How Andria Tomlin Made It as a Color-Blind Makeup Artist
Making it as a professional makeup artist is no easy feat. For every Pat McGrath, there are hundreds of aspiring young talents looking to break into the industry. (BTW — here are a couple tips to get started.) Now imagine being color-blind, on top of facing stiff competition and hours of training.
"If there's not another colorblind makeup artist, then I'll be the first one," makeup artist Andria Tomlin said in a recent Buzzfeed interview. Andrea has a particular type of color blindness called deuteranomaly, which makes it difficult to see red and green hues, in addition to shades of orange and brown.
Before getting into makeup, Andria served in the Air Force from the age of 18, where she was formally diagnosed for the first time. "I was always different and didn't understand why people said I had on the 'wrong color' of clothing, or why I struggled to see difference in things like dead grass, or different colors on sports uniforms," she explained. After leaving the military, she found a career as a wedding planner, but ended up learning makeup techniques as a backup, after artists failed to show up for brides's big days.
That eventually led her to move to Washington, D.C. and find a position as a Sephora store manager, despite feeling some serious pressure at first. "I was terrified, [but] I accepted the job, and I love how they taught me a lot about color theory," she explained. And that, by the way, is how she's been able to still dream up gorgeous makeup looks for her clients, as well as on herself, as seen on her Instagram.
"I don’t try to force myself to see hues of reds the same way most people do," Andria said. "Instead, I change the color to something I can see. For red-based products, I start out by adding a baseline of blue. The swatches that turn purple have more of a blue-based red. The ones that turn orange have more of a yellow-based red. If it turns brown, its a healthy mix." Suddenly, that color wheel poster hanging in the art classroom actually makes a lot of sense.
Eschewing traditional methods, Andria's found what works for her when it comes to doing everyday tasks like color-matching foundation shades or coordinating a statement smoky eye, never letting her color blindness stop her from achieving her dream and booking jobs. Another hack that has come in handy for her? Using her phone's camera filters to adjust colors in a way that she can see herself — which is probably the best use of an Instagram filter we can think of, TBH.
"I have accepted that I will never be the artist who can look at a picture and recreate it exactly," she said. "But my work is literally walking around, all my my work is on my client's faces, that's my reputation. Being able to do it, and love it, that's what I'm most proud of."
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