Ever since the HBO teen drama Euphoria premiered last summer, fans have been recreating its ethereal and abstract makeup looks again and again. (And again.) The show’s distinctively Gen Z aesthetic inspired entire Halloween costumes—I even went to a Euphoria-themed birthday party! The brains behind the countless eye-catching experimental makeup looks is Doniella Davy, the woman who heads Euphoria’s makeup department. (Davy also worked on the films Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk.)
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Davy talked about the makeup experimentation she’s been doing since the covid-19 pandemic halted production on Season 2. Anyone who follows Davy on Instagram knows that typically, her feed is full of photographs showing the makeup looks she’s executed on the Euphoria actors. But since being stuck inside, Davy has been forced to use the only canvas available—her own face.
To create the above look for Vanity Fair, Davy used some unusual materials:
“My husband got this reflective mylar material because he was making this sanitation box for our doorstep,” she says—a true sign of the times. It’s a storage bin, lined in mylar with a UV light for disinfecting incoming packages. Davy saw possibility. In the season finale, Jules wears exaggerated metallic lashes sourced from the decal company Face Lace. For the makeup artist’s quarantine version, she meticulously hand-cut and glued tiny mylar shards to frame one eye, and then removed them to create a mirror-image set for the other. “It was kind of a painstakingly intense process that felt very appropriate for the random spans of time that we maybe have these days,” she explains.
As someone who has also spent a significant portion of her time stuck inside experimenting with makeup, I understand the appeal. Taking the time to create and execute an elaborate makeup look requires time, focus, and a steady hand. Under normal circumstances, very few non-makeup artists have the hours to dedicate to real experimentation, but when we’re grounded inside our homes indefinitely, who cares if you spend an extra half an hour trying to get your eyeliner perfectly symmetrical? And even for those of us who aren’t quite bold enough to glue mylar shards to our faces, there’s plenty of artistic inspiration to be gained from the bold, bright makeup of Euphoria. I recommend trying out some rhinestones—you’ll never go back.