The woman who never takes off her makeup

last updated 8 January 2015

Charlotte Tilbury wears makeup to bed, said Lydia Slater in The Times (U.K.). For more than 20 years, she’s been a makeup artist to the stars, traveling the world to make sure that actresses and models such as Penélope Cruz, Jennifer Lopez, and Kate Moss are ready for their close-up. Tilbury, who was raised on the Spanish island of Ibiza, discovered the transformative power of cosmetics at age 13 when she was sent to an English boarding school. Her fellow students all wore mascara, and Tilbury was soon copying them. “When I went back to Ibiza, people said quite shocking things, such as, ‘You weren’t attractive before, but you look really good now!’ I was furious. Then I thought, ‘Well, this is a good secret weapon. You’re never going to see me without makeup, ever again.’” She kept her word. Tilbury, 40, sleeps in her makeup, and only takes it off behind a locked door. Her husband of six years has never seen her bare face. “It’s a mystique thing,’’ she says. “Why should he stop thinking of me as glorious all the time?” When Tilbury gave birth to her son, now 3, she was fully made up, and didn’t hold her new baby until she had reapplied her “face.” “My husband took him to be weighed, and I had a shower and put my makeup on. I felt like I wanted to look fabulous.”