In Conversation x Mei Pang
Interview by Fae Reid
Fae Reid: How and when did you start doing makeup?
Mei Pang: I have always been in the arts. I originally went to art university for traditional drawing and painting with a minor in screen printing. Realised that I am a very mid painter, I knew I couldn’t make the big bucks in traditional canvas painting. Took a break from that, reset myself, worked for the government for a little bit, worked for a tech start-up, found my love in makeup probably 6, 7, kissing 8 years ago. But I haven’t done this seriously and/or full-time until the pandemic started so probably four/five years.
F.R: What is your favourite thing about doing makeup?
M.P: I love to see how far I can take it. I always loved to make myself super uncomfortable, try different techniques, different ways to iterate either classic looks and taking my own spin on it, reference painters and every day for me is different and I love that!
F.R: How long has your longest make-up look taken?
M.P: On average it takes me around 4 hours for each look. So, wake up at 4 in the morning start my makeup around 5am and I am done by 9am. That is usually when I get my hard out before my brain cells start eating at each other. However, the longest look for me has been, I think it was 7 hours, and I was over it by the end of that. I know my colleagues, they put their whole back into it. I know one of my friends they slept in their makeup because it took so long, so they could finish it the next day! Isn’t that incredible, that is not me, that is not me. I can only stare at myself for so long before my face isn’t my face anymore. So around 7-8 hours is probably my longest one.
F.R: Do you have a favourite makeup step?
M.P: I think, because my makeup definitely ranged from super painterly to more hyper realistic, I would say there is not a particular step. However, I would say my favourite thing to do within the makeup is add dimension. If I am doing, for example recently I did a centipede look in my face like adding in those little shadows for the legs just to push the dimension, it’s a welcomed challenge it definitely calls back in my art university days, but it makes me really happy.
F.R: How do you go about planning your makeup looks?
M.P: Usually how it works is the night before, I have art reference books downstairs, and I take a flick through see generally what shapes can catch my eye or what themes, so there could be like and animal, a bug, nature, I lean a lot towards nature, or I go through my little bin of arts and crafts and I’m like “ah yeah sure I can do something like that”. Once I find a generally themed background I pick colour scheme, so I have this little book called ‘A dictionary of colour combinations’ and it shows you all the different iterations you can choose, that’s my second step is always choose a colour scheme to base everything off of. And then the morning of I don’t draw out my face charts, I don’t have like a fully conceptual idea of what the end is, but that’s what excites me. I just hope for the best every time.
“A lot of people assume that I sit in silence when I do my make up..how psychotic do you think I am?! just sitting there with my tiny little brushes…🤣”
F.R: If you weren’t a makeup artist what career do you think you would do instead?
M.P: Oooo I’ve thought about it. My father’s always told me try everything once and if it sticks it sticks and if it doesn’t at least you tried. So, I have done a lot of careers in my past life to the point where if I wasn’t doing this now I would definitely try something different. Number one I think I would go back to school honestly, I would. One of my biggest pet peeves in my personal life is I hate feeling stupid. I hate it, don’t love it and the one thing that made me feel stupid is the concept of finances and accounting and business in general because that’s the one thing that being on social media full-time is that no one teaches you. Okay you are your own provider you have to make a corporation. I figured it out, however along the way I felt kind of silly. People would ask me questions that I wouldn’t know the answer to, so I would go back to school for some sort of accounting CPA business degree.
F.R: Now let’s talk about your incredible tattoos! How many do you actually have?
M.P: This is the funniest thing because I say to all my closest friends and family that I am the biggest liar whenever I have an interview. I make up a number on the spot, so like one interview I will come out and be like I have 140 and one comes out like a week after and I’m like I have 90. I would say I have over 100, the last time I counted was probably a year ago I have over 100 but my tattoos are symmetrical so wat you see on one side you see on the other side. So, like original ideas probably like 60.
F.R: Do you have a reasoning behind them all being symmetrical?
M.P: The first tattoo I go was in the middle of my stomach, the person who inspired it was Rhianna shoutout to her. When I got my second tattoo which was a tiny one right here (on arm) I just got one and one only, left the shop and felt a little bit lopsided mentally just looking at myself, because it’s like black ink visually it was kind of like unbalanced. It weighed me down, so I called up my artist and I ask him “listen I know it’s like crazy bones, but would you take the exact same design and put it on the other side” and he said “okay psycho” and it’s been symmetrical ever since.
F.R: This might be like choosing a child, but do you have a favourite tattoo?
M.P: I don’t! I have a favourite portion of my body. One thing people assume of me, maybe it’s because I’m a Virgo is that I plan out everything, and I don’t. So, the fact that my décolletage, my chest area, flows so well within each other when I had no general plan, it just like tickles the right part of my brain. So, my chest is probably my favourite part.
F.R: Which one was the most painful tattoo?
M.P: I will give you the top 3. Number one is my butt. I have my full ass cheeks tattooed. You would think it’s like squidgy it should be fine, NO! There is so much muscle ad it’s like tense muscle, it felt like a hot butter knife like going through your skin and I was there for 4 hours literally face down ass up, it was so visceral. I remember I was in Toronto, and I didn’t have a car at this point, getting into the uber as if I had a BBL. I army crawled into the back seat of this uber, he’s like “you okay”, it’s 2pm he probably thought I was blackout drunk and I am like “yeah I’m fine, I’m so good”. That was number 1! Number 2 is the top of the head. The sides are fine, the sides are okay but like right here (points the top of her head). The reason why, number one because it’s incredibly painful but also the whole experience, I had to lay with my arms cross and my head on my arms. I usually distract myself with mobile games or watching something and the fact that its likes you can feel it in your head, and you can hear as well. That was a little much. Then number 3 is hip bones, don’t love it.
F.R: What is it about tattoos that makes you like getting them?
M.P: People, they look at me and if they don’t know me, they assume that I do this for attention. That I look like this, make a statement to, I don’t know, be cool da da da you know. I’ve been called an attention seeker like enough times to where I have to say it out loud that the way that I look and the way that I perceive myself, I feel like a normal human being I feel like everyone else on the street, sitting next to like a random auntie on the bus. I don’t feel any different than these people. I am comfortable in my body, and I feel like I was always made, like I was meant to be covered in tattoos and have no hair. This is my normal.
F.R: When did you start doing social media?
M.P: I have always had some sort of social media, but mainly as a viewer. I call myself like a self-proclaimed internet kid. I’m going to age myself real hard right now, but I had an account on myspace, Friendster, Tumblr, Gaia Online, Neo pets, I’ve had like a form of social media that was conceived at the very beginning I’ve had. But I have always been a viewer, you know I’ve always been a consumer. I didn’t start posting my makeup until maybe 6 years ago, but it was for family and friends essentially, I didn’t take it seriously at all I’m like “oooo gold cut crease, eat that up” joking my mother does not have social media she has generally no idea what I do bless her heart. But then I didn’t start really taking it seriously till the beginning of the pandemic and that kind of pushed my craft. I was like okay I have all this time in the world, I don’t have to go outside, and I love art, might as well you know step away from just a winged liner and go towards something that is more avant-garde.
F.R: Do you have a favourite thing about social media and a worst thing about it?
M.P: My favourite thing about it I will say is that I feel like a very lucky girl where the things that I post and makeup looks that I do, my little pocket they understand me right. They understand me, and it’s not an echo chamber they aren’t eating me up every time, I’ve got critiques and I think that’s fantastic because if you’re not afraid to talk to me in that way number one, and then number two I get to push myself to see and hear other people’s critiques, criticisms, and their thoughts that’s fantastic. Because I would never meet these people in real life, we are all over the world. So, I fully enjoy that part of social media.
Worst part, I wouldn’t say is absolutely awful, but it is one thing that I struggle with is that I come from a background, like working for the government for example, it doesn’t really matter what I look like I just have to do my job. You know put in those little spreadsheet numbers, close my laptop at 4:30pm, you know Sharon’s having a birthday lunch, you go in high five, you go home, and you don’t have to think about it after that once you go home. Whereas social media it’s like my business is who I am as a person. It’s my face, it’s the things that I say, it’s the things that I do. I am a very private person, so it’s been a challenge to give everyone enough, so they know generally who I am but not give them everything where I don’t have myself, I don’t have my own identity away from the screen.
Speaking on the whole closer your laptop at 4:30pm it’s like social media it’s youthful time I am always thinking about it, like people go on TikTok and Instagram to relax, I try to go on their to relax and I’m like wait no I need to think about something to post on my stories and the platforms they want to much from you, where I talked to my partner managers at these social media platforms and they’re like post 7 stories a day and I’m like “girl I don’t… you don’t think I do enough to post 7 things”.
F.R: You modelled for the Savage X Fenty runway in 2021. What was that experience like?
M.P: It is my magnum opus even though it happened like 3 years ago. I will still talk about it so I am so glad you asked. Say a dream come true is such a massive understatement. The whole rush of it. I’ve never really experienced a shoot like that or a runway to begin with, I’ve never done a runway before, so to hear that Rhianna found me on social media, this is what the producer said that they found me on social media super late at night sent it to the producer asked me to get on it, I am on the flight the next day! Rhianna says jump, I said how high? Next thing you know I’m on a plane, I’m in LA, it was my birthday the same day which is incredible. The thing is that is so funny is that I could not tell anyone that I was doing this, so my friends my family were calling “what are you doing”, and I am like “I’m just at home just relaxing”. I had to take a runway class of this and the section that I was in was called like ‘social media celebrities’ or something ‘celebrities’ in general so to have such eclectic group of people it melted my mind. There’s like photos of me and I’m disassociated because Emily Ratajkowski is on my right, Nyjah Huston, the gold medal skateboarder is on my left, I am led paint staring because I am like this is not my life right now. So yeah, it was amazing.
F.R: Within your career is there anything you would like to dive into a bit more?
M.P: It has been a dream of mine, it still is, I would love to start creating concept for fashion runway. I would love to talk to the houses, because I am seeing an uptick of fun, more bold makeup. I feel like there was that 5-year period where it was super minimal, the clothes were fantastic, but the makeup was very like bare skin, bit of gloss on the cheekbone. Now we’re getting to the point where we are creating a fantasy and I want to be a part of that, I want to help houses create these avant-garde concepts to bring the full ethos together.
“Don’t niche yourself down so hard. Try as many things as possible! …because if I stuck with the style of makeup that I did before I wouldn’t be at this point. I would say that is the biggest one, and not everything is going to hit. There are some looks that I’m completely in love with that didn’t get the recognition that I thought it would have gotten. But I need to realise that I am an artist. The reason why I am putting myself out there is because I love what I do, and not for the numbers, and once I keep on thinking about that and keep on plugging at it pays off.” - @meicrosoft