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When “the Mary Phillips underpainting technique” took off on TikTok two years ago, the Mary Phillips didn’t have an account on the platform.
“It was New Year’s Day and I was at my friend Jen [Atkin]’s house,” says the makeup artist as she sits on a pristine white couch inside her sun-drenched condo in West Hollywood. “My friend Nicole texted me a video [of someone trying “the Mary Phillips underpainting technique”], and then five more friends sent me other ones, including some in different languages. It was so cool.”
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly who or what began the snowball effect, both because of the nature of the TikTok algorithm and because Phillips has been preaching and very-publicly practicing underpainting—on clients like Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner—for years: “It’s in every one of my makeups, even if it’s a natural, no-makeup makeup look,” she says. It’s fitting then, that underpainting is the cornerstone of Phillips’ soon-to-launch makeup line, m.ph.
But before we give you all the details on the new brand, let’s back up for a second. What exactly is underpainting? Put simply, it’s the act of highlighting and contouring before applying foundation instead of the other way around. According to Phillips, the strategically-placed stripes of highlight and contour serve as something like scaffolding for the rest of your makeup. “When you apply foundation over underpaint, it's like you're laying the skin over the bones,” she says. And thanks to the magic of light and shadows, cheekbones appear sharper and jawlines more chiseled… while remaining free of the telltale contour lines that dominated Instagram feeds in the mid-2010s.
Phillips is quick to add, however, that she didn’t “invent” underpainting—far from it. “It goes way, way back,” says Phillips. “When I was working with JLo, I was on a movie with the makeup artist Christina Smith, who does Liza Minnelli, and she told me about how they used to paint the underside of her jawline black to create a shadow.” The makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin also included underpainting tutorials in the manuals he published in the 1990s, including The Art of Makeup and Making Faces. Phillips, then a teenager, read Aucoin’s books as gospel.
Born in northern Los Angeles just a few miles from where we’re sitting today, Phillips exhibited a talent for painting—not with makeup, but watercolor and charcoal—from a young age. But watching her mom apply makeup got Phillips curious about a new type of canvas. As a teen, Phillips did her friends’ makeup and hair for school dances and dreamed of landing a gig as a makeup artist at the Glamour Shoots in her local mall. (“They wouldn’t hire me. Big mistake,” she says with a giggle.)
Phillips also went esthetician school to learn about how skin functions.
Photography by Tal Abudi
Instead, Phillips worked at a beauty supply store while she attended cosmetology school. During this time, Phillips found out one of her dad’s clients (he was a chiropractor, not a Hollywood agent, FTR) was film and TV makeup artist Eugenia West. Phillips got to watch West in action on the set of the show Columbo—and just like that, she was hooked.
Phillips went on to work for West for several years, assisting her both on-set and at her salon. One thing led to another, and Phillips began assisting other artists for red carpet events and commercial shoots. But at that time, “all I really wanted to do was be someone’s personal makeup artist,” says Phillips. Cut to her working as the MUA to Jessica Simpson on 2005’s The Dukes of Hazzard and several other films. “She was my first big client and we worked together for years,” says Phillips. Though there were lots of other clients in-between, it was Simpson’s hairstylist Ken Paves and his partner who ultimately introduced Phillips to Jennifer Lopez, whom she’d go on to collaborate with for the better part of the next 15 years.
Along the way, many of Phillips’ peers (including Atkin, Paves, and fellow makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic) launched their own product lines. Phillips didn’t. But she was, in her words, “always taking notes” on what she liked (and didn’t) about various formulas and the best labs to tap if one wanted to make, say, lip pencils. “I'd been doing that forever in hopes that I’d launch something someday,” says Phillips.
Someday is now today—or, well, next month: m.ph is launching on Sephora.com on August 15. Phillips says it was scrolling through TikTok and seeing how eager people were to try underpainting that convinced her the timing was right. Her line’s star product is the Underpainting Palette ($64), a perfected version of the DIY palettes she’s been putting together for clients for years using depotted highlight and contour creams.
Unlike some others she’s tried over the course of her career, Phillips’ formulas are easy to blend and actually buildable: they go on sheer but can be layered without getting muddy or pilling. Each palette contains a color corrector, two highlight colors, and two contour colors, all of which can be mixed and matched based on your skin tone and the degree of sculpting you’re after, says Phillips. (And if this is all sounding a little intimidating, rest assured there are topline instructions on the box and you can now find plenty of in-depth tutorials on Phillips’ TikTok page.) The palette pairs best with The Underpainting Dual-Ended Sculpting Brush ($38), the larger end of which has the cheekbone-hugging, slightly bulbous shape Phillips says she could never quite find on the market.
Then there’s Cheeky Cream Blush ($38), a short and squat stick available in eight shades including coral, baby pink, and berry, and The Cream Blush Brush ($36) to apply it with. Unlike highlight and contour, Phillips always applies blush post-foundation—though she’s noticed some TikTok creators have taken to underpainting with blush, too.
Last but not least, m.ph includes eight shades of Lip Ciggy Hydrating Lipstick ($26), a lightweight tint housed in a super-slim bullet, and The Overliner Lip Pencil ($25). If Phillips’ best-known move is underpainting, slightly overlining the upper lip to add visual fullness is a close second. She created this non-feathering formula with that technique in mind, and made sure it sharpens to an ultra-fine tip to create precise lines.
A look at the full m.ph lineup.
Courtesy of m.ph
The collection—with its deep brown, espresso bean-colored packaging and short and sweet brand name, a nod to Phillips, of course, but also speed and velocity—is meant to be “very sexy,” she says. “It's very inspired by all those years when I was coming up, looking at magazines in the 1990s.”
After my interview with Phillips, she did my makeup (!) using early samples of the new products. And if the double-takes I got in the security line at LAX were any indication, they really delivered. (I had to catch a flight back to New York immediately following our meeting.)
One question remained: Could I create that same sort of makeup magic when left to my own devices? So I put the line to the test at home, as did two other Allure staffers.
I Tried It
Never have I ever owned a contouring palette, mostly because I don’t wear a ton of makeup, and when I do, I’m not big on bells and whistles. I’ve tried to softly sculpt my face with bronzer before, but most shades are way too warm for my very fair skin.
That in mind, I reached for the lightest of the three Underpainting Palettes. (Phillips told me she’s working on three more: one lighter than the current lightest, one deeper than the current deepest, and one that falls somewhere in the middle.) Then, I recreated what I considered to be the most impactful takeaway from my lesson with Phillips: I applied a soft stripe of the first shade of contour cream from the outer corner of my eyes diagonally upward towards my temple. Immediately, my deep set eyes looked more lifted.
Here I am demonstrating how Phillips said I could visually lift the area around my eyes using contour cream.
Courtesy of subject
I didn’t top it off with foundation, so I guess I wasn’t technically underpainting—but the creamy formula was so easy to blend and had such a skin-like finish, I felt I didn’t need to. Instead, I applied a bit of Cheeky Cream Blush in It’s a Sin, a pink-toned mauve. I dabbed The Cream Blush Brush directly on the stick, then blended it into the apples of my cheeks. I did a check-in midday and was pleased to see that the pigment was still just as present as it was when I’d applied it.
I also tried the Lip Ciggy Hydrating Lipstick in Slow Burn, a warm rose, and can confirm it’s more of a tinted balm than a lipstick. I liked it! But ultimately, I see myself using the blush everyday, and the Underpainting Palette on days I need a little extra lift… so maybe also everyday?
More Allure Editor Reviews
Jesa Marie Calaor, senior beauty editor
“OMG, I found my new makeup routine!” squealed our senior editor Jesa Marie Calaor after trying the Underpainting Palette in Medium. She’s no stranger to contouring, but usually uses powder formulas, which she finds to be more user friendly. But these creams “were easy to buff and build without looking like I have streaks on my face,” she says.
Calaor pre-makeup…
Courtesy of subject
…and after underpainting.
Courtesy of subject
Calaor placed the first shade of highlight at the high points of her cheeks and the second shade of contour along the hollows of her cheeks and jawline. “Then, I dotted some foundation on my face and buffed everything out with a Beautyblender,” she says, describing the overall effect as “subtle and natural-looking.”
She also gave high marks to the packaging in general: “I love the feel of the products in my hands—they feel weighty and luxe without being so heavy that I can't hold multiple things at the same time.”
Melanie Curry, associate manager of audience development
Melanie Curry, our associate manager of audience development, approaches contour palettes with a healthy degree of trepidation. “I’m not into super snatched, heavy makeup unless it’s for a special occasion or a night out,” she says.
First things first: She loved The Dual-Ended Underpainting Brush. “The brush easily picked up the product, so I didn’t have to ‘dig’ it into the palette, which was a major plus.”
And once the product was on her face, she realized this wasn’t your ordinary contour palette.
Curry pre-underpainting…
Courtesy of subject
…and Curry after using the Underpainting Palette.
Courtesy of subject
“I often struggle with contouring—I apply too much, which leaves me looking muddy. I don’t know if it was the brush, the palette, or both, but this was the best everyday contour look I’ve done since I started wearing makeup,” says Curry, who used the palette in Deep, specifically the first highlight shade and second contour shade.
She topped off the look with a dab of Cheeky Cream Blush in Cherry On Top, a bright red shade she says left her with “naturally-rosy looking cheeks,” then added eyebrow gel and setting powder. Because the creams melted into her skin so easily, Curry didn’t feel like she needed foundation. “I did, however, lightly brush the middle shade all around my face just so everything blended nicely together,” she says.
The final verdict? “I love this palette.”
Where to Buy
The full m.ph lineup—Underpainting Palette ($64), The Underpainting Dual-Ended Sculpting Brush ($38), Cheeky Cream Blush ($36), The Cream Blush Brush ($36), Lip Ciggy Hydrating Lipstick ($26), and The Overliner Lip Pencil ($25)—will be available at mphbeauty.com and Sephora.com starting August 15. You can shop the line at Sephora stores beginning August 25.
