“For me, make-up is an extension of your authentic self,” says Isamaya Ffrench . “It’s a means to help express that intrinsic, internal feeling in a more obvious way.” It’s this spirit of self-expression and individuality that is at the heart of her debut make-up and skincare brand ISAMAYA .
As a make-up artist Ffrench has built her reputation on her wild, unrestrained creativity and imaginative transformations – it was Ffrench who was responsible for Rihanna’s divisive razor-thin brows and turning Vivienne Westwood models into Pinocchio . One of the most important creatives and image-makers in the industry right now, her work is subversive, gorgeous, terrifying, and awe-inspiring. But it wasn’t the metamorphosis she has become synonymous with that she was aiming for when she embarked on creating ISAMAYA, her most personal project yet.
Describing her make-up as “weapons for truth”, Ffrench sees her brand as providing tools for people to express themselves and find their authenticity, offering a non-conformist alternative to the message often fed to us by the industry. “This brand is about make-up that you wear for yourself, it’s a personal journey,” she says. “That, for me, is the right message – make-up is a weapon for truth, it is a way to help you become more of who you are.”
Weapons of truth also incidentally describes the beauty products themselves quite well. Rather than launch with a permanent range of products, ISAMAYA will be made up of limited edition collections, each centring around a different concept and visual aesthetic, that will drop roughly four times a year. The first collection is a five-piece range, comprising a mascara, eyeshadow palette, lip lacquer, brow laminator and glow serum, that takes its visual and spiritual cues from the lexicon of BDSM culture. Named the Industrial collection, the drop is all about the extreme and the hardcore, concepts that stretch across both the products and their packaging – the lids of the two serums and mascara come pierced with wearable metal rings and a bound, rubbery figure protrudes from the 14 pan eyeshadow palette.
“[Industrial] was probably the most relevant statement for me to launch with, it was something that felt a bit anti-industry,” Ffrench says. “BDSM has connotations of self-possession and empowerment which tied in naturally, and it just felt really important to hit hard with this first launch.” Acknowledging that the “S&M thing” might not be for everyone, Ffrench says maybe the next collection will have a more universal appeal (or, also, it might not). “My approach hasn’t been to cater for an audience, particularly,” she says, “it’s more about offering a space for people to perceive ideas of beauty in different ways.”
Until now, Ffrench says, most commercial beauty brands haven’t represented or appealed to her community of creatives who use make-up to express and explore their identities. This is something she is hoping to change with ISAMAYA. “I think by having a brand that’s able to constantly evolve and change, and have every collection touch on something different, it will offer more to people who have not found their thing yet,” she says. “It’s important to create a space and create products that are more far-reaching than just the commercial ones that we know.”
The beauty of having a collection-based brand that will offer something different every time (and Ffrench promises to surprise us with each new drop) is that it also keeps it interesting for her. With eclectic inspirations that range from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Heston Blumenthal to Yung Lean, having to stick with one aesthetic didn’t appeal and conceptualising collections months in advance posed a new challenge. “I don’t want to have to think about what a product might look like on a shelf in 10 years; to do the same product for five years,” she says. “It’s too restrictive, it doesn’t feel modern, it doesn’t feel progressive.”
These limited, small-batch drops also ensure that at the end of the day, there won’t be lots of unused stock sitting in warehouses wasting away. After years of lending her talents to developing products for brands including Tom Ford, Byredo, Christian Louboutin and Burberry, ISAMAYA is the first time Ffrench has had total control to execute her vision on her own terms, to make the choices on everything from products to packaging that she wants to make without any commercial shackles. And, for her, this meant making sure the brand was actively engaging with environmental responsibility.
“I work with Vivienne Westwood, and have done for a long time, and her philosophy of doing more with less just makes sense to me,” she says. From the beginning of conception, the brand hired a sustainability consultant who has advised on everything from carbon footprinting to material choices for packaging. The process, Ffrench says, was a learning curve. “It’s opened my eyes, it’s much harder than you think, much, much, much harder,” she says. “So that’s been a real education for me.”
As the brand grows and we see the different drops, she hopes that each collection will live on after we finish with them – whether that’s the repurposable jewellery in the Industrial packaging, or the palettes which turn into jewellery boxes that the next collection will offer. For each collection, ISAMAYA will also be partnering with a charity, another detail that was important to Ffrench (she is still finalising who that will be for the first release).
“Part of this project is really to be able to express who I am as a person, and to be able to show people that there are other ways of engaging with beauty,” she says. Because, for Ffrench, it’s not just how you wear a product, it’s about what a brand represents – from the way they do packaging and advertising, to the people they collaborate with. “It’s a bigger conversation to open up cosmetics in a much more creative way, and an inspiring way, I hope.”
So what is in the future for ISAMAYA? Alongside the upcoming collections, Ffrench is really looking forward to responding to feedback directly from her audience and finding out what they want. “I’m not a big multi-person-in-suits brand. I’m a person that can respond to what my audience likes, and I’m excited by that,” she says. Ultimately, what she is looking to do is create things that are timeless. “I try not to worry too much about what might be popular in 2024. I think it’s important to just be guided by your creative instinct and always look at the bigger picture rather than lipstick. You know what I mean? That’s how I’m doing it for now.”
ISAMAYA Industrial collection launches later this month. Below Ffrench talks us through each product in the drop.
The centrepiece of the collection, the 14-shade eyeshadow palette contains a mixture of textures including special effect pearls, putty, and shimmer finishes. “The putties activate at skin temperature,” Ffrench explains. “So they’re really amazing to blend with. The two darkest shades are the putty effect, so if you want to do a smudgey, smokey eye it’s the easiest thing in the world now. You do it with your finger because it melts at body temperature.”
The shades, meanwhile, take inspiration from industrial hues – think oil slick greys and chrome silvers with a couple bright acids thrown in as well. “You’ve got these inky colours, these vivid bright acid coppers and greens that look very beautiful in conjunction with the silvers,” she says. “The metallics are two types of silver and they create a really dense chromatic effect. They're pure pressed pigments, so you get really serious colour intensity.”
“For me, it was really, really good fun to sit with all of these colours and work them out side by side and create something really harmonious but still quite tough.”
Using a blend of coffee beans, ginger oil and a botanical complex, the lip gloss serum creates a plumping effect to make lips look fuller. The deep berry hue gives a darker, edgier, sexier look. “I really wanted to create a gloss that didn’t feel girly,” says Ffrench. “This is a black veil, it’s very, very sheer and it basically tints your lips a couple of shades darker than they are naturally.”
With a curved wand to help deliver a fan-like finish, the mascara in this collection works to curl your lashes as well as make them look fuller and longer. A blue-coated triple black pigment gives a, as Ffrench describes it, “ really deep black-black” effect, while conditioning oils encourages lash growth.
“I worked really closely with the lab and when I briefed them the two really important things for me were length and volume but also lash curl and colour intensity,” she says. “The formulation contains this meshing property that encapsulates the lash and basically stretches them back, kind of like rubber or elastic. So you get that really great curly effect without having to use a lash curler.”
The sole skincare product in this collection, the serum creates a pearlescent glow and contains a triple hyaluronic acid complex and peptides to deeply hydrate the skin. “It’s a hybrid between skincare and highlighter,” says Ffrench. “It’s a universal serum, it’s really beautiful. It has this really lovely, almost glass-like feel to it.” Ffrench says she uses it either pre-foundation or combined with foundation to help illuminate the skin and lock in moisture. You can use it as a highlighter as well.
An ultra-strength clear eyebrow gel, the brow laminator will hold your hairs in place through the day and night, while glycerin and humectants keep the hair nourished. The accompanying mini comb will help you achieve whatever style you are looking for, whether that’s an extreme lamination or a more groomed natural look. “We were inspired by haircare products when creating this,” says Ffrench. “You can do a proper brow lamination with it, or you can just style your eyebrows, or you can do your baby hairs. It is really, really strong.”