The Columbus-born creative talks DIY beauty, copyright on Insta and why making a mess with make-up is the way to go
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A self-proclaimed “black, Muslim creative just doing me,” Helen Marie’s life revolves around her faith, her family and her art. Her art, to be more specific, is make-up. Marie’s portfolio revolves around her shapeshifting eyes as she piles them up with gold leaf, turquoise rhinestones, shimmering glitter and copious amounts of beads.
Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, this optic queen is just 20 years old. Struggling to identify strictly as a make-up artist, her practice is based around the use of more traditional arts and crafts materials, which she will sometimes enhance with a smattering of make-up here and there. She has two prolific Instagrams - @honeydon.t and @honeydew.not, and shows no signs of slowing down. “I do it because it’s fun,” she says simply.
Tell me a bit about yourself and where you grew up?
I’m the funniest person I’ve ever met and I have three beautiful cats. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio which I will always believe is a whack city no matter what people here say. I’m currently working on a lot.
What is it you do and why do you do it?
I don’t know what I do, to be honest. I don’t quite like to call myself a make-up artist because my art doesn’t revolve around make-up products. I use a lot of stuff from Michaels (an Arts & Crafts chain), so I’m more of a craft artist? I use make-up to compliment whatever look I’m trying to serve. I do it because it’s fun - I don’t think there’s any deeper meaning to it, I just try to emulate a concept or just do something that looks cool.
How did you get into it?
I’ve always been an “artsy” girl, so it’s always been in me. As a child, I loved nail polish, glitter, paint, and anything else that made a huge mess. I’m not sure how I ended up where I am but I probably won’t be in this spot for too long before I get bored!
What’s your career highlight?
Whenever someone sees my look on another page or website and DMs me to tell me, or tells the account to give me credit! It’s pretty cool to see how things travel through the web and somehow end up back to me.
Tomorrow you wake up with another face of your choice. Whose is it and why?
The only face I want is my mum’s. She looks like me but has way plumper cheeks. It would make using blush so much better.
You have to donate a feature/limb of your body to an icon of yours. You get nothing in return. What feature/limb do you give and why?
I’d give my mum my legs because her knees are old.
It's 30 years from now. You stumble home at 3am and catch your reflection in the fridge door. What do you look like?
I’d probably be decked out in all types of jewellery. My earlobes will probably be unintentionally stretched because of the heavy earrings I’ve worn over the years. I’m definitely still wearing bomb make-up and flexing on all the youngins.
If you could have a new sense on top of your existing ones, what would it be?
I would have magical eyesight where I would be able to straighten things better. For example, if I looked at a crooked painting on a wall, my eyes would show me how to perfectly align it.