★ Why this course exists
For years, makeup education has focused on products, techniques and trends. But every makeup style has a story.
★ History
Behind every beauty trend is a moment that made it possible.
★ Culture
Behind every technique is a place, a people and a reason.
★ Society
Behind every transformation is identity, psychology and power.
We spend so long learning how to apply makeup that we rarely stop to ask why any of it exists in the first place. Why beauty standards shift. Why film makeup ends up on the high street. Why theatre still shapes techniques we use on set today.
This course takes you past application and into the history, sociology and evolution of makeup, from ancient practices to twentieth-century advertising, from the stage to the screen, from drag to the beauty counter.
It is the part of makeup education that usually gets left out, and it is the part that makes everything else make sense.
Whether you have finished the first two courses in the trilogy or you are arriving for the first time, Knowledge is built to stand on its own. It completes the series for anyone who wants the full foundation, and it works perfectly well as a starting point.
Knowledge is your greatest makeup tool.
★ What you get
Everything, for as long as you want it.
● Over ten in-depth video lessons
Clearly structured and steadily paced, with no background music. Watch in order or dip into the module you need.
● A downloadable workbook
Questions for every lesson, so you can think the material through in your own time and in your own words.
● A reading and watching list
The books, documentaries and films I recommend, with links, so the learning carries on long after the last video.
● Lifetime access
Buy once, keep it. Learn at your own pace and come back to any lesson whenever you want to.
● The private student group
A community chat to ask questions, share what you have found and talk it through with other artists.
● Built to be accessible
Written notes alongside every video and material designed for different ways of learning. For any identity, race, class, age and orientation.
Hi, I’m Sophie
I am a qualified makeup artist for television, film and multimedia and have been for the last 6 years. I am autistic, which is part of the reason I teach the way I do, in depth and with structure! I won series three of Glow Up in 2021, aged 21, while I was still a student and ever since have been arguing that makeup education leaves out the half of the subject I find most interesting, the knowledge of why? Why do we do, what we do?
Since launching my first two courses I have taught over two hundred students and I runa a private group chat where I can speak with you and us with each other. Students tell me the thing they value most about it the courses is that there is no background music, no sponsorship and no product I am being paid to mention, it’s honest, always.
This autumn I start a PGCE at University College London to train as a teacher of art and design. The final course arrives the same month I go back to being a student again myself, which was not planned… but seems just right. Let’s learn together.
