How TikTok’s “Underpainting” Makeup Trick Can Help You Hack Hollywood’s Most Famous Glows

It’s rare that makeup artist Mary Phillips has time for a live interview as she’s often jetting around the globe with clients like Jennifer Lopez, Hailey Bieber, and Kendall Jenner. But fresh from Dubai, she made it a point to hop on the phone with Vogue to discuss the recent TikTok craze over her tried-and-true foundation and contouring strategy. Best known as “underpainting” (a term with over 60 million views on the platform), Phillips’s method of contouring and highlighting skin before applying foundation is getting attention for its ultra-natural, lit-from-within effects. “I have to say the one thing I’m loving so much about this whole TikTok thing is that in mostly every video I’ve seen, everybody likes the technique,” says Phillips from her home in Los Angeles, noting that she’s new to the app and mainly in it for the cute animal content.

Of course, she knows better than anyone that pros have widely used the technique for decades. Though Phillips considers her version a modern take, applying products in ultra-thin layers that let skin show through. “I see a lot of comments like ‘so-and-so has been doing this for years, and you know, yes, I learned from looking at the Kevyn Aucoin books,” she says of Making Faces and Face Forward, the iconic ’90s makeup bibles currently experiencing a comeback. “When I started doing makeup there was no YouTube, there was no Instagram, there was no social media, so I would literally study pictures in Vogue or runway makeup,” says Phillips. “Kevyn Aucoin’s books were really one of the only things out there where he showed his steps.”