Familiar Faces: Meeting Aaron Smith Henrikson

As part of a Gucci event at Sephora Dubai Mall, I recently had the pleasure of meeting AND having my makeup done by none other than Aaron Smith Henrikson, international makeup artist for Gucci cosmetics.

What a surreal experience!

From studying Linguistics at Yale University to becoming Madonna’s makeup artist and working with the likes of Pat McGrath and Tom Pecheux, who were once mere faces in magazines, Aaron’s career flourished because of his love for arts and photography. However, for someone who spends his days among celebrities, he is very down-to-earth and honestly a joy to be around. Aaron is quite generous with makeup advice and he made sure he knew exactly what type of look I would usually go for before he started. Needless to say, I fell in love with the end result – a simple smoked eye that looked effortless, and very natural. Among the various things he taught me, ‘natural is relative’ would have to be what will stick with me for a while – what people perceive as a ‘natural’ makeup look is not uniform among different cultures. We all say that beauty is relative but only a world traveler with an eye for makeup will be able to attest to that!