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How do you define drag make-up? For NY city-based artist Laurel Charleston, the chances are daring and the personas infinite – their Instagram feed will blow your mind. Sure, the 23-year-old gives impressive (and more traditional) face, contoured and anchored by a fierce winged eye and perfectly overlined lip (with a superb wig on top after all), but additionally they wow with technicolour patterns and famous paintings that they painstakingly paint on. “I quickly realised that it was very hard to do stereotypical ‘feminine’ drag make-up on my huge hooded brow bones, so I made a decision to resort to something totally different and outdoors of the world of gender: big, daring shapes,” they explain.

Limiting make-up looks to simply the face is relatively basic as Charleston’s looks extend flawlessly down their neck to fulfill the clothing they make for themselves. “When I need to do a search for a selected pattern that encompasses the complete body, it’s quite a bit easier for me to stitch a custom look that I do know goes to suit my body perfectly,” they are saying. The artist won their first ever drag contest at Penn State University, where they were studying orchestra conducting, and so they’ve just been appointed assistant director of the Queer Urban Orchestra. 

Here Charleston shares their drag journey, their ever-evolving approach to beauty and the way they’re working to uplift their community.

Are you able to tell us a bit about yourself and where you grew up?

Laurel Charleston: I grew up within the very small town of Bangor, Pennsylvania –  just cornfields, homophobia, and tobacco addictions. It was not the tea. I graduated from Penn State University this past May, where I spent the last five years getting degrees in orchestra conducting. I travelled to NYC at the very least once every two months with my drag sister Patent Pending. We might take the Megabus and go to parties to socialize, work gigs, meet other artists and be inspired. I at all times had my sights set on NYC, so living here in Bushwick these last five months has been an utter dream. I just came upon that I’m a triple Virgo, so I’ve been coming to terms with that too.

What’s it you do and why do you do it?

Laurel Charleston: I’m a queer artist who uses make-up and music to offer visibility to issues within the queer community. 

How did you get into it and what’s your creative process?

Laurel Charleston: I had amazing friends who pushed me to compete on this yearly amateur drag competition at Penn State in my junior yr. It was my first time ever doing drag, competing against 14 queens, and I won. My friends’ love and support motivated me to maintain pursuing drag. I quickly realised that it was very hard to do stereotypical ‘feminine’ drag make-up on my huge hooded brow bones, so I made a decision to resort to something totally different and outdoors of the world of gender: big, daring shapes. I also loved fooling around with the concept of using not only your eyes, but your entire face, neck and head as a canvas. I like seeing make-up not only as an adjunct to fashion, but as an extension of the pattern itself. 

Talk us through your drag persona/aesthetic and the way do you prepare.

Laurel Charleston: I like a superb three-and-a-half-hour block to place a make-up work together, but for a few of my more detailed works, I’ll put aside as much as seven hours. My arrange and play-by-play is dependent upon the demands of the look itself, but what’s at all times the identical is my skincare regime. I take skincare extremely seriously because the standard of your make-up application is dependent upon how well you prep and prime your face (aka your canvas). I at all times be sure that I even have one among my favourite Netflix series, like Great British Bake Off or Sabrina the Teenage Witch, on as well.

“I also loved fooling around with the concept of using not only your eyes, but your entire face, neck and head as a canvas. I like seeing make-up not only as an adjunct to fashion, but as an extension of the pattern itself” – Laurel Charleston

When did you begin making your individual outfits?

Laurel Charleston: Since January I’ve made all the pieces I’ve worn on Instagram from scratch. I originally got into sewing my very own garments out of necessity as clothes wouldn’t fit my tall, lanky body. I quickly realised that designing and creating your individual clothing was incredibly cost-effective, and allowed you to curate every aspect of the look from head-to-toe. When I need to do a search for a selected pattern that encompasses the complete body, it’s quite a bit easier for me to stitch a custom look that I do know goes to suit my body perfectly.

Describe your beauty aesthetic in three words.

Laurel Charleston: Eclectic, geometric, and queer.

How do you are saying your identity and experiences through your beauty and hair?

Laurel Charleston: Being non-binary signifies that I completely release myself from gender and the restrictions that include attempting to stick to it. My perspective consistently shifts which inspires my work through beauty and hair. 

What beauty, skin, and hair products are you using essentially the most right away?

Laurel Charleston: La Mer Crème de la Mer, Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Synchronized Recovery Complex II Serum, Ben Nye Cosmetics Master Creme Color Palette and Trader Joe’s Tea Tree Tingle Shampoo.

What’s your favourite smell and why?

Laurel Charleston: Freshly fallen leaves. I’m going through my first fall away from an environment surrounded by trees so it’s nice.

Describe a few of your favourite drag and wonder looks and the way you created them? Why?

Laurel Charleston:  I still live for my tackle the 2019 Met Gala theme Camp: Notes on Fashion. The look was inspired by this polka dot fabric I got here across, and the concept of a person being completely engulfed by it head-to-toe. I didn’t need to do it in a cartoonish way and thought the juxtaposition of a walk within the park against an obscene overdose of polka dots could be absolutely sickening and really camp. I used to be right.

What’s been your profession highlight to date?

Laurel Charleston: Collaborating with clothier Patrick Church recently was such a private high for me. I did his make-up for an incredible event and the photographs ended up on Vogue and W magazine online. Afterwards, I did a shoot where my make-up was an extension of the look I did for Church, shot by one among my favourite photographers and queer artists Dylan Thomas – it’s one among my favourite works and shoots so far. 

Which fictional character do you most relate to and why?

Laurel Charleston: Lucille Bluth. She’s an icon in every sense of the word.

What does beauty mean to you? 

Laurel Charleston: Authenticity.

When do you are feeling most beautiful? 

Laurel Charleston: I feel most beautiful after I am at the tip of putting together an advanced look and it seems exactly how I saw it in my head. 

What’s the long run of beauty?

Laurel Charleston: Beauty can be absent of gender.

What do you do in your spare time?

Laurel Charleston: More make-up? I never have enough hours in a day to do it as much as I need/have to. Once I’m not working in some capability, I’m home caring for my kitty and myself, and spending time with my amazing roommates.

How do you wish to change the world?

Laurel Charleston: I need to uplift as many trans and queer artists as possible. 

It’s the yr 2121. Climate change has caused all humans to genetically mutate. Would you reasonably have two heads or 4 eyes?

Laurel Charleston: 4 eyes! Two heads mean twice the muse and twice the skincare.

In the event you had to decide on one enhancing treatment, what would it not be and why?

Laurel Charleston: I really need to have laser hair removal on my face and neck. I prefer to paint on a smooth canvas and I appear to be the bad guy from The Lovely Bones after I grow out my facial hair.

It’s 30 years from now. You stumble home at 3 am and catch your reflection within the fridge door. What do you appear to be? 

Laurel Charleston: I look sickening. I’ve just arrived home from the Met Gala and was stumbling into my fridge to grab a cheese stick. I still have the Mona Lisa painted all entirely on my body from head to toe, it took me and a team of 4 artists around 10 hours to color all of it so I wasn’t gonna take it off straight away. It was one among their higher galas and the theme handled paintings coming to life.

If not your body then, is there anything you’d want to go away behind? An artwork you have not done yet, a book, a bloodline?

Laurel Charleston: I need to go away behind a legacy of authenticity and intense artistic expression. I need to encourage people to create with all of their heart and soul, and I hope I can try this while I’m still here as well.