My mission
Everyone has a purpose on this earth. Mine is to take care of others through makeup.
Over the years, I've done makeup for hundreds of women. To each of them, I've been able to give joy, assurance and confidence.
GrâceMolamo
My path
Art came first
Before makeup, there was drawing, painting, volume. I hold two bachelor's degrees: one in interior architecture, from the Beaux-Arts de Kinshasa, the other in fine arts, earned in France. I still paint today.
It isn't a side note in my story, it's its backbone. When I look at a face, I see what a painter sees: volume, shadow, light falling from one side, lines that give structure. Contour is nothing more than modeling. Highlighter is a point of light placed in the right spot.
Your face, my canvas. It isn't a slogan, it's how I work.
The beginnings
Makeup, always there, never in front
Makeup has always had a place in my life. But for a long time, it stayed in the background, behind my studies, behind art, behind what people think of as the serious path.
In 2016, in Kinshasa, I opened my first professional kit at Black Up. I stayed two years. Black Up is a brand born for Black skin. It's something few makeup artists in France can say: I learned my craft in a place where deep skin wasn't a special case to handle, but the norm.
That kind of norm is something many professionals have never experienced. And it shows in their work.
Confidence
A client once told me she didn't want dark skin like mine
People think this job is easy. That all it takes is knowing how to hold a brush. Above all, it takes self-confidence. One day a client looked at me and said: I don't want dark skin like yours. I told her I would make her so radiant she'd keep coming back. She became a loyal client.
I tell this story without bitterness. I hear these words because many women have learned to see their skin, or other people's, as a problem to fix. My work is precisely to take that idea apart, one face at a time. Not by arguing. By showing.
Your Black skin is beautiful. I'm not here to correct it, I'm here to reveal it.
Kiko Milano
Makeup advisor since 2021
I've been a makeup advisor at Kiko Milano since 2021, at the Paris Gare du Nord store. Every week, I do makeup on faces of every skin tone. That repetition is what trains the eye: recognizing an undertone at a glance, knowing instantly which product will warm the skin and which will turn it gray.
In 2019, I had completed an intensive professional makeup training at MB Beauty Paris, on the Art, Beauty, Aesthetics and Fashion program, taught by its founder, Marlène Boyimbo.
Paris Fashion Week
Backstage at a fashion show is a school
I worked as Make-Up Expert at four Paris Fashion Weeks, with Kiko Milano in partnership with young designers: Alphonse Maitrepierre on September 29, 2023, backstage at the Institut du Monde Arabe. Weinsanto on September 23, 2024, at the Centre Pompidou. Alphonse Maitrepierre again on September 24, 2024, at the Palais de la Femme.
You have to get it right the first time, on a face you've just met, under lighting that isn't yours, on a schedule that forgives nothing.
Passing it on
Training others, on deep skin
In October 2024, Kiko Milano took over a Paris apartment for an event run with Cosmopolitan magazine, with 80 to 100 guests. I was one of the four makeup artists selected.
Then, in February 2025, Kiko Milano asked me to lead its Brown Skin training, a full day for its teams, at its rue de Rivoli store in Paris. It's the moment in my career I'm proudest of: an international brand chose to entrust me with training its own professionals in makeup for deep skin. Not to do their makeup. To teach.
It's also what makes my classes legitimate. What I teach, I've already taught to professionals.
The craft
A brush, a conversation
Every session starts by studying the face, then with questions: which undertone, which skin texture, what you expect from the day.
The makeup is built through that back and forth, a touch, a look in the mirror, an adjustment. It's work done together, not a look imposed on you.
My journey
From Kinshasa to the Paris Fashion Weeks
Each step added its own shade to the palette.
Beaux-Arts de Kinshasa
Bachelor's degree in interior architecture
2016 to 2018
Black Up, Kinshasa
France
Bachelor's degree in fine arts
2019
Intensive Art, Beauty, Aesthetics and Fashion training, MB Beauty Paris
Since 2021
Makeup advisor, Kiko Milano Paris Gare du Nord
2023 and 2024
Make-Up Expert at four Paris Fashion Weeks, Alphonse Maitrepierre and Weinsanto
October 2024
Kiko Milano House by Cosmopolitan
February 2025
Lead trainer of Kiko Milano's Brown Skin training
What I believe in
Four ideas behind every session
Beauty is for everyone
Some clients can afford an HD lace wig, others can't. They want to look beautiful just the same, and they have the same right to. I adapt to whatever you bring me, with the same care.
I listen, then I do what you need
Many clients ask me for a lighter complexion. What they actually want is light. It's not the same thing, and if I did exactly what you asked, you'd walk away with a gray complexion.
Makeup is a collaboration
You know your skin. I know the technique. I always ask questions, and I learn from my clients as much as they learn from me.
There are no shortcuts
I'm a perfectionist and I take my time. Your wedding day isn't the time to rush.
Frequently asked questions