Before the dawn of social media, professional makeup artists were rarely a household name. Only a handful of legends were known outside the insular celebrity and fashion world: Pat McGrath, Gucci Westman, and Bobbi Brown among the few. These days, social media and the explosion of the beauty industry have brought makeup artists front and center. Celebrity artists are more visible as their famous clients sing their praises on Instagram; some of them made more renown by founding their own beauty lines seen on the shelves of Sephora and Ulta.
A traditional path is no longer required to build a career in beauty; influencers and vloggers, online personalities who give cosmetics tutorials on social platforms like YouTube and TikTok, are some of the most successful of the beauty industry today. Read on for some of the biggest names-- those who most inspire us to glow up and put our best face forward: