"I love to give women a sense of celebration and to see their real emotions," Motinova once said. The Global Pro makeup artist began her career with Estée Lauder as a Beauty Advisor 15 years ago. She has a passion for teaching and hosts masterclasses for both Beauty Advisors and consumers all over Russia. Though Motinova relishes any opportunity to be creative with makeup, she said she has a soft spot for brows—a beautiful, full brow is the signature of her work.
Motinova also advises on the latest beauty trends in Russia to help the local team select the best assortment of shades for their customers. Her work has appeared in Tatler, Cosmopolitan, Grazia, Hello, and OK! magazines.
However, if you are doing your own makeup, celebrity makeup artist Sir John—who has worked with Beyoncé— said Instagram is a great place to find inspiration. That's where he gets new ideas too. "I just save [my favorite Instagram posts] to the backend, and that's kind of the mood board at the moment," he explained to ELLE.
If 2020 has taught us anything, it's that skincare should become a priority, and doing a mask at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday is totally OK, if not necessary. "I think in terms of makeup trends, what will be huge is more approach to skin," SJ said. "There's going to be an ease and maneuverability around owning your skin and loving the skin that you have and not having to lacquer it from forehead to chin—not having the baking and the contouring and so many different dramatic ways to change oneself."
It looks like masks won't be going anywhere anytime soon, which makes it the perfect time to invest in a gorgeous eye look. "I do believe that eyes will be big," SJ said. "People are still going to love lashes, still going to love brows, and they're always going to be a feature. They were a feature 2,000 years ago in Mesopotamia, and they're going to be a feature in 2088."
Sir John thinks the move will be more lip stains in 2021. "If no other time, no other year, to find out if these claims of long-wear on our lip stains really work," SJ explained. "The goal now is to find out how long this lip will anchor to my mouth without drying my lips out?"
The makeup artist recommends doing a bit of self-discovery to find the perfect long-wear lipstick for you. The one test your lippie must pass, according to him, is the ability to hydrate.
"If you're wearing a super matte and you don't want your lip texture to change, use eye cream over lip balm,. An eye cream is going to be a great way to hydrate your lips. The skin of your eyes and the skin of your lips is so thin; it's almost transparent."
Sir John believes women must try 'tightlining' in 2021 as well. "Tightlining is when you lift up your lash line slightly and line that area with a waterproof black pencil, so that it's right underneath your lashes," he explained. "What that does is it makes all of your lashes extremely dense, so black and thick from the root, and it's really almost like an optical illusion." What's cool about this is that no one knows that they see a liner, but it gives you a dazzling eye-line.
Sir John said aggressive forms of contouring are out. Now, he thinks that sculpting is the 2.0 of where we need to go. "Invisible sculpting, softer appearances when it comes to the structure of our face, but all of these hard lines, or I like to call them VCLs, visible counter lines, need to go or need to stay in 2020."
Dr. Mona Gohara, Associate Clinical Professor of Dermatology at the Yale School of Medicine, also sees the huge importance of skincare in the face of the pandemic. "I wear two masks and sometimes a protective shield… [and] have myself experienced it and continue to experience [mask-induced acne, aka 'maskne']," Dr. Gohara told the BBC.
"Maskne is absolutely real. No questions asked."
