for each look.
“I just buy stuff from Michaels or something,” Foy said, adding that on average, her hobby costs her about $75 each month.
Foy says that for those who want to experiment with artistic makeup to “just keep doing it.”
“I got to a point where I felt like I was obligated to do something all the time, so just do it when it’s fun and keep at it. Know it’s not going to look good the first time and there’s always new stuff to learn,” she explained.
You can find more of Foy’s makeup looks on her public Instagram @molly_foy.fx
