A 101 GUIDE TO ISAMAYA

From starting her career painting children’s faces at parties to consulting and creating make up lines for Byredo, Tom Ford and Burberry, Isamaya Ffrench is the world renowned make up artist that puts avant in avant-garde. Offering innovative products that break beauty boundaries, ISAMAYA allows you to transform your face and bring otherworldly creations to life. 

To celebrate the brand’s launch here at Cult Beauty, we sat down with Isamaya herself to talk about everything from how the beauty landscape is changing and what inspired her to create her brand to her must-have products and more. Brushes, bullets and palettes at the ready... 

WHO IS ISAMAYA FFRENCH 

Famed for working on some of the world’s most famous faces – think: Bella Hadid, Rihanna, Kendal Jenner and Madonna, Isamaya French is a British MUA famed for her contemporary, boundary-breaking looks. Blending conceptual art, storytelling and sculptural techniques, she continuously challenges the beauty norms and celebrates imperfections, diversity and the conventional standards of attractiveness. This led her to grace the pages of fashion magazines from Vogue to Dazed and i-D – with one of her most famous front covers being Rihanna sporting skinny 90’s brows and luscious, glossy burgundy lips. 

WHAT INSPIRED ISAMAYA FFRENCH TO CREATE ISAMAYA  

A trailblazer in the beauty space for her unconventional approach to make up, Isamaya tells us why she finally decided to create her own collection. “I’ve worked in the cosmetics industry for over a decade for some of the most unique, luxury brands and had such amazing opportunities to develop make up lines and do creative direction for them. When lockdown happened, I had all this time to think about what my own brand would look like…. Even though these partnerships were extremely formative, I wanted to create a line without the restrictions that come with established brands and really push the creative narrative, so founding my own brand became a non-negotiable” she says. Having worked on so many unique faces and using a range of brands, formulas and techniques Isamaya explains that “working with different products gave me a great understanding of what people expect from make up, how the market works and what makes a good product.” Et voila, ISAMAYA was born. 

WHAT MAKES ISAMAYA STAND OUT 

Describing her brand as “make up that allows you to become closer to who you are on the inside”, Isamaya wanted her brand to “reflect love for beautiful objects and images, which translate into luxury bespoke packaging that you want to keep” she recalls. "Presenting visions with very strong, elevated visuals that feel more like a story than an advert to sell mascara”, the founder explains how she is also “very hands on with product development spending several days every month in the lab to get everything right to create exciting, innovative, high-quality products.”  

But that's not all... Each ISAMAYA product fuses skin care technology with powerful colour payoff in detailed, sculptural packaging. Not only is each formula a dream to use, blend and buff, but it feels unique and special to hold. Always on the hunt to change the beauty narrative, Isamaya explained that “it’s not very difficult to do something that gets attention, because the beauty industry has been playing by the same rules for decades and there’s never been the same level of experimentation in beauty as there has been in the field of fashion. There are so many tools at your disposal in the cosmetics world now, and the combinations are endless as are images and inspiration online. If you care to experiment to find out what really works for you and feels like you, it can do anything.”  

WHAT’S NEXT FOR ISAMAYA 

So, what more can we expect from ISAMAYA? “I have a core line coming out next year… it’s very exciting and new in terms of packaging, technology and formula…  but before that, lots of fun collabs with people I truly respect within the industry, which is very exciting...” Watch this space! 

Now that we’ve learnt the who, what and why about the brand, let’s get into the nitty-gritty. By that we mean getting up close and personal with some of ISAMAYA’S bestsellers.  

ISAMAYA BESTSELLERS