The Hollywood makeup artists' secret to perfect skin

Becca Cosmetics had a huge beauty moment a few years back with its Turkish Rose Crème Blush. Anointed the best cream blush by a number of beauty magazines, it seemed that every woman started blushing in dusky rose. It was my first introduction to the Australian brand, as a matter of fact. I bought my own Turkish Rose and marveled at how seamlessly it blended into my skin, as if it were my own natural flush instead of a hastily applied cosmetic product.

But though most of the world was introduced to Becca via this now-legendary blush, professional makeup artists and beauty insiders turn to Becca for a different need entirely — to make women’s complexions look as perfect as humanly possible.

As a fledgling makeup artist, I know that the first step to true beauty is perfect skin — or creating the illusion of it, at the very least. As a mom with a full-time job who never seems to get enough sleep, it’s hard to maintain a natural glowing, healthy, well-rested look without some serious help. Give me 20 minutes in front of a makeup mirror and I might be able to achieve it, but most days I get less than 10.

So it’s something of a godsend to rediscover a makeup line whose products are so painstakingly researched, developed and of such high professional quality that they give you perfect skin that looks like it’s been kissed by the sun, and not been slaving away in a fluorescent-lit cubicle for days on end — and all in less than 10 minutes.

Named after its founder, Rebecca Morrice Williams, Becca is the secret weapon of many Hollywood makeup artists, who use it on celebrity clients like Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Moss, Alek Wek, Serena and Venus Williams. It’s the foremost cosmetics brand in its home country, Australia, and is now available in the Philippines only at Adora in Greenbelt 5.

“Rebecca Williams was a professional makeup artist in Australia and her frustration was that whenever she was trying to create beautiful, flawless skin on the women she was working on, she found that she had to mix the products to get the correct color,” relates Steven Schapera, CEO and managing director of Becca Cosmetics. “We believe a woman should look absolutely natural, like she’s just been away on a holiday. She shouldn’t look decorated. In order to achieve that, you need some pretty high-performance tools, like foundation that exactly matches your skin tone.”

With its 34 shades each of foundation and concealer, even if you’re as porcelain as Gwyneth or as sienna as Serena, all skin tones will find their exact color match in the Becca range. The company even held a competition in the States where, if they didn’t have your color, they would give you $1,000. “That showed us where the gaps were and in fact, now we have no gaps,” Schapera says. “Everybody is catered for.”

Even Becca’s color cosmetics hew close to a wide range of skin tones so that they flatter and enhance your features instead of making you look made up, drawing attention to your “natural” beauty and not to that trendy blue shadow sitting on your eyelids. And, since nude is in next year, Becca’s arrival at Adora is more timely than ever.

What makes Becca foundation different — if not superior — to other brands’ on the market today? First off, the formulations are sheer and creamy, as if you’d drawn a dewy veil over your face instead of a flat mask. “The reason we use creams is that creams make your skin look young,” Steven says.

Second, Becca infuses each product with special cocktails of skincare ingredients. “We see foundation as the final step of skincare, not the first step of making up,” notes Schapera. “For that reason we’ve added to our foundations a number of treatment ingredients like vitamins A, B, D, E, and avocado oil. Our primer contains hyaluronic acid.”

To put Becca at the front of the innovation wave, Williams insists that each product be formulated from scratch, instead of tweaking prefab formulas and slapping different packaging on it, as almost all beauty companies do, according to Steven. “We didn’t launch our lipstick for six years and spent the better part of four trying to develop it,” he says. “Her argument is, ‘If we simply produce what other people are already producing, why does anybody need to come to us to buy it?’”

Becca’s four-step Skin-Perfecting Makeup System hinges on its high-tech primers, foundations, concealers and powders. For those with fairly good skin, either of the two tinted moisturizers — Luminous Skin Colour and Shimmering Skin Perfector — should suffice to even your complexion out, followed by Compact Concealer on trouble spots then Fine Loose Finishing Powder. For those who need more coverage, there’s Stick Foundation.

Steven shares a tip for the most natural, youthful look: “Lock Becca’s cream products onto your skin by dipping a powder brush into the loose powder, knock off the excess then apply a very, very light dusting over the cream. Then you can touch up with the Fine Pressed Powder.”

A close friend of Williams and godfather to her two children, Schapera, who began his career as an engineer, was with Becca from the very beginning, in 1996, after he sold his winemaking business Chittering Estate. Though the duo co-founded the company in Australia, it first launched in London, where the flagship store is located and Steven is based, overseeing Becca’s UK, Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia operations. “I always say the cosmetic Olympics are held every day in London, Paris, New York and Milan,” he laughs. “Having the flagship in London is much more exciting than having it in Australia.”

Though Becca is now in 23 countries and 130 cities around the world, its biggest single market is the United States. Williams, who oversees the whole creative aspect of the brand, has proven herself an astute businesswoman and runs Becca’s Australia-New Zealand business as well. “She’s a very, very busy woman and true to form does not have a driver or nanny,” marvels Steven. “She followed that path because she wanted to remain in touch with being a real mother and understanding the difficulty of running a family and running a business — you have to understand your customer and the time available to them, and she understands that makeup has to be put on in seven minutes in the morning and you have to look beautiful.”

When Becca entered the Philippine market, they chose to partner with Adora because “the store absolutely blew me away,” Schapera admits. “It is without question my favorite, other than the Becca store in London, because one would expect to see a store of that caliber in Paris or Milan or somewhere cool in New York or London. I prefer going to Adora than going to Colette in Paris.

“Next is that (owner) Eman Pineda is just such an incredibly talented guy that I have to constantly remind myself about his age. He’s extremely visionary and creative and he’s assembled a brilliant team of people around him who are all so professional and so good at what they do. For a brand like myself, it’s an absolute no-brainer to be partnering with Eman.”

Up next for Becca are mineral makeup powders and a line of lipsticks, which the brand never offered before because it wasn’t part of the “normal Becca look.” These Sheer Tint Lip Colours will put a sexy, nude imprint on the brand’s range of 285 products, which include Rolls-Royce-quality makeup brushes and creamy eye, lip and cheek tints (see box) housed in portable, hygienic tubes.

Truly, Becca has come a long way from its initial Turkish Rose glory days.

“We want to take the company forward and grow into markets where women want that fresh, modern look,” Schapera says. “I want to see Becca become the luxury makeup artist brand of choice.”

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Becca Cosmetics are exclusively available at Adora Department Store, Greenbelt 5, Makati.