Lady Gaga's Best Beauty Looks of All Time

On Her Makeup Evolution

“My mom had a beautiful morning routine that felt like a ceremony to me as a little girl. She used to go in the bathroom, and as she would start to apply her makeup, she’d look at me and say, ‘It’s always good to take care of yourself.’ So, my relationship with makeup was a self-care study. When I became a performer, I realized that I could transform myself with makeup and had a real kind of artistry relationship with it. I used to go to the drugstore and buy a ton of different kinds of makeup products, and then I would use them as they were meant to be used, and I would also get kind of crafty and use them on my own. (I remember when I discovered that you could wet black eyeshadow and turn it into an eyeliner with the right brush.) I loved changing who I was with makeup, and I started to do that for many, many years. My skin got kind of wrecked as I was performing over time—foundation all night long, all night long onstage, the heat, running around—and I started to become interested in starting my own brand. We started out with more color products, eye and lip products, and I was really focused on the kindness of our products, and being inclusive as a brand. But then I realized that I had a lot more to offer the company, and it was my love of skin science and my love for skin health and skincare. So, how can we make makeup that’s good for your face?”

On Conceptualizing Makeup for Her Tours

“There’s a strong relationship between the makeup, the fashion, and the hair. We all work together, and we work kind of slowly. I first start out in rehearsal with kind of a basic beautiful glam and my hair pulled back. And while I’m learning choreography, developing choreography, putting it all together, I have sort of a latex all-black uniform that I wear. And this is sort of the base, and we see it as sort of the canvas that we’re going to add on to over the months as we develop the show.

As the fashion starts to come in and we start to see which pieces are going to stay and how they’re going to be worn, what the choreography will be like, how the music will sound, the visuals, we start to develop a story. With this show [Chromatica], the story is really that the top of the show was a little bit scary and that the version of me that is there is somebody who is trapped. But we really wanted there to be a sentiment of stillness with beauty onstage, an elegance, even though the environment was kind of harsh, hard, and abstract. Sarah [Tanno] developed all these really amazing different graphic eyes, but we landed on the one that we did because it was both hard and soft. It had those strong black graphic lines, the negative space, but it also was rounded on the edges, and we liked the softness of that. And we used the Atomic Shake Lip Lacquer ($26) in Ruby Shine because it was that deep color and it also wasn’t going to move on the mouth.

But if you notice the hair and the makeup for that show, it’s kind of just very beautiful, but the show is extremely chaotic. It’s sort of an exercise in expressing a personal stillness in somebody. It’s kind of a very deep process to be honest. We go through many iterations, and when it’s all ready we all cry and hug each other and get excited because there’s kind of only one right way, and we just have to discover what it is.”

On Her Favorite Makeup Looks of All Time

“I have to shout out a great makeup artist, Val Garland. I met her years ago, and I remember just taking all my makeup off and watching the way that she did my makeup was so, so different than the way anyone had done it before. She’s such an artist. She would do everything from putting very little on my face to having these interesting, painterly lines. It was an approach to makeup that was so different. I’ve also worked with so many other makeup artists, and they’re my beauty icons. Today, there are so many influencers. They’re part of a beauty community that they care about so much and they’re doing their makeup three or four times a day, and talking about products and reviewing them, and I think that the beauty community is so special. There are icons, like Sophia Loren—I think that she’s one of the most special, beautiful beauty icons of all time. But, I have to say the artists, the people that are developing the way we all see beauty, I think that they’re pretty special. “

“My makeup is always an expression of me. No matter what, if it’s just daytime, if it’s going out with friends, if it’s seeing my family, if it’s going to an art gallery—wherever I’m going, it’s going to be an expression of who I am.”