The 9 ThingsI May Destroy You’s Hair and Makeup Designer Carries at All Times

Tonerbasically puts the pH balance back into the skin, and neutralizes theskinafter we’ve taken all the makeup off (which can cause us to lose essential oils). But this is actually really great for something I call “club residue.” During the show there are quite a few club scenes, and Michaela’s co-director, Sam, told me he needed the actors to looksweatier, like they’d been in the club for several hours. So we used this toner, because it’s like a mist, and it smells lovely, too, so the actors would pass this around and have a spray between scenes, and it’s nice and hydrating throughout the day.

The key with Afro hair ismoistureandhydration, and that’s where oils and leave-in conditioners really help. Raw Jamaican castor oil is what we use. We actually got ours made especially for us by Melissa van Tongeren, a makeup artist who worked onNo Time to DieandHamiltonin the West End, and she makes these oils herself. She knows the specific castor oil farms in Jamaica, so she sources the oil directly. It’s as pure as it can be. She mixes it with tea tree, peppermint, and rosemary, so it’s very good for thescalp— it’shydrating, and it has antibacterial properties as well. Generally, raw castor oil is a lovely thing to have in our kit for Afro hair. If someone had braids in or something, which might lead to sensitivity in the scalp, we would put a little bit through the hair, mixing it with water. A lot of the cast loved the smell.

This is the fairy godmother of allhandsanitizers. It’s more commonly seen on makeup sites rather than insupermarkets, but it contains essential oils like lavender and eucalyptus, and it comes in a spray form so you don’t overapply too much. It contains ethanol alcohol, rather than having a chemical base, so it’s a natural antiseptic. If you get aspot, you can put a dab of this on the surface and it will dry it out and knock the redness back a little bit. We also use it with our special-effects kits, as things like gashes or bruises are made with alcohol-activatedpaints. The spray nozzle also means these are very useful to clean yourself with at a music festival if you can’t get to ashower. Hand sanitizer has been in demand during lockdown, but makeup artists have always used them, it’s always been a huge priority to be hygienic on sets.

I first got these four years ago when I went to Tokyo. The store has the most incredible service, where staff follow you around with a tray and anything that you pick up, they’ll put it down and they tell you all about it. With makeupbrushes, it’s all about the fibers that you use. Traditionally animal hairs were used, but they do a lot of synthetic fibers now that are able to replicate animal hair. They’re really beautiful; they have short handles, which I like, and they’re perfectly balanced, which is important, because like a hairdresser’s scissors, your brush needs to be an extension of yourhand. They’re expensive, but this is my go-to and it’s worthinvestingin.

You can use this on any hair type as aleave-inconditioner, but it’s really an Afro hair product. It doesn’t leave residue, and it’s been popular with our guys on set that had dreads. Youhydratethe hair with water, put some of this in, and then youwrapthe hair in either a do-rag or a towel and just let it soak in. Lots of products can be really heavily scented due to the ingredients but this actuallysmellscalm — I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s not a shock on the senses.

I actually bought this brush after getting a targeted advert on Instagram, and it was so good I ended up buying six for the rest of the team. It consists of about seven or eight wide-toothcombsin one brush, but they’re splayed out. It looks a bit like aTangle Teezer, but it doesn’t cause anytensionin the hair. So we use it on the cast all the time, and people always comment on how it doesn’t pull up at all. Everyone has one now — we even use it on the wigs.

A lot of girls with Afro hair will have littlebaby hairs, and we use this on the edges to tidy them. I used to actually always use atoothbrushbecause it’s practically the same thing. But I also saw this on Instagram and thought I may as well give it a try, and it’s actually a greatproduct. It has a finer end, too. We used this a lot on Lauren-Joy Williams, who played young Terry in a flashback episode of the show, because we wanted Terry to have her perfect edges rounded, which was a very early-2000s look.

This is one of the original brands of micellar waters, from France. When I go there to visit my aunt, I stock up on this stuff because it’s a lot cheaper. It’s somildit’s almost likewater, and it’s mostly fragrance-free, so it’s very calming on the skin. Cast members might change makeup “looks” during filming depending on schedules, and when you’re getting a lot of differenteyemakeup or different lips applied during the day, it can be harsh on the skin. So we always recommend this.

We were using lace-based wigs, where thehairis knotted onto a lace so that it looks more like natural hair. The lace is called “translucent,” but it isn’t really, as it’s for lighter skin. So to match the lace to the individual character’s skin tone we used this lace tint, which is super-helpful, because I was using some wigs from my existing stock. You’re basically making sure the lace around thehairlineis completely invisible. This is ablack-ownedbusiness, which we love to support. The dyes are plant-based and feature an antibacterial property which is so important for good scalp care, because it can get warm under there.