Shy and quiet Belinda Chatterton finished fourth on Netflix's Glow Up, but her Instagram show's she's really and truly an MUA mega star.
There’s something people aren’t talking about enough, and that’s Belinda Chatterton’s glorious, mind-bogglingly good makeup artistry. Belinda entered the stage on season 1 of Netflix’s competition series, Glow Up. She was shy, quiet, and quintessentially British in almost every way. Next to her loud, outspoken, and brightly painted fellow MUAs, she often got lost in the mix. But shame on anyone who let her go unnoticed because “Ding-Dong!” the girl’s got talent. And that’s Talent with a capital T.
Time after time, the quiet girl in the corner reminded everyone not to discount her. No shade to Leigh, who only picked up a makeup brush nine months prior to being on the show and placed second, nor to Ellis who won the whole dang show, but Belinda’s art is tip-top. Judged weekly by Dominic Skinner (senior artist at MAC) and Val Garland (global makeup director for L’Oréal Paris and overall legend), Belinda was the first contestant to receive a critique on the show. Val said it was beautiful in the real, but questioned if it was camera worthy. Then they quickly moved on. Later, in the contestants’ first brief, the MUAs were asked to show the judges what beauty looks like to them. Belinda painted her mother’s favorite flowers across her model’s neck and chest, a simple flower on the lip, and leaves on the eye, impressing the judges with her subtlety. Her quiet presence earned her the complement of finding beauty without all the drama. But, let’s not get it twisted, Belinda can do drama. Her specialty is illusion makeup and to see her at her best, one only has to head on over to her Instagram page where the proof of her mastery is endless.
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Instagram really can tell a story. You can see Belinda find herself and her voice over the course of her time on Instagram. She joined in March 2014 and posted mostly simple, dramatic eye makeup looks. But within a matter of months she’d topped ten thousand followers. How? Her ability to turn a face into a skeleton mesmerized and caught everyone’s attention. But it was her post of a half skull/half beautiful human face that seemed to really snag her audience. The seamless illusion is shocking to look at and completely captivating. Two weeks of Halloween inspired trick makeup saw her hit fifteen thousand followers. That’s when she started to really hit her stride. She painted eyes beneath her eyes and lips beneath her lips and posted an image that makes you wonder if the world is spinning. The double-vision inducing makeup is truly remarkable and makes you feel dizzy when you see it. The life-like realness makes it incredibly easy to see why her followers were blown away by it. But she didn’t stop there. She turned her face into a house, the Grinch, a reindeer, Gollum, Pumba, a snarling wolf, and a goth butterfly. She painted fingertips protruding through her skin, grabbing at her face. A portrait of Minnie Mouse removed any hint of human features from her face and transformed it into a true artist’s canvas. She painted a hand bursting from her chest that looks so real you want to urge her to go to the hospital. And all this in her first year on Instagram!
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Not long after, Belinda hit thirty thousand followers. Then, her world turned upside down. She had a baby! Sadly, this cute little baby boy, Alfie, kept Belinda from dazzling us with her art for a bit, but it wasn’t long before this new mum was back at it with her makeup brushes. She painted faces being unzipped. She turned gashes into glamor, merging beauty and brutality in an intoxicating cocktail. Faces turned into porcelain masks that looked like you could easily just lift them up and off the model and hang them on a wall like true pieces of art. Then she perfected the art of painting water, and her talent really took off. The trick element of her craft took a backseat to enhance her art. Swirls and flowers and shapes and water droplets started popping off her face as if to say, “This is what it’s all about!” The art was singing. She disregards the natural contours of a person’s face, and transforms the face into something entirely her own. It is a thing of wonder to behold.
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Then she appeared on Glow Up and beat back her competitors with her practiced hand. She really made her mark in episode three when the judges asked the contestants to create a “two faced” look representing both sides of their personalities. Belinda put a builder’s paint brush in her hair sticking straight up creating the illusion of it leaving a trail of paint across her face, covering one eye. One of her perfected bulbous tears dripped from the other. The look was jaw-dropping. The one and only Nikkie de Jager, that week’s guest judge, predicted that the look would go viral, the internet would swoon, and people everywhere were going to imitate the look and stick paint brushes in their hair.
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But then Belinda, the master of the circus, did something completely unexpected. For Glow Up’s Fashion Week challenge, Belinda went completely minimal, outlining the lips in orange and circling the eyes with thin, UFO-inspired, green and blue halos. The judges and Belinda’s Instagram followers couldn’t get enough. They were completely obsessed. From then on, Belinda’s makeup was the end-all-be-all. The secret of her ability was out and her star was shining as bright as can be.
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Since fans can’t get enough of her and her makeup, this mega talented MUA always remembers to keep her audience posted on her personal life. After leaving Glow Up (placing fourth), Belinda hit one hundred thousand followers. She also had another baby, this time a little girl, Elodie Beau! Glow Up was just the beginning for this crazy cool MUA and we can’t wait to see what she does next.
Source: Belinda Chatterton
