Violette Serrat on French Girl Makeup and Her Current Essentials

Paris-born makeup artist Violette Serrat, founder of French makeup and skincare line Violette_FR, grew up on fashion shoots. As the daughter of a hairstylist and a hair and makeup agent, she’d often find herself on sets with photographers including Mario Testino and Paolo Roversi. Although she had childhood dreams of being a painter, the fashion bug eventually got her, and instead of attending art school, she started working as a makeup artist for titles like French Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and CR Fashion Book, the latter founded by her mentor, Carine Roitfeld. “My look was very creative with almost no retouching,” Serrat tells Observer. “At the time, it was very glam makeup, very photoshopped, studio lighting, very glossy, and I was going more into an artsy vibe.” Soon, her aesthetic caught on, and Serrat moved to a new phase that was even more wearable.

That “artsy vibe” is one of the reasons Serrat has earned a cult following. Her makeup palettes benefit from her painterly eye, focusing on arresting, highly saturated colors (just a few disparate sources of inspiration include oil paints like Klein Blue, favorite childhood candies, botanical gardens, packaging from the 1950s and Japanese ink). Most importantly, Serrat makes the oft-mimed French girl aesthetic accessible, thanks to her penchant for messy looks punctuated by happy hues.

Serrat’s aesthetic also helped her break beauty industry records. In her 20s, she became the youngest international makeup designer in Dior (CHDRY) Beauty’s history. In 2017, at the age of 33, she was appointed the youngest global beauty director at Estée Lauder.

The Estée Lauder job brought her to New York, and the city’s energy was part of the inspiration for Violette_FR, the vegan beauty and skincare brand she launched in 2021. “I want [my brand] to be a French car with American gas—I want the culture and the philosophy of my country with the energy of America,” she says. “It’s the best decision, because we have two offices, Paris and New York, and the mix of all this culture is amazing.”

Serrat leads color development at her brand, which can take up to a year and a half. She’s now taking it even further and creating her own raw material to develop pigments to mix colors, an extra step that most makeup developers skip. This spring, she will release two new shades of Bisou Balm, the brand’s lipstick balm. Last year, the brand released Le Summer Set, a lipstick, blush and highlighter combo and made its debut on Emily’s (played by Lily Collins) vanity in Emily in Paris.

Since 2021, Serrat has also helmed the iconic French atelier Guerlain. She grew up using and admiring Météorites, the brand’s popular light-enhancing powder pearls. “For me, Guerlain is like the haute couture of beauty,” she says. “It has to be the perfect eye shadow. I’m not pushing innovation, I’m making the classics, like a perfectly tailored suit.”

Now splitting her time between Paris and Brooklyn, the mom-of-two shares her essentials with Observer, from the drink she’s never without to her most reliable lip color.