Katy Navarro: "40 years later, I still get nervous when doing a bride's makeup: it's her day and I can't let her down."

Katy Navarro started as a professional makeup artist in Malaga even before it was recognized as a 'profession'. She has spent 40 years among brushes and has worked with hundreds of well-known faces because, among others, she has been working for decades at the Lyric Season of the Cervantes Theater as well as at the Malaga Film Festival. But she also appears in the wedding photo albums of hundreds of couples in Malaga on their big day, a job she juggles with her position as a makeup artist on Canal Malaga and in the 'Imagine' show in Sohrlin.

–How does a little girl tell her mother: 'Mom, I want to be a makeup artist'?

–I've always liked everything to do with beauty. I always asked the Three Wise Men for a doll to style its hair. I was super happy making the doll look pretty! So I studied Vocational Training in Aesthetics because I thought that doing hairdressing and dealing with hair all my life would be a bit boring. In Aesthetics, there was a Makeup course and for me, that was the best part.

–And now you've been making up half of Malaga for almost 40 years, and there's hardly any celebrity left for you to work on...

–Hahaha. And there's no sector left for me to work in either because I've done musicals, movies, series, documentaries, TV shows... The only thing I haven't done is sell makeup, which I wouldn't mind either, because working in a store and being able to play with products all the time would be wonderful. I've been very lucky because being able to dedicate so many years to makeup seems like a luxury to me.

–Do you remember the first person you were impressed to make up?

–It was during Expo 92 at the Maestranza Theater in Seville, where all the greats of opera passed through. When I found out I had to make up Alfredo Kraus, I was like, 'Oh my, what a fright, what a responsibility'. Then I met a charming and very kind man. It was the first time I had the feeling of saying 'I've made up someone important'. It seemed like he was a god! And just shortly after that, I also had to make up Plácido Domingo.

–Having made up so many thousands of people, are celebrities or ordinary people worse?

–I've made up many famous people and, surprisingly, those who are starting to be known tend to be the worst. People who have been in the industry for many years already know what it's like: today you're on top... but tomorrow you could be down.

–And who are more vain, men or women?

–About the same, especially among those who are in the world of show business, where everyone has their bit of ego.

"I've made up many celebrities and, surprisingly, those who are starting to be known tend to be the worst."

–You appear in the wedding photo albums of half of Malaga. What a responsibility!

–I've never thought to count how many weddings there have been, but it's true that there have been many since I started. And I still get nervous when I make up a bride! I think it's their special day and I can't let them down.

–With so many years among brushes, you must have thousands of juicy anecdotes to tell. Any curious ones you remember... and can be recounted?

–Once I had to make up a well-known person and was told to cover up a black eye because they had accidentally hit themselves playing with a paddle racket. Later, talking with the person, it turned out that it hadn't been like that, but rather the night before they had been involved in a brawl in a nightclub and got the black eye. But, of course, they thought it would be more glamorous to say it was from paddle (laughs).

–So the makeup chair is almost like a confessional, isn't it?

–People relax, talk to you, tell you many things... But the good thing is that they know that when they leave makeup, it stays there. I've been offered several times to write a book, but I always say that I've forgotten everything. You know you can't tell because if you do, you can't dedicate yourself to this. If I told what they've told me, or what I've seen...

–And the strangest place where you have made up?

–Phew, I think I've made up everywhere: on the beach, on top of a rock, in the trunk of a car, in a corridor...

–If you could make up any person, alive or dead, who would it be?

–Well, I don't have a specific person. I've made up so many and all of them seemed important to me.

–Have you ever had someone ask for a specific look and you told them it wouldn't suit them, but you still had to do it?

–Yes. That happens sometimes with brides. But well, it's their big day, they want that and within what they ask for, I adapt it to their face.

–If you were a makeup product, which would it be?

–Well, the foundation, because it unifies the skin, adds shine, removes dark circles... With a good foundation, you have a blank canvas to continue creating. And then a good lipstick.

–So, would lipstick be your secret weapon?

–A red lipstick! When women come to me looking unwell, I always put on a red lipstick. It's just putting it on and you can see the change in their mood.

–And at the blacksmith's house, is it a case of 'the shoemaker's son always goes barefoot' or does that not apply here?

–It absolutely applies. Most professional makeup artists don't wear makeup themselves.