The make-up artist is making a name for herself thanks to her authentically silly looks
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How would Alice Dodds describe her aesthetic in three words? “Bimbo, silly, limitless,” the make-up artist says. Scroll through her portfolio and ‘limitless’ certainly comes to mind. It’s a circus of beauty looks: clown-inspired body paint, perfectly bimbo-like false eyelashes and glossed lips, alien-like eyebrows and coloured contact lenses, and heavy fake piercings, inspired in part by the goths and bikers she saw while growing up in her seaside town. “They were really not afraid of people judging and staring,” she says. “I’ve always admired that over-the-top authenticity.”
Perhaps this drive to pursue creative authenticity explains why Dodds’s looks feel so fresh. So free from the confines of trends and the restraints of conventional beauty norms. They are uniquely, authentically her own. But it’s not something that’s necessarily easy. “In the world we live in, particularly the fashion industry, we’re all on top of each other and accessible to each other all the time,” she says. “To be able to still be individual within that, and really be authentic, is hard and impressive to me. [Beauty is] making choices completely of your own volition; autonomy over every choice you make when it comes to how you work, live, express yourself.”
She’s clearly doing something right: since moving from Norfolk to London seven years ago, Dodds has carved out a firm name for herself on the creative scene. Celine, Dazed Beauty and Notion are just some of the names she’s now worked for (not to mention MUA-ing for a recent Fontaines DC appearance on Jimmy Fallon). Read on for a glimpse into Dodds’s brain.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Alice Dodds: I am a loud, friendly, anxious, unrefined small-town girl. I grew up in a seaside town between King’s Lynn and Norwich, with arcades, fish and chips, biker meet-ups next to the pier every Sunday, that kind of place. I moved to London to study art and design when I was 18. Growing up those were the only things that really interested me and that I had any particular skill in, but it wasn’t until I found make-up that I felt like I had found that thing I really loved which took me quite a while and a lot of failed attempts.
How did you get into make-up?
Alice Dodds: Being at art school, and being around so many creatives inspired me to be more experimental with my own look. When I started I just did bold make-up on myself which when I look back at them now I can’t believe how bad I looked but I guess that’s part of the journey. The first time I did make-up on someone else my friend and favourite photographer Verity Smiley Jones asked me to do make-up for a shoot we did in my bedroom and then it went from doing it once every six months to every two months, to every week and now it’s most days.
What’s your earliest beauty-related memory?
Alice Dodds: I’m not sure if you would call it beauty but in the town I grew up in there were so many goths and really heavily tattooed and pierced people. I have always admired that over-the-top authenticity, they were really not afraid of people judging and staring.
Also my mum, my whole life she’s always worn the same shade of peachy coral lipstick (she told me to make sure I mention it’s Dior). I love when people make their own statements about what beauty is to them, whether it's a fully pierced face or your go-to lip colour. And just because she is beautiful.
What’s been your career highlight so far?
Alice Dodds: I don’t have a particular highlight, I never did very well in school. I didn’t have much drive to do anything and suffered from a lot of mental health problems, so to just do something I love as my job, I am so massively surprised and mostly lucky.
Which fictional character do you most relate to?
Alice Dodds: According to a Buzzfeed quiz I took, I am the goth that dies of a drug overdose in Breaking Bad. But I think I’m more like Cosmo Kramer.
Who is your beauty icon or favourite look of all time?
Alice Dodds: There are so many but my first thought was Grace Jones. I just think she has always been that bitch, in her style and her confidence. She’s a true original and I think that’s hard to say. Honourable mention to Heidi Klum’s worm, a favourite look of all time no question.
When do you feel most beautiful?
Alice Dodds: Lips filled, lashes done and with my friends because they’re all ugly so I look better by comparison.
What is the future of beauty?
Alice Dodds: I hope for more individuality, variety and inclusion, with less ready-to-wear and more batshit insane ‘unwearable’ art. But probably [it will be] more Kardashian look-alikes.
As a warning to the other members of the resistance, your head is to be mounted above the gates of the city. How would you do your makeup that morning?
Alice Dodds: Just something really cunty, thin winged liner, huge glossy overlined lips and a lot of baby pink blush. And I really hope I got my lashes done the day before.
It’s the year 2100. You’re the owner of the largest beauty tech company in the world, what five products or treatments will you dedicate your resources to try to invent?
Alice Dodds: One of those mechanic arms that sprayed that Alexander McQueen SS/99 dress on the runway – one of those, but you programme it to do your whole face. Also a young forever serum, pain-free fillers, pain-free tattoo removal, and a lipstick with mood ring technology.
If not your body then, is there anything you would want to leave behind? An artwork you haven't done yet, a book, a bloodline?
Alice Dodds: I would love someone to do a series of really stunning regal portraits of me and for them to be hung up in the homes of my friends and family after my passing.
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