Before makeup artist Daniel Martin sends off his A-list clients (think: Jessica Alba, Priyanka Chopra, Elisabeth Moss) to walk the red carpet, he slips one stealth skin savior—beloved for removing any unwanted sheen, be the cause a camera’s harsh glare or pre-awards jitters—into their clutches: Tatcha’s Aburatorigami mattifying leaflets. “Everybody leaves with their lipstick and blot papers,” the famously minimalist makeup artist, who masterminded Meghan Markle’s dewy wedding-day glow, says of the 23-karat gold-leaf-inflected sheets, which Vicki Tsai, the founder of the geisha-inspired beauty brand, sent him 10 years ago. Since then, the purple packets have stayed by his side at shows and shoots alike—“I live for this stuff,” he told Vogue in 2010—prompting a decade of collaboration that finally becomes official today.
“My mouth just dropped,” Martin—until recently, a brand ambassador for Dior and the creative color consultant at Honest Beauty—recalls of the moment that Tsai offered him the role of Tatcha’s first-ever global director of artistry and education, in which he will oversee everything from product development to the training of aspiring makeup artists. Needless to say, Martin, who got his start in the ’90s at the Nordstrom MAC counter in Seattle, jumped at the chance. “I’ve been very fortunate to go to Paris five times a year with Dior, but to take that knowledge and learn Japanese beauty rituals—ancient rituals—and infuse it with modern innovations and technology, that’s what I’m stoked about.”
For his part, Martin plans to further bridge the gap between skin care and makeup—marrying complexion-boosting ingredients and cosmetics—and has already begun dreaming up “some really fun, innovative color products.” (A welcome relief to anybody who remembers the frenzy of trying to get their hands on the limited-edition—and quickly sold-out—vermillion pigment that Martin and Tsai created for Chloë Sevigny’s 2014 Met gala look.)
His first order of business, however, is a new look for the blotting papers, which will now arrive in a palm-size rectangular packet befitting of any purse or pocket. (Rest assured: They are not quite as small as his 2011 charcoal-infused iteration. As he explains, with a laugh, “Back then, all the clutches were just little, tiny boxes.”) “I hate to see foundation or powder; I want the skin to look like skin and everything else to be seamless,” he says of his secret weapon for evening out the face—and one that, he adds with a smile, doesn’t require a pro’s touch. With the heat index quickly climbing, consider it the celebrity-approved key to staying fresh all summer long.
