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Aurore Gibrien was born and raised on the Caribbean island of Guadalupe. At 15, she left to live in Paris and pursue her obsession with makeup artistry. A bold move but one that certainly paid off — because now we're on the phone talking about her first (but surely not last) Allure shoot.
Relaxed and charming, Gibrien somehow convinces me that my French is better than her English (I'm still not sure about that) and we proceed in her mother tongue. And that is how I got a crash refresher in my French beauty vocabulary — and will never again confuse cils (eyelashes) and sourcils (eyebrows). Or at least not for a while.
Ultimately, Gibrien's unfettered approach to makeup transcends language — and any preconceived notions. In her mind, the best plan is not to have one. It's a sense of freedom she cultivated while learning her craft on her first model: herself. Symmetry, color theory, convention… who needs them? Gibrien created every look here in the moments before the camera started clicking. "I had a model in front of me and what do I do? It was totally spontaneous," she says. "I let my brush and my brain take over." Her challenge to the rest of us: Why not do the same in front of our own mirrors? "Anything is possible — you make it your own," she says. “You just have to be at ease with what you're wearing. It's like fashion. You pick clothes to dress your body, you choose makeup to dress your face.”
A Rosy Outlook
Cheekbones achieve new heights when saturated with color and contrasted against bleached-out brows dusted with yellow shadow.
Blue Note
The key ingredient here: Nars Tinted Smudge-Proof Eyeshadow Base Primer. It holds on to powders for dear life "and it's totally transparent, so I can use it on dark and light skin tones," says Gibrien.
Icy Hot
Warm colors like red, orange, and pink take on a fresh effect when contrasted with a cool metallic silver, says Gibrien.
Feeling Flush
When you're wearing a teal micro bob, your statement has been made. So, for her part, Gibrien says, "I thought just a pop of orange was enough." But, she notes, it's a pop with a twist: The blush is higher on one side than the other. "It's subtle but it's there — like the asymmetry of the earrings, more on one side than the other."
Golden Arches
"Bleached brows give you more space to be creative, to play with shape and form," says Gibrien. By the end of the shoot, this model loved the flexibility of her new brows so much that she declined Gibrien's offer to dye them back to their natural color.
Cheek to Cheek
"I'm not a big fan of blush," says Gibrien. Come again? A clarification: "If I do blush, it's strong, for contrast and statement. Otherwise, I don't do it. There's no in-between."
Accent Marks
"I wanted to show that even a small pop of color can add flash," says Gibrien. Mission accomplished. With just two dots of yellow, classic makeup colors like pastel pink and deep brown feel new again.
Fashion stylist: Elena Mottola. Hair: Pablo Kuemin. Makeup: Aurore Gibrien. Manicure: Cam Tran. Production: Zoé Martin. Casting: IKKI Casting. Models: Cassie Wong and Lucia Clement at Premium Models.
A version of this story originally appeared in the December 2022 issue of Allure.
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