Makeup artist Natasha Moor helps women look their best to feel their best.
By Agnes Lam
Born and raised in Hong Kong, Natasha Moor is an Indian makeup artist who specialises in bridal makeup and an entrepreneur running her own cosmetic line. The 30-year-old is also a COVID-19 survivor.
Moor was diagnosed with COVID-19 in March after returning from a business trip in London. She was hospitalised for 34 days in Caritas Medical Centre. Feeling bored when being treated in the hospital, she posted makeup tutorial videos and snippets of her life in the hospital on Instagram.
Doing makeup helped lift her spirits when fighting against the virus.
“I asked my dad to send me some cosmetic products so I could do some tutorials in my free time in the hospital. So I could feel more confident, and I did,” Moor says.
Her strong will not only helps her fight the deadly virus, it is also the foundation of her successful career.
Moor had a love affair with makeup ever since she was a child. “When I was a primary three pupil, my teacher almost got fired by the school because I did her makeup every day,” she says.
She thinks her grandmother had a strong influence on her childhood. “My grandmother never leaves the house without makeup. Even when I video call her now, she has to put on lipstick first,” she says.
Moor became a public relations executive after graduation. She worked with luxurious diamond jewellery companies such as Chopard. She was often praised for her makeup. Later on, she started doing freelance makeup jobs on the side.
“I really loved it. It was all about passion,” she says. Moor resigned from her job after a year and did a six-week makeup course at Lia Schorr Institute in New York in 2012.
“As my business grows, more respect is earned.”
“Some people think that because you are touching people’s faces when doing their makeup, you are lowering your standards as a person,” she says.
Being a makeup artist was considered more of a blue-collar job rather than a respectable white-collar. “As my business grows, more respect is earned,” she adds.
Her passion for doing makeup eventually wins support from her parents who were not keen to tell relatives about Moor’s work when she started her career as a makeup artist.
“I think it is about Asian culture. We want our children to be doctors, lawyers, not an artistic occupation,” Moor says.
“Now a lot of parents tell me that their daughters want to be like me. Their daughters want to become makeup artists too,” she adds.
Moor mostly does makeup for brides now. “It is like the biggest day of their life, they are so excited to look beautiful,” she says.
“Models are paid to look beautiful. But brides have this crazy confidence when I do their makeup,” she says. Moor realises that makeup is a transformative tool that can help boost a woman’s confidence.
“I cannot do everyone’s makeup all over the world forever,” Moor says. So, she created a makeup brand in 2017. She wants women to be confident by doing their makeup with her products.
The empowerment element is important for Moor’s brand. For example, lipsticks in her cosmetic line are named Ambition, Goal Digger, and Indestructible. “I want women to wear ambition and feel what they have is ambition,” she says.
Apart from working as a makeup artist, Moor is very active with charity work. She often visits women’s shelters, orphanages and drug rehabilitation centres in Bali, Jakarta, Mumbai, Compton, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Hong Kong.
Moor started the initiative ‘Do Moor’ in 2017 and visited women’s shelters.
“I want to give a confidence boost to women who do not have that access to makeup. Women who do not have money and experience. Women who do not even know they can feel this confident just by putting on makeup,” she says.
“I want to give a confidence boost to women who do not have that access to makeup.”
Moor did makeup for women in shelters and rehabilitation centres just the same way she did it for her clients.
Moor visited an orphanage in Bali in 2018. The weather was rainy during that visit. She was heartbroken to see children walking barefoot in the rain.
“We spent so much time. We received so much from donations. We tried to take care of the kids. But how come they were barefoot?” she says, when talking about her experience in Bali.
This gave her an idea to create slippers called ‘sole mate’ for children at orphanages and underprivileged children. During her March trip to Mumbai with Spark-A-Change foundation, she gave children ‘sole mate’ slippers.
She believes that the world needs more kindness and she strives to deliver positivity through her work and brand.
“Empowerment means being able to support another person without having to tell the world. Doing it from your heart genuinely is what matters. You don’t have to step on anyone to get anywhere. Just be a kind person,” she says.
Edited by Lasley Lui & Regina Chen
