Melania's 'Canceled' Makeup Artist Shows Appreciation To Conservative Women By Selling Them $90 Lip Kits
She may have also been canceled for not being very good at makeup.
We’ve got a real sad story today, folks.
Melania Trump’s longtime makeup artist, Nicole Bryl, revealed last week that she was tragically canceled a decade ago, just for standing by her client. Like so many other right-wing grifters, she was, impressively, canceled before anyone ever even heard of her. Not an easy thing to pull off!
I know what you are thinking “What a loss for makeup artistry and also the world! Especially for those of us who will now never learn how to successfully plaster four ounces of bronzer on one human face.”
During a recent interview podcaster Ahmad Ashrafi, which was primarily meant to be about her business-related aspirations, Bryl was asked why her line of $90 lip kits (a lip kit is lip liner, lipstick and sometimes gloss) is called “Made In America”
Curiously, nothing on the Geocities site where she peddles her wares states that they are actually made in America, but that is an investigation for another day.
Bryl responded by telling the heartbreaking story of how she was in the “one percent” of the most famous and sought-after makeup artists in the whole world until 2017 when she followed the Trumps to the White House and everyone decided she was bad and stopped sending her free stuff.
“It was a rude awakening for me because I had been in the beauty business for so many decades and everyone I knew, everyone, you know the the most amazing fashion editors and people who ran the magazines, Harper’s Bazaar, this, that, whatever, all the major fashion people and beauty people and I would be — every week I would get bags and bags of products for free from the companies. They were dying for me to try it and talk about it. And then all of a sudden everything came to a screeching halt. Why?” she asked.
Why? Because she was working with the Trumps and no one wanted their brand to be associated with the Trumps, because they are terrible human beings. Terrible human beings, may I add, with very bad makeup.
Especially the hand makeup. I don’t know if Bryl is in charge of that weird hand makeup Trump has been wearing, but that is not his shade. And he could use some powder. Or less powder? So hard to tell at this point when it’s caked on like that.
“I was so naive at the time,” she explained. “I didn’t understand why all the doors shut. People totally canceled me. They wouldn’t talk to me. They wouldn’t take my calls. They wouldn’t — they stopped sending me products.”
Oh no! She didn’t get free stuff! It’s almost as if the reason brands send makeup artists free shit is because it is a way to promote their products, and not simply as a “Thank you for being a lovely person” gift. It is a business decision.
One thing I will give beauty consumers over practically any other kind of consumer is that they are absolutely not fucking around when it comes to voting with their dollars. E.L.F.’s stock has been tanking for months, despite the fact that they bought Haley Bieber’s Rhode (which is huge with the Gen Z-ers) and are now going to be in Sephora. Why? Because after having been really good politically for years — which is part of why people really liked them — they put out a commercial featuring comedian Matt Rife, who thinks domestic violence is just hilarious, and then seriously fumbled the apology (and never took it down).
If beauty consumers (and influencers) are going to skeeve a brand because it is associated with the Trumps, it does not make sense to direct one’s promotional dollars towards Trump’s makeup artist, now does it?
Bryl then complained that brands said they’d only take meetings with her if she stopped advertising that she was Melania Trump’s makeup artist all over her Instagram or even denounce the Trumps completely.
“But I thought to myself, you know what, I hate bullies,” she explained. I always have. I think they’re I hate them and no one’s going to bully me. And so if that means that, you know, I’m gonna have a lot of people not like me, I’m fine with that because I love my client and I’m not leaving her side. She’s one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known or worked with and she’s been nothing but kind and she herself has been bullied and I’m not walking away from that. ”
She hates bullies.
The level of delusion one must have to be a Trump supporter (especially to this degree) and to state that they “hate bullies” is unfathomable to me. Like, they can hear the words that come out of his mouth, right?
Bullying is telling a female reporter “Quiet piggy!” Bullying is not “taking you off the PR list” or not wanting to be associated with people who are associated with people who do things like saying “Quiet piggy!” to a female reporter. It’s not that hard.
Bryl then went on to explain that now that they are all back in the White House, she is “leaning into all these incredible conservative women who stood through [sic?] me all the toughest years.”
“This is my tribe,” she said, Not Vogue.”
Yes, because people who do makeup for Vogue are actually, you know, good at doing makeup.
Intrepid reporter that I am, I asked my cousin, who actually is a fancy celebrity makeup artist, about Bryl and whether she really was in the “one percent” of makeup artists.
He responded:
Well, he didn’t know her until she started complaining about how everyone canceled her. This would be quite unusual if she actually were as big as she says she was, because the MUA community is tight AF. Like, they really do all know each other. It’s almost as if she’s lying so that Trump supporters will buy her $90 lip kits and spend $450 on four ounces of her “artisanal face water” that she sells in a plastic airplane travel bottle out of spite.
This is not a situation where she was simply not in a financial position to turn down work — this is what she decided she wanted her brand to be. If you go to her Instagram page, it’s literally all MAGA and pictures of her and the Trumps. It’s not even normal make-up social media content with reviews and tutorials. Though, to be fair, if you search for “Melania makeup tutorial” on YouTube, it does not seem like it is something anyone is exactly clamoring for.
Well, except for this one.
While lots of people do likely (and rightfully!) skeeve any and all members of the Trump entourage, it is also very possible that magazines just don’t want to publish editorials featuring models with oddly-placed blush and eye makeup that makes their eyes look like little bullet holes. Because even as someone who is interested in makeup as an art form, I don’t think I’ve ever checked to see who did the makeup of a particular editorial before unless it was something outrageous like the time Pat McGrath made everyone in the Maison Margiela show look like a creepy glass doll.
My cousin, being a far more tactful person than I, said “I think the issue is that the makeup design and application she is known for is not the way most makeup wearers want to look. For my clients and most celebs and personalities that makeup look is not just branding, it feels heavy handed and doesn’t look or feel modern.”
Which, you know, could also be said of MAGA in general.
I would almost love to see, just once, a MAGA person succeed at something like this without doing the whole “And I Was CANCELED By The Mean Liberals!” shuffle. I mean, as funny as it is that these suckers would pay $90 for a lip kit (for reference: Hourglass is pretty damned pricey and well-known brand and their lip kit is $56) just to “own” libs who will never know they even bought it and will probably never even see their tacky-ass lips in real life, it’s kind of sad that they can’t just rely on their own talent and make things that are actually good.
*Once again — mocking people’s makeup choices is very different from mocking their actual faces or bodies.
** Before you do the “I’m not reading this because I don’t wear makeup!” thing — please take a moment and ask yourself “When was the last time I reacted to something that was coded as a masculine interest that way?” No one likes everything, but the “Ew! Cooties! If I learn something about this I’ll become stupid!” shit does seem to be reserved for things coded as being for women.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
All these people are assholes.
“This is my tribe,” she said, "Not Vogue.”
A Tribe Called (Sex) Pest?