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For the first time ever, Charlotte Tilbury, the flame-haired godmother of glow, has touched down in Sydney, and to say Australia’s beauty community was excited would be an understatement. TikTokers, industry insiders and makeup devotees alike practically levitated at the chance to see her in person, and with good reason. With her whimsical presence, know-how and disruptive ideas, few have changed the face of beauty—quite literally—like she has.
With over three decades under her belt, Tilbury’s impact spans red carpets, runways and real life, from the airbrushed perfection of Amal Clooney and Kate Moss to the everyday faces transformed by her now-iconic Magic Cream or ‘Pillow Talk’ Lipstick. But Tilbury’s magic isn’t confined to makeup. She’s a storyteller, a strategist and, as any beauty editor worth their setting spray will tell you, a true visionary.
Over a lengthy conversation with GRAZIA, Tilbury is warm, animated, and refreshingly unfiltered. She speaks in colour and metaphor, punctuating each point with an enthusiastic “darling!” and the kind of wisdom that only comes from decades of mastering her craft.
“Good makeup is good lighting in a bottle,” she explains. “That’s the secret. On set, we’re always using lighting to sculpt, blur, and beautify. I wanted to bring that to every woman’s makeup bag… It’s the ‘Paris’ filter, bottled.”
While countless brands have tried to replicate her effect, none have quite cracked the code. “I’m obsessed with formulas,” she says. “I drive my scientists mad. I make them rework things over and over. So when someone dupes it, it’s not just unfair, it’s dangerous.” While discussing how budget dupes can end up costing us a lot more than dollars in the long term, Tilbury shared her concerns for consumers looking to dupes, urging that what may be replicated on the outside cannot be replicated on the inside. “They’re not [interested] in helping the consumer,” she urges. “More than anything, it’s what it does to everyday people that’s not okay because [they’re] duping people into thinking that it’s going to perform the same when it’s not.” Leveraging this trust that other people and brands have worked hard to cultivate and build upon becomes particularly dicey with skincare and makeup.
“You’re putting this on your face,” she emphasises. “If you ruin someone’s relationship with makeup, you can ruin their confidence. That’s sacred.”
And confidence, for Tilbury, is everything. It’s the invisible yet powerful ingredient she infuses into every product and every client interaction, from the subtly sculpting Lip Cheat liner to the whisper-light Unreal Skin Sheer Glow Stick, which both Kate Moss and Sienna Miller use to fake that elusive ‘clean’ makeup that enables them to still look like themselves—just a little more lit up.“They want something that they just scribble on in five minutes and don’t look like they’re wearing makeup because they like the ‘no makeup’ makeup.”
Her genius lies in that balance between fantasy and function. “I always say, makeup isn’t just a surface-level thing,” she says. “I’ve seen it in my chair so many times. Someone comes in feeling flat or invisible, and then they look in the mirror, and they light up. There’s this shift in energy. It’s real.” And it’s this shift that Tilbury believes can change the world. “If you go on to change one person, you can change a community… It’s a ripple effect.”
Though so much of her work is amplified on red carpets and A-list soirees, it’s the everyday folks at home, hastily dabbing on concealer in their car mirrors and rushing off to their 9-5s that drive the beauty visionary to innovating and perfecting formulas to make them as efficient and efficacious as possible. “I’m thinking about those women who are going, ‘I can’t’, and that [sparks] my passion,” she says. “They’re the raison d’être for me, doing my brand right.”
Before launching her namesake brand in 2013, Tilbury had already built a formidable reputation as one of the most sought-after makeup artists in the world. Her artistry graced the covers of many magazines, runway shows for Tom Ford, Stella McCartney, and McQueen, as well as the Met Gala looks of the Hollywood elite. But her beauty obsession began long before that in Ibiza, as a wide-eyed 11-year-old watching Mary Greenwell—a family friend—do makeup for supermodels on Vogue.
“From a young age, I was first fascinated by the power of makeup and why someone who felt confident looked beautiful,” she says. “I became obsessed with the psychology of what makes someone have that confidence, and thought, ‘ Why can’t everyone have that feeling?’”
It’s that sense of transformation that underpins every Tilbury product. Magic Cream, for instance, wasn’t developed in a sterile boardroom, but backstage, in the chaos of fashion week. Years before ‘skin barrier health’ was popularised, the makeup artist saw her fair share of damage. “Models were exhausted doing 3 or 5 am starts and then working well into the night and just using baby wipes on their skin… More makeup before getting [back] on stage,” she recalls. “Their skin was wrecked. I created Magic Cream to help them regain their glow. 28 seconds to gorgeous skin.” It was a backstage secret for years before she bottled it.
She’s as much a scientist as she is an artist. Obsessive about texture, payoff, and finish and uncompromising with what she puts out into the world. One of her foolproof bases, which she lovingly refers to as the “JLo sandwich” technique (using the Airbrush Flawless Setting Spray between layers of the Airbrush Flawless Finish Powder), has become the stuff of red-carpet legend. “It’s the most flawless, poreless, skin-smoothing combo. Once you try it, you’ll never do glam any other way.”
But for all the celebrity sparkle, Tilbury’s fundamental mission is to democratise beauty and amplify what already makes us beautiful. “I believe everyone can look and feel beautiful. Makeup should be easy, intuitive, and powerful. That’s why I created ‘Pillow Talk’, which was inspired by the beauty of natural pigments. There’s something about it… Everyone looks prettier in pink.”
That belief in beauty as empowerment rather than a disguise is what sets her apart. Drawn to women with presence and magnetism, she has spent her career studying them, trying to understand what it is that transforms us. “It’s about energy. It’s how you feel. Beauty helps us shape that—it’s a tool, not a mask,” she explains. “We are electromagnetic beings, and the way we feel affects how we are, and our thoughts become reality.” With the right arsenal, the founder firmly believes we can be anything and anyone we want to be. In fact, it’s these worlds and characters that inspire her creations, with every shade and iteration a product of her real-life experiences with people and her ability to spot their needs from an up-close vantage.
Tilbury’s legacy isn’t only in powders and palettes, but the millions of moments when someone looked in the mirror, smiled, and felt like their most radiant self. That, truly, is the real magic.
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