Let's Talk About Sleeping in Your Makeup

Makeup artists have lots of tips and tricks, though many of the top ones don’t do much fancy stuff on themselves; just take a look at Pat McGrath’s generally understated but flawless complexion. Some of them, however, really make it their entire life, like makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury, who revealed to Into the Gloss this week that she basically never takes it off. Like, ever.

“When I went to boarding school [in England] at 13, I saw that all of the English girls wore lots of makeup. That’s when I discovered mascara. I had fair eyelashes, and I went from having this ‘piggy’ look on my face to suddenly having these thick, black, long lashes. After three months, I went back to Ibiza on a school break, and I was more popular overnight. Everyone was like, ‘You’ve just really matured; you look really great now.’ It was like, Oh my god. This is the power of makeup. It made a massive difference on my face. After that, I never wanted to be seen without makeup ever again. And I made that pact, from that day onwards: I sleep in my makeup.

If I’m on my own, I won’t sleep in it, but my husband has never seen me without makeup. It comes off, and goes back on again. At night, I take everything off my face and moisturize—because you have to let your skin breathe a bit—but then I put everything right back on again … My mother said to me, ‘You always have to keep the mystery alive…’ I made the mistake of showing a boyfriend my un-made-up face once, and it was a big disaster. He was like, ‘What happened to your eyes?!’ And I told him, ‘…No, you’re right, those are my eyes, not these.’ [Laughs]”

Wow. That’s a lot of work, logistically. Tilbury takes her craft so seriously she essentially lives that way morning, noon and night. Her early experiences about the perception of beauty have evolved into honest insights about the way we look and how it changes what people think of us:

“Makeup literally changed my life. I put on mascara and the whole world’s reaction to me changed. I remember feeling kind of hurt about that. And then I realized, Actually, I’m just like everybody else. I do judge people by the way that they look; we all do. Obviously the personality matters, but that initial moment, if someone walks into a room and they’re gorgeous, you kind of embrace it. Beauty is such a beguiling thing. I see all these models in magazines, and I go, ‘Oh my god.’ I realized makeup is a huge part of really enhancing and playing up somebody’s features to their advantage. Beauty is power, and makeup is something that really enhances that; it’s a woman’s secret weapon.”

Is she always exhausted because of this regimen? Has she gone insane? Or has she figured out the secret to life? What’s your routine?