Normani has shown everyone her “wild side” and now she’s giving us an inside look into her beauty routine. The multi-talented artist revealed her beauty secrets and how she achieves her 90s-inspired makeup look with Vogue.
Check it out below:
Vogue/YouTube
Cleanser:
Before starting her makeup routine, Normani washed her face with iS Clinical Cream cleanser. “I have struggled with acne for like the last 10 years and it really has been a journey,” she revealed. Next, she put on 111Skin Sub-Zero De-Puffing Energy Mask Box and used a face roller to rub the mask in. “I’m definitely the girl on the plane with the acne stickers. I’ve definitely worn pimple cream in the airport,” she said, continuing to talk about her skin journey. “I don’t care. I’m comfort over everything.”
She followed up the mask with iS Clinical Pro-Heal Serum Advance+ which she said helps with hyperpigmentation and iS Clinical Hydra-Cool Serum for the “glow you want.” Lastly, she applied sunscreen and eye drops before moving on to makeup.
Vogue/YouTube
Makeup:
First things first, the “Fair” singer brushed her eyebrows and then used Anatasia Beverly Hills' brow pencil to achieve natural strokes. The last step to her brows involved her using Anastasia Beverly Hills Brow Freeze Styling Wax. As stated earlier, the 26-year-old deals with hyperpigmentation and so she uses MAC Studio Fix Conceal & Correct palette to help even her skin.
While applying her concealer she shared how her mom influenced her approach to beauty. “I also grew up watching my mom do her hair and makeup and I wanted to be just like her,” she said. “So, I think that’s where that fascination and love for makeup and hair come from.”
Vogue/YouTube
Normani also shared how her parents helped her feel confident in herself. “I was also one of three Black kids in elementary school so that was really hard for me,” she recalled. “I remember just going home and be like mom, ‘can you press my hair? I wish my skin was lighter. I wish I had colored eyes.’ But my parents really encouraged me that my superpower was my Black girl melanin and my Black girl magic.” And so she makes sure to pass the same message down to younger Black girls.
Vogue/YouTube
Next, Fenty Beauty Pro Filt'r Instant Retouch setting powder is applied followed by Dior Backstage Face & Body Foundation. For eyes, she used Fenty Beauty Match Stix Contour Skinstick for her eyeshadow base. When describing her technique, she said “So, what I’m doing is I’m starting from the outer and working my way in so I can create more space and just create a more snatched look.”
Vogue/YouTube
When it comes to liner, she likes using the brown shade from KVD Beauty Tattoo Liner Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner for a more natural look, and then she goes back in with the Fenty Beauty Sun Stalk'r Face + Eye Bronzer & Highlighter palette for the eyeshadow.
“I feel like I always try to give ‘90s actress vibes when it comes to my makeup,” she said. “I love Nia Long, even Toni Braxton. Just regal and brown and let it be about skin and light contour.”
She added, “I love a good ‘90s lip though. I be on my Mary J. Blige.”
Vogue/YouTube
She used Yves Saint Laurent Touche Éclat All-Over brightening pen in a lighter shade to “add more dimension” to her face. She then added a cream blush and debunked the myth that Black girls can’t wear blush.
“There’s such a misconception too, especially with dark skin women,” she said. She added more foundation, this time using MAC Studio Fix Powder Plus Foundation.
To make her eyes pop, she used Yves Saint Laurent Lash Clash Extreme Volume Mascara on her bottom lashes.
To top off the perfect ‘90s look, she overlined her lips with Rokael beauty lip liner and matte lipstick. And for a twist, she used Dior Addict lip glow oil on her eyelids and Sol de Janeiro GlowMotions Glowing body oil to achieve a ‘90s bronze look.
Normani's ’90s-Inspired Makeup Routine | Beauty Secrets | Vogue
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Featured image by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
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A Goddard College graduate, who earned an MFA from Pratt Institute and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Marymount Manhattan College, Mahogany offers unapologetic realness with a side of grace and empowerment. "I started touring locally. I started creating chat books so that those poems will go in the hands of the people who were sitting in the rooms," she shared.
"And then I started facilitating poetry workshops, so I used my chat books as curriculum. And that, in turn, allowed me to further invest in my art and show the community and people who were hiring me that it wasn't just a one-off, that it's not just, you know, a fly by night—that I am invested in this art as much as I am invested in your community, in your children's learning, in our growth."
Mahogany has a special way of moving audiences, and her superpower sparks shifts in perspective, post-performance introspection, and strengthening of community bonds, especially among Black women. (One can undeniably recognize her gift for arousal of the spirit and mind merely from her listening to her insights from the other side of a Google Hangout call. I can only imagine the soul-stirring, top-tier sensory encounter when watching her perform in person.)
In this chat with xoNecole, Mahogany reflects on sustaining a creative career, the aftermath of writing a banned book, and using poetry for both healing, community-building, and activism.
Anthony Artis
xoNecole: What are three key things that have laid the foundation for a sustainable creative career for you?
Mahogany L Browne: What has helped me is that I'm willing to go in being an expert at knowing poetry and knowing the way in which art can change the landscape of our lives, not just as a poet, but also as a poetry facilitator. How you move through classes, those things are mastered, right? So when I go into another space that's maybe tech-heavy, I don't mind learning and being, you know, a student of the wonder of how we can make this magic, work together.
Two, you’ve got to know how to pivot. Sometimes we say, ‘Alright, this is what my life is going to be. I'm going to be a New York Times best-selling author. I'm going to, you know, have an album that's Grammy-nominated. And then, say you get dropped from your record label. That doesn't mean you can't make an album anymore. You can also still create an album that can be submitted to the Grammys. So, what does a pivot look like as an artist who doesn't have an institution behind them? Pivot being a student of the wonder.
Relationships also really help. How do I serve the community? And in turn, that tells me how the community can show up. For me, I have long-standing ties with a community that will outlast my one life. So, what does it mean to create space where these relationships can develop, can be nurtured, can be rooted, can be cultivated? Creating space—it happens through relationships.
xoN: With today’s economic challenges, what does your current creative process look like, and what are you working on?
MB: I’m always thinking five years ahead. I just reviewed the pages for two children’s books and recently released a YA novel. I’m drafting an adult fiction manuscript now.
Anything I create is founded with the root of poetry, but it can exist in captions. It can exist in commercials. It can exist as a musical. So that's where I’m at now.
xoN: You started performing "Black Girl Magic" in 2013, had an acclaimed performance of it via PBS and the work went on to viral success shortly after. Talk more about the inspiration. And what do you think about the continued relevance more than a decade later?
MB: I wrote it as a rally cry for the mothers who had been keeping themselves truly in harm's way by, you know, being a part of the community right after the death of their child or their loved one. They are usually mothers of victims of police brutality—and just seeing how they showed up in these community spaces, they are devout to the cause but obviously still grieving.
"I wanted this poem to be just a space of reclamation, of joy and of you, of your light, of your shine, of your brilliance, in any which way in which you fashion. Every room you enter is the room you deserve to be in. What does it mean to have a poem like that that exists?"
And the first time I did the poem, the Weeping that occurred, right? It was like this blood-letting of sorts. The next time I performed it, I'm moved to tears because I'm seeing how it's affecting other women who have just been waiting to hear, ‘You belong. You deserve. You are good. We see you. Thank you, despite everything that they said to make you regret being born in this beautiful brown, dark-skinned, light-skinned, but Black body.’
Black women are the backbone—period. Point blank. And so, that that poem became a necessity, not just to the fortitude of Black women in the community, but like you know, in service of healing the Black women.
xoN: One of your books was banned at a school in Boston, and it was later reinstated due to parental and activist support. What was that experience like?
MB: Well, I think it happened because they were racist. That's it. Point blank. The reversal of it was empowering, right? I realized, oh, I thought we just had to sit here and be on a banned book list. But no, parents are actually the leaders of this charge.
So to see that, the parents said, ‘Nah, we're not gonna let you take this book out of my baby’s school just because it's a Black kid on the front saying, ‘Woke’ and they're talking about being a global citizen. They're talking about accountability. They're talking about accessibility. They're talking about allyship, and you don't want them to have compassion or empathy or have even an understanding, right? So no, we rebuke that, and we want this book here anyway.’ To see that happen in that way. I was, like, reaffirmed. Absolutely.
xoN: You recently organized the Black Girl Magic Ball at the Lincoln Center in New York. Honorees included author and entrepreneur Rachel Cargle and National Black Theater CEO Sade Lythcott. What impact did it have and what expanded legacy do you hope to leave with your creative works?
MB: I was really interested in not celebrating just the book, but celebrating the community that made the book possible. And so I gave out five awards to women doing that thing, like, what does it mean to be a Black girl in this world?
I just thought it was gonna be an amazing time. Everybody's gonna dress up—we're gonna celebrate each other. And boom, I then realized that it responded to like a gaping hole. There was a missing thing for Black girls of all walks of life, all ages, right?
"It's very intergenerational. That was intentional to come together and celebrate just being us."
You have all these instances where just being you is either the butt of a joke or it's diminished and not worthy of a specific title in these larger institutions. So what does it mean to just to be loved up on and celebrated?
It felt like a self-care project at first. You know, for the first couple of years, folks were coming and they were getting that sisterhood. They were getting that tribe work that they were missing in their everyday lives.
I love the Black Girl Magic Ball because we got us. If I go out with a bang, they'll remember that Mahogany worked her a** off to make sure all the Black girls everywhere knew that she was the light. We are the blueprint.
For more information on Mahogany L. Browne, her work, and her future projects, visit her website or follow her on IG @mobrowne.
Featured image by Anthony Artis
