I was sixteen when I started to fall for makeup. My sister, a photographer, gave me enormous support and I began doing makeup in her studio: improvising constantly, because I could barely afford anything.
Every bit of money I earned went straight back into the work. The feedback was so positive that I understood early what actually held me: not the makeup itself, but their faces as they got up from the chair.
The road here
In my very first year I was already doing brides and university graduates. At twenty-one I opened my own salon in Brazil, with a team of six.
Along the way I trained with some of the leading makeup artists from Brazil and beyond, plus more than ten advanced workshops.
Visagism changed everything
I specialised as a visagiste as a visagiste, and that made all the difference to my work. I stopped applying a look and started designing one.
Visagism is reading a face before touching it: where the natural highlights sit, how the forehead relates to the chin, which way the eye falls. It is why the same smoky eye does not look the same on two people, and why the result never looks like a mask.
In Portugal since 2022
I moved to Porto and brought the Brazilian school of makeup with me: skin built in thin layers, made to last from the ceremony to the final toast.
Today I work from the studio in Nova Sintra and travel to venues: in Portugal or abroad. I have worked with clients from many countries.
Training other artists
I train and mentor makeup artists. I teach the classes I wish I had been given at the start: including the part nobody teaches: hygiene, managing your materials, pricing that actually profits, and what to do when somebody does not like the result.
And I keep learning, because the day I decide I know it all is the day the work starts looking the same.
The day I decide I already know everything is the day the work starts looking the same.
Larissa Wendler, makeup artist and visagiste, Porto
References
- Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009: the European regime for cosmetic products: composition, labelling and safety assessment of everything applied to the skin.
- INFARMED: the national competent authority for cosmetic products in Portugal.