Reel Makeup
412.874.9554
For Katherine Reel, makeup was always an escape from her small hometown of Indiana, PA. From a young age she used makeup to express herself—especially when she didn’t want to go to school. Katherine would use makeup to feign looking sick on the days she wanted to skip school. That was just the beginning of her experience with makeup, but the real obsession didn’t start until she was about twelve years old and received the book The Art of Makeup by Kevyn Aucioin.
Ever since receiving this “Bible of Makeup,” as some call it, Katherine has found a way to be connected with makeup. When she was younger this meant working in the industry, manning makeup counters and working at salons. While studying at Chatham University, it meant majoring in the visual arts and business. Now, though, she continues her passion for makeup and earns a living by doing freelance makeup work for print, television, and video. She mainly works with athletes, politicians, actresses, and models, but has yet to work with any “A-Listers”.
Katherine enjoys the livability of Pittsburgh, but admits New York is where her heart is really set. Her favorite Pittsburgh neighborhoods are the Southside, downtown, and the Strip District (where she currently lives). She’s a self-proclaimed foodie (if you ever need a good restaurant recommendation, Katherine’s your girl) and says some of her favorite places to eat around Pittsburgh are NACL and the Penn Avenue Fish Company. Despite the inescapable presence of sports in this city, Katherine stays embedded in her artistry and blocks out almost everything that isn’t fashion, art, or one of the arts. Her favorite art is clearly the art of fashion; she says she likes it best because of the constant evolution involved with styles. She loves the fantasy of fashion, and commonly employed this fantasy to escape from the farm-town life she grew up enduring.
Katherine sets her goals high, but only a short conversation with her will eliminate any skepticism one might have about her achieving them. “There is no way that I can be satisfied as an artist powdering bald heads for the rest of my life,” she tells me over coffee at Crazy Mocha. Her goal is to work in print in New York City, and she discloses that nothing is as fulfilling as seeing her materialized on a page.
For right now, though, Katherine is enjoying being her own boss in a multi-faceted profession. Her favorite parts of being her own boss are the freedom and control she has, but Katherine knows that there are two sides to the coin. She dislikes having to do everything else that running a business entails, like accounting and marketing. Her favorite makeup brands include Makeup Forever, Cinema Secrets (she never does film makeup, though), and NARS. Katherine’s biggest pet peeve is poorly groomed eyebrows and she believes that every woman can benefit from concealer. “The modern woman is under so much stress,” she tells me. “You can fake a refreshed face.”
“I am always driven to push forward, searching for what is modern. That is what motivates me,” Katherine rattles off her favorite quote from one of her favorite designers, Donatella Versace. Despite doing work for commercial print, it’s obvious that Katherine is an artist and that as an artist she’ll be able to make a lasting impact on fashion.
