Cooking up Beautiful Brew

CEBU, Philippines - Kim Tan is not your everyday, ordinary make-up artist. Kim Tan is a magician who works his magic with a blending brush held adeptly in one hand, among his many wands, and an eye shadow palette on the other, ready to bring a cornucopia of colors to life on the canvass that is the human face.

At 22, this quirky moreno from Dumaguete City has spent a little over seven years transforming countless faces from blah to bombshell.

Now enjoying the spotlight in the Dumaguete fashion scene for his masterful take in the art of make-up, Kim, who has had no formal training in make-up, admits that his love and talent for make-up and eventually for high fashion was something nobody every prodded to improve on, much less, discover.

“I used to steal my mom’s make-up,” Kim giggled, reminiscing his humble beginnings in the craft. “I would always get her lipstick and use it as blush, eye shadow, and lipstick—it was an all-in-one stick! I later found out that one of my neighbors was selling cosmetics products so I started saving up and buying my own make-up. That’s when I really started to practice and get serious about makeup.”

Kim’s first real take on being a make-up artist began when he offered to be a friend’s apprentice during events. This eventually opened him up to a vast field of exposure from weddings to beauty pageants to debuts and eventually to full-fledged fashion shoots.

“I studied carefully and observed how the experts would apply make-up the right way. I knew deep down and I told myself quite clearly that I will never be an assistant forever. With the help of my family and my friends, I strove hard to make a name for myself and eventually ventured in freelance make-up,” Kim said.

Kim’s growing network of designers and photographers slowly earned him a spot as one of the local fashion scene’s favorites.

Kim’s work definitely speaks for itself. When asked which make-up pieces one should splurge for or save on, Kim nonchalantly replied, “Sometimes, it isn’t a question on price for as long as your skin does not get irritated with the brand. There are expensive make up brands that might not suit a particular skin type, then again, there are cheaper ones which may also irritate other skin types. More often than not, it’s a question of how well the make-up is applied.”

Kim considers concealer, lip-gloss/lipstick, eyeliner, powder, and a trusty eye shadow palette a must-have for any make-up maven because “you can play up these basics whichever way you want.”

However, Kim concedes that although make-up is something, it is not everything. 

“Make-up isn’t what makes a woman beautiful. It’s only there to enhance a woman’s natural beauty. Beauty is God-given. It isn’t something that you whip up from a palette and paint on someone’s face,” he said.

Kim is gravitating towards more avante-garde, more experimental, more high fashion genre of make-up knowing that this genre in fashion is all about playing up on being experimental and precise at the same time. 

With many a noveau make-up artist now finding Kim Tan’s works as a source of inspiration, Kim can only bat a carefully-curled eyelash and say, “Keep an open mind and try out different kinds of make-up styles. This is where creativity comes in. Draw inspiration from your own experiences, ask mentors for advice, and mix your technique with theirs to form your own signature style…After all, being a make-up artist is one thing, but being a make-up artist with a signature sense of style is another and that’s the magic of it.”  (THE FREEMAN)