Meet the Asian Beauty Gurus Queering the Cosmetic Industry
Patrick Starrr photographed by BJ Pasqual “Growing up, I was never comfortable with being gay, so I always surrounded myself with women who allowed me to feel comfortable in my own skin, allowed me to talk the way that I want to talk, that allowed me to dress the way I would and play with girly things,” Ta reminisces. “I’m so lucky that I’ve been around so many strong, beautiful women, and I think it really has helped shape me.” “I’ve been doing this for nine years in L.A.
now, and it’s changed me,” he continues. “Just to see people’s careers blossom, especially if I am working with someone that has a great career, it means that I’m going to have a great career.
At the end of the day, there’s so many talented makeup artists out there, but you also have to have the connection with someone to want to be in front of their face or have you in front of their face every single day, because it’s such an intimate setting where you see your client completely bare and in probably their rawest form.”Ta shares that growing up in a traditional Vietnamese household wasn’t the easiest and that his parents had a different life planned for him.
But he does admit that the older you get, the easier it is to be more confident in your life and your work, especially as a queer Asian-American creator in a world that is still so straight- and white-centered. “Growing up Asian in a predominantly Caucasian neighborhood, I’ve always felt left out and I’ve always wanted to fit in,” Ta says. “Now having my own brand, being able to be inclusive and able to allow people to feel that they fit in somewhere, I have the power to do so.
