Abby Roberts has been manifesting a Morphe makeup collab ever since she started out as a beauty phenomenon on social media. She's stanned the brand's products on her platforms since day dot and, the first time I spoke to her for an Instagram Live during the very first lockdown, she firmly put her admiration for the brand out into the universe. So, it was only a matter of time before she made it a reality.
With over 17 million followers on TikTok and an extra 2.3 million to add to that from Insta, plus a GLAMOUR cover, music album and a tour with Halsey under her belt, Abby is bona fide brand in her own right, but even as her interests and stardom have grown, she's stayed true to her roots and artistry.
That's exactly why it feels like a full circle moment that she'll be introducing her first collection with Morphe into the world on 23rd October, just in time for the Halloween makeup countdown that helped launch her career and establish her talent for incredible, original works of makeup art (that Rosalie from Twilight transformation remains one of her best-performing looks with over 41 million views).
So, what can you expect from Morphe X Abby Roberts – Artcasts? The star of the show is, of course, a 35 pan palette (£32) jam-packed with every shade Abby's ever wished into existence. It's built to serve every-day or experimental looks, depending on your mood with a mix of brights and neutrals. There's a seriously pigmented series of seven water-activated cake liners (£16) which, incidentally, are another product Abby hero-ed during our first chat. There's a 7-piece brush set (£32) and there's even a 5-piece artist palette and brush set (£26) that looks like it's straight from the kit of a renaissance painter.
We sat down with Abby to get all the intel behind her collection, and to find out which Halloween trends she's most excited for this year…
"I was not going to let Morphe get away with not doing a collab with me…
Morphe’s been one of my dream brands to work with since I first started out in makeup when I was a kid, so I'm so happy that it's finally happening. It's been over a year that we've been actually working on the project together, but it's been a lot more years of me emailing Morphe being like, ‘pleaseee, do you wanna do a collection with me?’ I was persistent. I was not gonna let them get away with not doing a collab with me. And they finally backed down and let me.
I wanted to create a palette that has literally every single thing that I would need for anything I'm doing…
…whether that's gigs or photo shoots or making TikToks or crazy makeup looks, or even just for every day. So I wanted to include those neutrals that I would wear when I don't want a crazy makeup look that day. But also, it's got all the tools that anyone would need to experiment and be bold and expressive just in time for Halloween as well.
Every single shade is either named after an inside joke, or someone important to me…
For instance, Cuppa, is the shade of a cup of tea with the exact right amount of milk.
I was very serious about getting the right red. It's my favourite colour…
I kind of just created what I need. There's been a lot of occasions where I'm using a palette and I think ‘it would be really good if you had this colour,’ – like I'm missing this one to complete my look. And I kind of wanted to fill in a lot of those gaps with my palette, like I wanted a good, deep red. I feel like nobody does it and red is my favourite colour. So I took that very personally and was like, it needs to happen. I created the shade Artistry in the palette which is the perfect deep red. I think that's my favourite. But there's a few – like all of the sparkly ones. We created a bunch of duo-chrome shades, which I think are great as poppers. They have a see-through base with a sheer sparkly topper so you can just pop it on any colour which I love to do a lot. So, I just created everything that I could possibly think that I would personally choose – and hopefully other people do too.
If my beauty cabinet was on fire, these are the products I'd save…
It would be my Morphe products, obviously! I took the palette on tour and used it like every single day as I was getting ready, so it’s had some beating. But if I were allowed three more, I would say my Ordinary Serum Foundation because it's literally been the only foundation that I've used for like the past six years. And I've been loving the About-Face eye paints. I also used those a lot on tour. They’re great – they're super quick and I can do a bold eye in like seconds. And, last, it'd be the ColourPop Cool BFF Lip Liner. It's my go-to, I wear it like every day.
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I'm currently in my Rockstar Girlfriend makeup era…
Right now I'm just loving grungy and lived-in looks. This whole Rockstar Girlfriend aesthetic has been popping up for a minute now. It's all about dark, moody colours, with pops of brights and lots of sparkles – just sparkles everywhere and graphic liner. I love that, too. The shade Artistry from my palette is a great one for the dark reds and then all of the deep greys. 505, which is a reference to one of my favourite Arctic Monkey, songs is a great one for that.
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For Halloween, I'm backing Targaryen makeup looks and Monster High…
I'm excited to see what people do. Every year people do lots of looks based around what's come out on TV and in film, so I feel like there's gonna be a lot of Targaryen stuff going on this year. I also wanna bring back the Monster High trend again this year. Me and my sister are gonna do a bunch more of those looks. I'm super excited. It's been a while since I've done crazy looks like that. I planned all my looks well in advance – we started ordering the props and costumes in August. We’re like: 'OK, what's coming out, what's gonna be trending.' I’ve been a busy girl.
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Originality is what makes people stand out to me on TikTok…
I guess it's just what pops up on my For You page. TikTok has been listening, and they're definitely showing me what I’m wanting to see. Honestly, I'll mention that I've been watching a TV show and the next thing, it's just all people doing makeup looks of that TV show, it’s wild. But also, it comes down to originality. The makeup space is really over-saturated now and everyone has kind of done every look that they could possibly think of. So if I see one that hasn't been done far, I’m like, wow, that's impressive that you thought of that. Right now, I really love @esantoinette. I think she does really creative eye looks and she always finds ways to create eye shapes that I haven't seen before. She's amazing with graphic liner. I draw a lot of inspiration from her looks.
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Iggy Azalea's makeup artist taught me how to contour…
One of my friends, who’s Iggy Azalea's makeup artist – his name is @erosmua on Instagram – put me onto the Kevin Aucoin contour shades. Those sculpting powders are just amazing, especially for someone who's as fair as me. I found that everything else looked orange on me. But he taught me how to contour with it and to put the contour on my temples as well, which he does on a lot of his celebrity clients. So that's a trick that’s stuck with me for a long time.
While we were touring, I had a lot of makeup casualties, let me tell you…
I took like this body shimmer moisturiser kind of thing – you know, there's like tubes of it – and it exploded on the plane and it was just everywhere. In my makeup bag everything was just coated in this blue sparkling goo. And it’s sticking around to this day. I still find bits of it. I'm like how?! We cleaned all of this.
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I've done a lot of crazy things in the name of beauty…
Back when I was living at home, I’d walk downstairs as a different character every day. My parents were like, ‘alright, normal.’ I dunno. I would paint myself different colours, like, 'I'm blue today'. Or pink. I’d have to open the door like it. I think the postman just knew, okay, ‘that’s where the crazy girl lives.’ But if they don’t say anything, I’m not acknowledging it.
For more from GLAMOUR's Beauty Editor, Elle Turner, follow her on Instagram @elleturneruk
