If you’ve heard of contouring (that’s all of us, then), you have Mario Dedivanovic to thank for it. The powerhouse makeup artist, better known as Makeup By Mario, brought the technique to the mainstream when he and his famous client, Kim Kardashian, started posting behind the scenes snippets of the makeup looks they created together, just as social media began to take off.
These days #contouring has over 1 billion views on TikTok and Mario has his own eponymous brand, Makeup By Mario, under his beauty belt. Chatting to him as he celebrates the launch of Sephora into the UK (which offers the most extensive range of his products here), it’s clear he’s kept his humility. He’s modest about the work and dedication it took to get his brand onto the shelves of the beauty store where he started his career as a fragrance consultant. And, he laughs when I bring up that Met Gala moment in 2021, when Kim covered his beautiful artistry with a head-to-toe morph suit, “that was pretty funny,” he admits.
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But obviously, I used the opportunity to pat him down for product recommendations and pro tips. His top hack for beautiful makeup, it turns out, is pretty simple, as he explains below…
How would you describe your makeup style in three words?
I would say glamorous, polished and balanced. I work a lot to create balance on the face – balance and harmony.
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What’s the one major mistake you see people making with their makeup?
Oh boy. People always ask me this actually. I feel bad to mention anything, but maybe foundation colours or textures being slightly off. I think that’s mainly due to when people apply and they’re not in the proper lighting. So it’s an innocent mistake, we’re all guilty of it sometimes.
What’s your top tip for incredible makeup?
I’d say softening and blending. Everything that I do on the face, and every product that I apply, I go in a very soft, sheer layer, and then I blend everything. I don’t like to see any harsh lines. That’s how you sort of make the makeup look like it’s meant for you, and that you were born with it. That’s also why I have brushes on the ends of a lot of my products – so the lip pencil, the eye pencil, the sculpting stick, they have a brush on them to soften the line. So the line is designed based off my techniques. I create these products that are very easy to use and effortless. But, yeah, if I had to choose just one simple tip, it’s blending everything that you put on your face.