When the A-list makeup artist met the beauty brand founder, it was bound to lead to a must-have collection.
Caroline Barnes is the go-to makeup artist for many celebrities, including Ruth Wilson and Kylie Minogue. Now, she has teamed up with beauty brand founder Otis Batterbee to create a makeup brush collection fit for the A-list.
“The vision from Caroline was clear—we needed to design a collection that was both practical and accessible to everyone,” says Otis Batterbee, recalling their first meeting over coffee in late 2022 to discuss makeup brushes. “I had been following Caroline on social media for years and knew how incredibly loyal people are to her no-nonsense makeup tutorials,” he says. Determined to collaborate, he persuaded a friend in beauty PR to arrange the meeting, knowing exactly what he wanted to ask—what brushes earned a place in her kit?
Caroline Barnes is the make-up artist that jet-sets across the globe to make sure that her celebrity clients look red-carpet ready. Having started in the beauty industry over 30 years ago, Caroline was fascinated by make-up from childhood, studying issues of Vogue and becoming obsessed with the glamour of photoshoots and locations. “I also suffered from severe acne from the age of fifteen which made me use make-up as armour, which taught me makeup can boost someone's confidence, it wasn’t just for models in magazines." she says about the first time she realised that she wanted to become a make-up artist.
What few people realise is that a professional make-up artist’s kit is their most valuable asset, often amassed over years and tried and tested to perfection. “Art shops is where I started when I only had a few pennies’ to spare as a student, that’s where I sourced brushes as they were cheaper and had better shape for precision work.” Caroline reminisces on how she built her makeup kit in the early years. Fast forward to 2024 and she has now had the opportunity to create a selection of brushes which are both practical to use and beautiful.
Otis Batterbee is the Central Saint Martin’s trained designer that fell into the beauty industry by chance. “I had designed everything from handbags to ready-to-wear, and being in the fashion industry, I spent my fair share of time assisting on photoshoots. My favourite part of the whole process was always being with the make-up artists and seeing them transform the models. Ever the product designer, I wanted to know more about the tools that they were using, this sparked my desire to create a beauty line that filled the gap for high-performance and high-design beauty tools.” Otis recalls about the moment he switched from fashion designer to beauty maker.
The result of these to two leading lights in beauty coming together is a converted twelve-piece make-up brush collection. “I wanted to design a brush collection that was perfect for detailed make-up application, it’s all about you being able to elevate your bone structure and bring out your features with complete ease.” Caroline muses on what these brushes had to do for people. The OBXCB brush set arrives in the cleverest of makeup-brush cases too. “I wanted the case the be super practical, Caroline mentioned that a bugbear of hers was that brushes often didn’t have time to dry before being packed up on location, so I added these smart vents in the base so that air could circulate around the brushes.” Reflects Otis on the design process. The case is rather pretty too, its sage green interior is crafted from vegan leather and can be reversed and easily cleaned.
The hard-working pair spent over 12 months developing the collection, with each of the brushes crafted from scratch. “We have so many detailed notes and examples of brushes that were tweaked and reshaped on countless occasions, at one point we wondered how long the project was actually going to take us.” Otis laughs as he remembers how long the development stages took. A refreshing aspect of the collaboration is the price-point. “I absolutely wanted the collaboration to be affordable for most people, we don’t have big marketing budgets and advertising to pay for which meant we could labour over the quality of the components and get the bristles to be best in-class.”
Otis has a habit of making much-adored beauty tools. One of his first products made it onto the dressing table of Gwyneth Paltrow and became a bestseller overnight. “Getting that sort of recognition (Gwyneth listed his brushes on her lifestyle platform Goop.) at the start was a real helping hand.” But making all of us look good is his real calling. “I really love it when people feel empowered by beauty, but you need good tools.” Caroline and Otis have been busy filming tutorials to partner with each of the brushes for the launch. Caroline’s approach to beauty has made her a trustworthy voice in the industry, and this meeting of minds looks like it’s going to get us applying our make-up just that bit better, even if were not all walking the red-carpet.
