When most people think of Jay Manuel, they think of Mr Jay, Creative Director from America’s Next Top Model, but you’re actually a makeup artist. How did you get into beauty?
I was attending NYU as a classically trained singer. My first voice teacher was being photographed for some shoot and she asked me to do her makeup for this shoot, because she knew that I has a passion for it and dabbled in it for fun. I was like of course I will! On the shoot, the photograher asked me what other shoots I had done. I explained that I was a singer and just doing a favour for a friend. He said if you change your mind, give me a call. A couple of months later, I decided to give him a call as I thought it would be a great way to earn some side money. I never thought it would grow into what it became.
You started working really closely with Iman, what was that like?
Iman and I have been friends for 18 and a half years and she has absolutely been such a mentor to me throughout my career and always been there to listen, and not even things I was working on which is great because I could always pick up the phone and you can’t do that with many clients. She helped take my career to the next level. I’d been working with a lot of different celebrities, but she was truly an icon in the industry. I remember I had one of her Revlon ads stuck on my wall as a teenage and then I was working with her. We really just clicked. She was the one who told me to go into creative direction. I remember it so well, I was getting her ready for an event and Iman and David both suggested that I should be a creative director, this was all before Top Model, so I started working with clients, hosting shoots and helping to cast models and being paid as creative director.
Your beauty line, Jay Maunel Beauty, launches very soon on QVC. Which product do you recommend everyone invest in?
My Skin Perfector Foundation, £38, which has micronized silk suspended in a hybrid silicone base, which suspended in a liquid and no one has ever done that before. It does two things; the silicone creates a smooth surface and doesn’t settle into large pores and fine lines. The effect is immediate. The micronized silk also absorbs unwanted oil without stripping and drying the skin. It also creates a soft focus effect.
That’s why it’s been a hugely successful product in America.
We can’t not talk about America’s Next Top Model. Most of us have grown up with it on our screens. Straight to it: who’s been your favourite girl?
Oh my goodness are you really asking me that? I can’t say, there have been so many great girls. I will say though, that I don’t know I you remember Anne from Cycle 2, but she’s in the campaign imagery for Jay Manuel Beauty.
OK, what about your favourite shoot? You did so many amazing ones at the end of each episode, which one was the best?
Oh gosh that’s 18 seasons of work! One of my favourites was when we did all the girls as Zodiac signs in Cycle 4. I loved doing that shoot and I just loved the creativity behind it. Another one is from Cycle 2. Tyra and I were talking to the producers in our first production meeting and they were like okay, we’re now doing a second series, we need to build and grow and make it even better. I just knew that the first shoot had to be a water shoot - something people will talk about. My final favourite is also from Cycle 2. It’s the Adam and Eve shoot where the models were nude and their bodies were painted into these different types of Eve. It ended up being really controversial because the girls were nude and everyone kept asking where the show would go from there.
Let’s chat about your hair. It’s the perfect silver hue. How do maintain it?
Originally, I was really inspired by a comic strip of Flash Gordon. He looked a little closer to my flesh tone and his hair was silver and I thought that was so cool, so I just went with it. Everyone would ask me why I was dying my hair grey and now everyone wants to be grey! I really have a great colourist who colours it every 12 to 14 days. I actually have a salon in my home - I had to because it’s not so fun trying to do your hair in your own bathroom, rinsing it out, washing and drying it.
What are your top three beauty tips?
A lot of women want that beautiful thick lash that requires a lot of application, but don’t want to get it on their skin, so my tip is grab a plastic spoon, cup it outwards so it squeezes right down to your skin, wedge it underneath your lashes and then go to town. You’ll have the lashes you want, without any residue on your top or bottom lid.
If you only have 15 minutes to do your makeup, grab your bronzer and start at the top over your temple, follow your hairline and then around your cheekbones and then down onto your jawbone. It creates a 3 shape on one side and an E on the other. It brings instant dimension to your skin. My final one is an oldie but a goodie. If you’re trying to give your face a little bit of colour, take you lipstick or a lipstain and blend it right onto the apples of the cheek. It’s a great little trick.
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