Isamaya Ffrench

About

British makeup artist and founder of eponymous makeup brand, ISAMAYA. She has gained a following of over 430,000 on her Instagram, isamayaffrench, where she posts makeup tutorials as well as her professional collaborations.

Before Fame

She moved to London to study 3D design at the Chelsea College of Arts, then product and industrial design at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. While studying in London she started face painting at children's parties and then for children from London high society. She moved into painting adults faces soon after, and worked on the 2011 spring/summer menswear show for fellow Central Saint Martins alumnus, Christopher Shannon. She did body painting and clay sculpture for her first fashion photography shoot in mid-2011 for  Matthew Stone and Alek Wek. She began to work for the magazine I-D, becoming their beauty editor in April 2014. In 2015 she became an ambassador for YSL Beauté, Yves Saint Laurent's cosmetics line. She was appointed Creative Artist Consultant for Tom Ford Beauty in October 2016, and in 2018 became the creative director for the newly launched Dazed Beauty section of Dazed magazine. In the year 2020, she was named the creative director of Byredo Makeup where she created and developed the line for the brand. In 2021 she was made Global beauty director of Burberry.

Trivia

In June 2022 she released her own makeup brand, ISAMAYA. In 2020, she began pursuing music and was a featured vocalist on two songs, "Control" by God Colony and the "Feel" cover by Sega Bodega. She released a collaborative album with English composer Sam Thomas in 2023 titled Mantle.

Family Life

She was born and raised in Cambridge, England. 

Associated With

She has worked in the beauty industry since 2014 as a professional makeup artist for many renowned celebrities, like Rihanna, Madonna, Bella Hadid, and Kendall Jenner. She has collaborated with major fashion publications including W and Vogue - British, French, Italian and American.