Lou Dartford started her career in make-up over 15 years ago, training initially in special effects. After realising she preferred making people look nice (as opposed to decapitated), she changed direction focusing her attention on fashion, beauty and music.
Growing up with a keen interest in natural health, she experimented with natural beauty products. As she discovered their potential, she also unearthed the darker side of the conventional beauty industry. Being surrounded by cosmetics every day, she started to question what she was using and felt unsettled discovering disappointments, from unsavoury ingredients to a careless environmental impact.
Almost a decade ago she made a conscious decision to try and make her kit as clean, green and ethical as it could be. She admits that it’s still a work in progress as from a professional point of view, some products do prove harder to switch.
With the advances in organic and natural beauty, Lou Dartford is confident that green products can now compete with ‘conventional’ beauty brands. For her, creating a green kit is about caring for the environment and everything in it. She strives to keep products in her kit that do good as well as make people look good.
That’s not to say everything in her kit needs to be organic and natural. It’s also about sustainability, production and packaging of products. It goes without saying that Animal rights are key to her too. Although she is not a Vegan, she likes to have options in her kit and animal testing is a definite no-go.
Alongside her passion for natural make-up, Lou Dartford has always enjoyed beauty writing. She has contributed features and quotes to magazines such as The Ecologist, InStyle, Recognise, Natural Health, Twenty6 and various other blogs. She has also been Beauty Editor for SIX and EggMag and writes a personal blog that fuses her writing and make-up together.
Recently Lou Dartford spoke at the Natural Products Show Europe, and we were able to work together with her at our client Odylique’s press and influencer event, where Lou demoed the new Odylique foundations on a model. She also helped shade match attendees in real-time.
Lou Dartford has a studio in Bromley/South East London where she offers skin treatments and makeup lessons, as she is also a holistic facialist. You can find out more on her website.
For another MUA we have worked with, please click here.
