Most visitors gazing on the Gainsborough and Reynolds portraits in London’s National Gallery or Royal Academy are almost certainly listening to the comb strokes, the backdrops or the poses of the lushly attired 18th-century aristocrats, military heroes and society figures.

Not Lisa Eldridge.

As an alternative, the style and celebrity makeup artist is looking closely on the eyes, hair and complexion of the artists’ subjects, making notes concerning the shade and position of blush on a cheek; the arch and color of the brows; and skin tone of ladies and men alike.

Eldridge’s interest within the history and social politics of makeup is well-known. She wrote a book in 2015 called “Face Paint: The Story of Makeup,” and is a number one collector of vintage cosmetics and packaging.

The worldwide creative director for Lancôme and a well-liked YouTube-r, Eldridge is now taking her studies a step further with a latest BBC TV documentary-style show that appears at different periods in British history through the lens of cosmetic colours and formulations.

The primary episode of “Makeup: A Glamorous History,” aired earlier this month with a have a look at the ostentatious, money-obsessed Georgians, who would happily smear poisonous lead paste on their faces if it will help snare them a wealthy husband, or sit for hours as servants loaded fatty pomade, powder and wigs onto their hair to create towering styles.

Eldridge shot the series during lockdowns two and three in London and, in other episodes, she looks on the Victorians and their fixation with “natural” beauty, and the way the look of the ’20s flappers mirrored the era’s freedoms. All of the while Eldridge concocts the historic beauty formulas and re-creates the looks on herself and on a model.

“I got pharmaceutical handbooks, and made the whole lot from scratch,” said Eldridge during a Zoom interview in London. To re-create the Venetian ceruse, which turned ladies’ faces a trendy alabaster shade, Eldridge paid a visit to the research-focused Keele University, and worked with a pharmacist to make the precise recipe for the show.

Eldridge said it made her think “’Why are women risking their lives for this? Is it like cosmetic surgery today?’ I don’t know the reply — nevertheless it’s interesting.”

Her experiments also allowed her to make discoveries, reminiscent of “glycerin continues to be the perfect humectant. It’s still the gold standard. And it was only invented in 1800.”

She said she found the Victorians and their pursuit of natural beauty fascinating. “I made the recipes and now understand why they used butter to create lip balm and salve,” declared Eldridge. “Butter doesn’t shine, so it doesn’t appear like makeup.”

As beauty hurries up, with trends bouncing all over the world on TikTok, online sales pumping and sky-high valuations becoming a latest normal for makeup artists and influencers alike, Eldridge is slowing down, poring over the past, and taking time to construct her own, potentially billion-dollar brand.

Having launched her direct-to-consumer beauty business with a limited-edition capsule of three True Velvet lipsticks in 2018 (and added different colours, textures and formulations since then) Eldridge is now moving into skincare with a spread called Seamless Skin.

The primary products, Elevated Glow Highlighter and Enlivening Blush, can be found for pre-order from May 15 on lisaeldridge.com. The highlighter is priced at $38, while the blush costs $34.

The highlighter is available in 4 skin-adaptive sheer tones, and is described as a glow/skincare hybrid with blurring, tightening and moisturizing properties that “disguise and beautify” any skin issues.

Energetic ingredients include tamarind indica seed, oat kernel extract and a biopolymer called Filmexcel which forms a mesh on the skin to “lift, tighten and smooth.”

Eldridge said she discovered Filmexcel at Cosmoprof Asia in 2017 and had been desirous to use it in her future skincare line. She said she stumbled upon it in a distant area of the fair, “the one with all of the raw ingredients and the machinery.”

She said she liked the makers of Filmexcel, because that they had 25 years of experience in natural biopolymers, and were using two natural ingredients to create the second-skin mesh.

She put the Filmexcel into the highlighter and said it “barely tenses the skin — not that you’re feeling it — nevertheless it has a really gentle effect of smoothing and it really works additional time. So, in case you are going to focus on day-after-day, you could as well get advantages from it,” she said.

Her aim for the highlighter was to create a high-performance, multitasking product that might disguise flaws and create a flattering glow.

“Isn’t it annoying the way in which highlighter sometimes goes on the areas of your face that you just don’t particularly want to focus on?” she asked.

The blush, meanwhile, is a light-weight cream-serum formula that is available in six shades and is supposed to be easy to use, mix and construct.

It comprises bilberry and raspberry seed oils and rosemary leaf extract, goals to blur, lift and tighten the skin and is available in shades to suit a wide range of skin tones.

Eldridge is exacting relating to her formulations, and said she is going to not buy pre-pack product. To wit, she bears the scars of years of product testing and development.

“It’s like cooking, you could have to experiment and really try things out and make certain that you just’re getting the perfect makeup finish. However it needs to be blend-able, easy to make use of and compatible with the packaging. People ask me ‘What are you able to tell me about product development?’ and I tell them ‘Every thing that may possibly go mistaken, will certainly go mistaken.’”

Identical to with the BBC show, Eldridge tests the whole lot on herself, but additionally has a band of human guinea pigs, including fellow makeup artists and other people with skin problems who don’t necessarily know learn how to apply makeup.

As a part of the launch, Eldridge can be restocking her sell-out Gloss Embrace Lipgloss a gloss/lipcare hybrid. She has added 4 latest shades for summer, including Songbird a light-weight beige/putty pink, and Charm, a sweet, shimmery pink.

She’s also bringing back Luxuriously Lucent Lip Color, a creamy, semi-sheer formula for summer. The Gloss Embrace lip gloss costs $25, and the Luxuriously Lucent semi-sheer lipstick is $36.

The relatively slow pace of replenishments (it could take months for Eldridge to restock lipsticks and glosses, versus weeks at a much bigger brand) and the time lag between product drops is all a part of Eldridge’s grand plan.

She just isn’t bothered by the speed with which her peers, reminiscent of Charlotte Tilbury and Pat McGrath, have built their businesses, achieving stratospheric valuations. She’s not concerned, either, with the rise of the billion dollar influencer-led brands.

Eldridge has great ambitions, but desires to work at her own pace, and in tune along with her personal values.

“I can only ever be me, and I can’t change. I like things done well,” said Eldridge, adding that she enjoys not having the pressure of a boss or investor banging on her door, demanding that she sell a certain variety of products by a selected deadline.

“I’m in a really nice position, and my brand is a slow brand. I don’t particularly benefit from the speed of the industry now, but I do enjoy having the ability to be a bit bit more creative, and be a bit more demanding.”

Her long-term plans are big. “I would like to be global. I would like to be huge, but I don’t just wish to rush, and do the mistaken thing either. I wish to research and do things the appropriate way, in a way that’s the perfect for my brand and likewise the perfect for the patron.”

She mentions her customer base often, and believes they’re informed, committed and searching for something different from white label formulas that include jazzy packaging or compelling narratives.

“There are formulas I’ve got coming out which might be one hundred pc my IP, my formula. They’ve not been developed for me by a supplier. That’s interesting to me, plus I’m not particularly driven by money,” she said.

Having her own brand allows her to make decisions “that feel right in my guts. My customers understand who I’m. They love my formulas and to date, touch wood, it’s going well. So I believe I’ll just keep being myself in the meanwhile.”

Her customers are a committed — but demanding — bunch.

Eldridge has been doing her detailed YouTube makeup tutorials since 2008, showing women worldwide techniques to create an elegant and easy look, disguise pimples or bring out their inner Marilyn Monroe, and when she doesn’t post, they’re upset.

She has 2.04 million subscribers on YouTube, and an extra 1.3 million followers on Instagram. Understandably, Eldridge slacked off on the YouTube tutorials while she was filming the BBC series, and her followers were baying for more.

“I feel bad because throughout the last two months I’ve hardly posted because we’ve been ending the documentary series. I miss YouTube as well, but I can’t do the whole lot,” she said, adding that she’ll be back on the digital screen soon.

“It adds one other layer to what I understand about makeup, and to what I can bring,” she said of the tutorials.

The business has been self-funded to date, and Eldridge said she has recently taken “a really tiny amount of investment” from Mark Esiri, founding father of the London-based enterprise capital fund Venrex, a longtime champion of small British businesses and considered one of the early investors in Charlotte Tilbury.

Eldridge said she doesn’t envision taking over more investors for now — although she’s not wanting offers.

“I’d moderately get my brand to a spot where I’m comfortable and joyful and I feel prefer it’s growing at the appropriate pace, with the appropriate decisions being made,” she said.

She has more skincare launches planned for September, and is talking to “like-minded retailers” and distributors who can take the brand into latest territories where she’s seeing demand, reminiscent of Asia.

Asked how big the brand is by way of revenue, Eldridge demurs, saying that lipstick sales are in “the a whole lot of 1000’s” of units, and every launch is greater than the last. The most recent lip launches last autumn were selling out in lower than an hour, she said.

“Every time I’m ordering an increasing number of stock because I don’t want people to be upset. I feel quite terrified at the quantity of stock I’m ordering. I feel positively sick, after which it sells out in 28 minutes.”

Eldridge continues to work for Lancôme, and said she was one hundred pc upfront with them from the beginning about constructing her brand.

“I really like working with them. They’re great people. I really like the brand, they usually like my brand as well. It feels very modern that I’m capable of do these two, very separate, things. It’s all very civilized.”

She said that when she’s in Paris she buzzes straight over to the Lancôme labs, and does all of her work there alongside the cosmetic scientists.

Indeed, Eldridge believes that cosmetic science is “probably the most creative and energetic area of the industry in the mean time. There are such a lot of latest challenges ahead.”

She also spends time reading the papers of scholars graduating from university, and has just hired considered one of them.

The scholar, she said, “wrote something about replacing a specific polymer with a new edition, and I’m like: ‘God, that’s interesting!’ and I rang her up a message asking if she desired to work for me.”

While Eldridge is making strides, she refuses to present up the day job. Session work and campaign shoots, she said, are a delicious time off for her.

“I find it irresistible a lot, and I still wish to be in contact with the makeup industry and the skilled fashion industry. I’m captivated with it, and I’m still nervous when I am going on a job, I’m still excited, exactly as I used to be once I first did my first shoot.”