Hunter Schafer on Wielding Eyeliner Like an Artist’s Pen and Euphoria’s Beauty Legacy
In just a few short years, Hunter Schafer has come to embody the utter joy and liberation of expressing oneself through individual, highly imaginative style. In sparing no detail, the 22-year-old model, actor, and LGBTQ rights activist has become Gen Z’s foremost makeup disruptor too: both onscreen in her first-ever acting role portraying trans teenager Jules Vaughn on HBO’s Euphoria, where she’s collaborated with lead makeup artist Doniella Davy on array of now iconic looks, and off of it, shining on the red carpet with directional, avant-garde beauty statements that run the gamut from a splash of pearls across the eyes to a Swarovski-encrusted finger inspired by Tokyo lights at night.
Given her cerebral approach to beauty, it’s only natural that Schafer, who honed her makeup skills in part through her visual arts education (she graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts in 2017), would join forces with a brand like Shiseido, becoming the Japanese brand’s Global Makeup Ambassador. “Shiseido has their finger on a pulse that’s really artistic and kind of free in the sense of approaching makeup with a freedom and an acknowledgement of yourself, and doing what makes you feel good,” Schafer tells Vogue over Zoom, wearing a sculptural white Yohji Yamamoto confection with an ethereal complexion and a metallic glitter manicure. “That’s really how I like to approach makeup in whatever form that takes, whether it’s something more glamorous or something more artistic and expressive—they kind of have all the tools to bring those looks to life.”
Ahead of the forthcoming second Euphoria special episode, which centers on Jules, Schafer discusses how makeup is inextricably linked to her self-expression and the impact of Euphoria on the next generation of beauty rule-breakers.
Vogue: From your earliest memories through today, how has makeup served as a tool of self-expression for you?
Hunter Schafer: It’s come a long way from where I started. [Laughs.] I definitely began experimenting with makeup sort of in secret, like stealing my sister’s stuff and doing it behind closed doors in my bedroom just to see how it felt and see how it looked. And then it moved into like sneaking it to school and putting it on, like, in the bathroom once I got to school and then taking it off before my parents picked me up. And then, you know, in high school I got more comfortable with it and was at a different place with myself and began to kind of have more fun with it. And that’s kind of evolved into like where I’m at now, where it’s really just about making sure there’s a harmony between how I feel on the inside and making sure that’s represented on the outside.
Do you remember the first makeup look you ever created?
One of the first times I had ever experimented with makeup was at a sleepover when I was in middle school. We got into my friend’s eye shadow and eyeliner, and I remember applying, like, orange and red eye shadow and then doing these black flame lines on top of it. It was a lot of fun.
From choosing colors to sketching shapes, how does being a visual artist and illustrator inform your approach to makeup?
I think they go hand in hand. As far as when it comes to color, mixing color in gradients, line work, and variation of like line thickness and stuff, it can all be translated to terms that I learned when I studied visual art. Those are all things we learned in drawing and painting class and even in sculpture, you know? So when I’m thinking about doing an eye shadow look, I think about it in the context of an oil painting, which is all about doing a lot of thin layers of colors to create something more dimensional. Or, it might be something super graphic, like a line drawing with an eyeliner or something. It all makes a lot of sense to me in my head that way and has made it that much more fun to approach artistically.
Do you like to do makeup on other people too?
Yeah! I think I’m probably better at doing makeup on…well, actually, maybe not. I’m not sure. [Laughs.] But I know I liked doing my friends’ and having my friends do my makeup. I think it’s really funny. It’s actually sometimes a struggle because when they’re doing something on your eyes, you’re half looking at them and they’re super close to your face and all you can see is this sort of deformed blob that’s their face. I usually can’t stop laughing and then it becomes an issue. But yeah, I really love experimenting with [makeup] with my friends, on my friends, you know?
As a creative, where do you draw inspiration, and how does it translate to beauty?
I draw inspiration from everything, like artists that I’m thinking about at the time. I just bought a book about Aya Takano yesterday and I’ve been looking at those photos, and I think she has really wonderful references for makeup, for fashion, for anything really. But also like my friends, musicians…I mean, inspiration is inspiration. And also more than anything else, I’ve used art to feel like I can express myself or let myself shine through in a way that I might not be able to otherwise.
What are a few of the makeup products you can’t live without right now?
I’m really excited about the Radiant Lifting Foundation, especially in this press round when I’m having to dress up more and do more put-together looks. I never want to look too covered up or anything like that. And so this foundation feels really, really perfect for that. It feels like I’m wearing nothing. It also just enables a glow to happen that I feel is just a really nice canvas to, you know, experiment with other things on top, like for squiggles or sparkles or whatever it may be.
Recently I’ve been playing with eyeliner a little bit. I did an Instagram post not too long ago where I had drawn these symbols on my face with the Shiseido MicroLiner, which has a super fine point. It really felt like I was using one of my art pens, too! I drew one of my favorite symbols for my community on one side and then a sword on the other, which are, like, both motifs in my art or, like, my sketchbook, I would say. And that was really fun. In that case it was black eyeliner, but I’ve been experimenting with the colored liners and these colorful ControlledChaos mascaras as well. So they can match up or contrast. That’s been fun to mix and match with whatever else is happening on my face!
Over the past two years, Euphoria has had such a major influence on youth culture and beyond. What did you love about stepping into the role of Jules, and how did makeup help you get into character?
It was my first time acting, like coming into Jules. So thankfully the team on Euphoria, from Sam, the writer and creator of the show, to Donni, it’s been a massively collaborative experience. So I had a lot of hand in helping bring Jules to life. And, particularly with the makeup with Donni, we had so much fun just kind of brainstorming these abstract, colorful looks that reflect a certain scene or emotional energy. I think we try to be pretty mindful of how makeup can accentuate or contrast something that we’re trying to portray in a scene. So it’s a lot of fun to think about. We had a lot of fun just constantly trying to outdo ourselves with the design.
It was so touching and striking to see how many young kids were recreating makeup looks from the show. What is it like to see that?
I still can’t believe it’s reached as far as it has. I mean, it’s really sweet to see kids seeing themselves in these characters and being able to try that on. I also just think, as a whole, Euphoria approaches makeup with a creativity that I hope is encouraging of its audience to just do whatever they want, because that’s kind of all we did for the show. We were like, “Let’s do whatever, let’s have fun with it!”
