As we all wait on baited breath for the big screen debut of Disney’s live action, The Lion King, starring Beyoncé, her famed makeup artist is cooking up a premiere of his own. World-renowned make-up artist Sir John teamed up with Luminess Cosmetics to create a limited-edition capsule collection inspired by the movie and it almost goes without saying that it’s wonderful.
The famed MUA has been in the beauty industry for over a decade and along with being Beyoncé’s coveted makeup artist and dear friend for over five years, he’s also made a name for himself in product development. Sir is behind some of Bey’s most iconic looks, like her famous Vogue magazine cover, her minimal, no make-up make-up looks, and her most iconic red carpet appearances, including her latest at the Wearable Gala where she channeled “The Lion King’s” Nala. Not to mention, he shares the same name as her 1-year-old son, Sir.
Sir John is a global makeup and color artist who reveals his clients’ natural beauty. His appreciation for cosmetics helps capture the essence of women in their truest form.
This is a collaboration that we couldn’t wait to talk about. With Queen Bey playing the voice of Nala in Disney’s remake of The Lion King, it’s only right that her MUA wants to help us achieve our inner feline fierceness on our faces. We had the chance to sit down with Sir John to get all of the details surrounding his 8-piece Lion King x Luminess make-up collection.
Disney’s The Lion King made it’s debut 25 years ago as the first Disney film to celebrate the continent of Africa and it’s culture. So, when Sir John was tapped to create the collection, he went back to where it all started: Africa. Sir traveled to Johannesburg and Cape Town in South Africa spending time on a safari to pull inspiration for the rich palettes. For the six-shade “Kingdom” sculpting palette ($42), Sir John said, “Johannesburg is the most treelined city in the world and has the most vegetation. Going on a safari, you just see so much life. There’s nowhere else you really need to pull inspiration from for a palette like this.”
Sir John took out his phone to share the stunning images of the Safari and said, “Take a look at the color of the dirt. It’s so red. It’s so, so rich. This is everywhere. It’s like the color of a brick. Seeing stuff like this kind of really gets you in the mind of like ‘Okay, this is where we want to take it. This is where we want to go.”
The “Romantic Atmosphere” matte red liquid lipstick ($24) was inspired by the rich dirt that Sir described.
Sir John looked at the characters in the most unexpected ways when creating his make-up collection for a Disney movie that doesn’t have a typical princess. From Nala’s teal blue eyes to natural colors in a lion’s mane, Sir’s vibrant collection is a culmination of different hue’s inspired by the intriguing nature of the wildlife characters and landscape of African royalty.
This collection shows the power, strength, and culture that The Lion King truly means to us. A story of a young, lion prince living in the flourishing African Pride Lands and his journey through adult-hood has left an everlasting impact on us. The movie has had an undoubted influence on our culture, so when we asked Sir John why this collection was so important to him, he said:
“It’s special to me because, although it’s not the first time my name is on a product, this is the first time that I’ve ever released anything in the US, period. And working with a company where I care about the people. I love working with Luminess and I’ve been rocking with Disney since I was a kid. I remember going to see Lion King when I was 8 years old and now we’re all grown-ups. This is a love letter to those girls who are bringing their kids for the first time.”
His appreciation for African pride and royalty made it easy for him to come up with this brilliant capsule collection. And if you’re wondering whether Beyoncé and the rest of Sir john’s celebrity clients will be wearing the collection, he made it very clear that they will.
“I think [Beyoncé] or any one of my girls will be wearing this for a very long time. I’m going to be shoving this down everyone’s throats for a while. Trust me. ‘Do you want to wear something else? Nope, nothing else is available. All I brought is this. I brought ten palettes of this to do your makeup.’”
The 12-color “Can’t-Wait To Be Queen” eyeshadow palette ($42) includes a range of nudes, golden browns, and blues with names of iconic characters such as Mufasa, Simba, Nala, and Zazu for each shade.
The packaging also includes etched images of Simba’s mesmerizing eyes. Sir was estatic about the one-of-a-kind packaging saying, “This is the first time that packaging has been on the market. The packaging technique itself is called etched enamel. It’s all laser-etched out. It’s all hand-drawn, too. If you look at this palette, this is thousands of little dots that are all hand-drawn.”
The collection is buildable and is also cross-functional. The “Circle Of Life” highlighter ($40) can also be used an eyeshadow and some of the brown shadows can be used to sculpt.
With the summer coming, we asked Sir John how to achieve the perfect summer glow. He gave a quick tutorial saying, “Sculpting is like the 2.0 evolution of contouring. Sometimes, contouring can be a bit intimidating to a consumer. But we all know how to slightly start to shade or sculpt but we don’t want to see DCL [or] digital contouring lines. I think that the sculpting palette is going to be essential to illuminate. It’s going to snatch you a bit in terms of sculpting [the face]. The sculpting palette is going to be ideal as well as the highlighter and the eyeshadows. This looks like summer nights to me.”
The limited edition capsule collection will be available at luminesscosmetics.com/disney on June 15th and ULTA.com on June 16th. The Lion King will hit theaters on July 19th.
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