Chelsea Uchenna is the makeup artist beating the faces of all your fave Black artists

At the tender age of 22, most people would still be figuring out what their career could be. For Chelsea Uchenna, her meteoric rise has already been a decade in the making.

If you’re not already familiar with the makeup artist’s name, you’ll certainly know her work. With a long list of clients including Doechii, Saweetie, Leomie Anderson, Bree Runway, Ayra Starr and Flo’s Renée Downer, her aesthetic is 90s-meets-00s glam transforming the faces she paints into video vixens. Think seductive smokey eyes in chocolate browns and dark blacks, pencil-thin brows, shimmering eyeshadows, bright blush, and frosty lips in pinks, purples and bronzes.

Growing up in Ireland, Chelsea would watch her mum applying makeup – wanting to be just like her, but told to wait until she turned 18. “I was always artsy as a kid and was always painting and sketching, so it was only a matter of time before I fell into makeup,” the MUA tells GLAMOUR. “I was around 11 or 12 when I started experimenting with my mum’s makeup and I kept going from there.”

In the decade since, the MUA has honed her aesthetic, now as one of the most in-demand MUAs behind some standout faces. Most notably with Doechii – painting her face all over the world from Glastonbury to Paris Fashion Week. Unapologetically glam and Black, Chelsea’s work makes a strong case for the full beat, waving clean girl beauty goodbye.

Here, we chat to Chelsea Uchenna about her early entry in beauty, bringing Doechii and Bree Runway’s “crazy ass ideas” to life and her current makeup obsession.

What was your first introduction to beauty?

Chelsea: My first introduction to beauty was my mother. I would sit and watch her and ask ‘when can I wear makeup’ and she told me not until I was 18. I was always artsy as a kid and was always painting and sketching, so it was only a matter of time before I fell into makeup. I was around 11 or 12 when I started experimenting with my mum’s makeup and I kept going from there.

How did that translate into becoming a makeup artist?

Chelsea: Makeup was a way of expressing myself, like putting a pen to the pad, but it’s a different thing putting makeup on my face and on somebody else’s face. I started getting into the YouTube girls and realised I wanted to do it all the time, but I would sneakily do makeup because I wasn’t allowed to, so I would do a face before my mum came back from work and then wipe it off. I started posting on Snapchat and this girl who lived in my state asked me to do her makeup. I was 13 and she brought all her makeup over and we did a face. I showed my mum and said I can get money for it, so can I do it? She said yes and I’ve been a makeup artist since.

As a self-taught artist, what were some of the important things you learned about makeup?

Chelsea: I grew up in Ireland and lived in a very small, predominantly white town so I started learning how to do glam on different skin tones first. People who have less melanin in their skin, the makeup takes a little differently. You have to learn that and it’s also a completely different facial structure.

In terms of glam, my main thing was eyes, so I learned how to do a good eyeshadow look and that’s what all the girls wanted back then. It was a good eye, glitter, lashes, the whole thing. From there, I started learning more about the base and how to shape brows, how to do the lips. I was learning as I went along.

How would you describe your beauty aesthetic?

Chelsea: I’m very inspired by 90s glam. I love blush that pops, a frosty lip, the glam from that time just excites me. I also love to do a really fun eye and I love shaping the eyes. The first thing I see when it comes to doing makeup is looking at the eyes and seeing how I’m going to shape them.

I’ll find different colour combos when I’m walking down the street. My camera roll is just random pictures that I save for when I’m keying makeup. Other makeup artists will also inspire me like Kevyn Aucoin, Pat McGrath, Danessa Myricks – there’s so many online makeup creators that I love as well. Also music videos, I used to be obsessed with music video glam and would take inspiration from how fun it was.

I feel like a lot of my glam is really fun and takes inspiration from the early 2000s, 2010s – I love the glam, the boldness and the fun of it all.

What are your best tips for getting a flawless beat?

Chelsea: The main thing is skin prep, it’s so important when it comes to wanting a beat to last and look good in photographs and in person. It doesn’t have to be a 20-step routine, it just has to be simple hydration – that’s the biggest thing for me. Working with many layers and taking your time to build up the layers also helps to get it nice and clean.

You’ve worked with some iconic names like Doechii, Bree Runway and Leomie Anderson – what is your usual process when you’re painting different faces?

Chelsea: A lot of my clients have crazy ass ideas and I’m there to help bring their vision to life. Bree especially has crazy ideas and Doechii always has very cool ideas, but it’s very collaborative. I bring my input in terms of what I think will actually look good and what won’t.

You know when you wake up and sometimes you want to be more natural, or wear full glam. I suggest how we can amp it up or pull it back, that’s how I approach it. If it’s a shoot or a project, I’ll have an idea that I will say ‘we should try this’ or do this kind of lip.

What are some of your most memorable moments?

Chelsea: Working with Doechii during Paris Fashion Week was a really chaotic time. We’re trying to get her ready for the Tom Ford show in the back of a moving car. I had 10 minutes to change her powdery green eyeshadow into a black smokey eye with half my kit and it was bad but I had to lock in.

The first time I was working with Bree was for her music video “JUST LIKE THAT” and she called me and said she wanted to do zipper eyebrows. I didn’t know how to do it and I’d never done that in my life. I was in New York frantically running around fabric stores trying to find skinny little zippers I could make into eyebrows and it worked. I’m a little bit chaotic and spontaneous so it honestly works for me.

What advice would you give to an upcoming makeup artist who wants to get into the beauty industry?

Chelsea: It’s so generic and cliché, but ‘keep doing your own thing’. A lot of girls ask me how to start as a MUA and it’s just honing in on your own style – building your personal style like your personal wardrobe.

The more that you practice, the more it will start to tailor itself and you’ll build it without even really knowing. I didn’t really know I was building a style, I was just doing makeup every day all the time and all of a sudden I noticed a pattern. So I say, keep honing and doing your own thing and eventually the people that love it will find you.

What have you learned about yourself throughout your career?

Chelsea: Growing up, when I went to school they would ask about our career choices and when I said I want to be a makeup artist they would tell me to go into nursing or be a teacher instead. I realised this was my thing and I don’t think the passion or obsessions will ever really die, it just keeps growing and growing. So, I’ve learned that it’s OK to have your thing and not to change for anybody else’s idea of what they think is correct or the best way to move forward. For a while, I thought that maybe I should have a backup, but beauty is my thing and I’m gonna stick with it.

What are your current beauty obsessions?

Chelsea: This is so random, but I’ve been so obsessed with making eyes really pop with lashes. Lashes can shape an eye and especially on Doe – she loves a cat eyelash, but we’ve been switching it up recently. Her eyes look so lifted with a different sort of lash, so I stack a bunch of manga lashes. A lot of the K-pop girlies do it, so the Asian beauty girls put me onto manga lashes. They’re tiny little spikes and you can get them on Amazon, so that’s my main beauty obsession: a spiky manga lash.

Last question – who is still on your bucket list to work with?

Chelsea: I feel like one day I’m gonna find myself working with Beyoncé. I feel it in my spirit because I’m the biggest Beyoncé fan in the world. Even if it’s not Beyoncé and it’s a dancer, I can see it so clearly. Call me for Act III.