Elena, a 32-year-old makeup artist based in LA, lives a bit of a double life. She has a thriving mainstream group of clients, including celebrities, but she also works as a makeup artist on porn sets. She fell into the work by chance, but has built a busy career and financial stability thanks to her work in porn.
I started doing makeup when I was 17. I was working at Macy’s and I met a woman who was a makeup artist. She introduced me to makeup artistry. I’ve always been into art. I always painted and drew and colored. I did the whole retail makeup counter thing at Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Saks, and Barneys for years. Then I had my own private clients and I started doing more red carpet, mainstream short films, photo shoots, and things like that.
I started doing porn makeup about three years ago. A friend of mine assists for Penthouse. There was a week where there was a six-day shoot they were going to Vegas for and she couldn’t make it and she asked if I would cover for her. At the time I wasn’t working much and I had just separated from my husband, so I really needed to work. So I went to Vegas with Penthouse for six days and got a crash course in porn makeup. They offered me a permanent job with them because their key makeup artist had just quit. I was with Penthouse for two years.
Honestly, the only different thing working in the adult world and mainstream world is that people have sex on camera. Even on regular sets, people are walking around naked, people are changing their clothes, people are flirty. The thing that I noticed when I was first there was how little anyone cared about naked people. For me, it was still really exciting. None of the guys cared that there was a girl masturbating, because they’d seen it so much. That’s what was shocking to me. It didn’t faze them at all.
Adult doesn’t pay that much. They used to pay a lot. Internet porn kind of ruined everything. Any of the old makeup artists I talk to, they used to make $1,200, $1,500 a day. It is nowhere near that currently. The thing with porn is, they actually pay something. Mainstream, a lot of time, they’ll ask you to do something comped because you’re working with a celebrity. No one in porn asks you to do anything for free, even if it’s an hour of your time. Whatever it is, they’ll pay you. That’s the thing where mainstream could learn a lot.ADVERTISEMENT – CONTINUE READING BELOW
They usually try to keep hair and makeup in a different room from where sex is happening. I was used to mainstream world where you go in and touch up someone if they’re sweating or if their lipstick is off. In porn, I learned really quickly that you don’t do that. You don’t need to put their lipstick back on! They’ll come to you when they’re ready for that.
I always have waterproof mascara, definitely. Sometimes the girls tear up during sex. I also have to have non-waterproof because some directors like it when the makeup smudges. Sometimes they like that she looks like she put in effort. You know what I really love right now? Rosewater spray. Whether it’s mainstream or porn, if a girl gets a little red or flushed, you just spray it on and it calms the skin down, gives it a really pretty glow, and it sets the makeup really nicely too.
Body-makeup-wise, I will cover up any scars on the breasts. I don’t touch anything near the vagina. It’ll probably just come off because there are oils involved and they’re grinding for a very long time. I rarely have to do makeup on the men. There are only a couple guys who like makeup. Most of them are terrified of it and don’t want to have anything to do with it, unless they have a pimple or they have an ingrown or something that needs to be covered.
I’ve learned the best tips from these girls that I use in regular life, both sex and non-sex, that has benefited me so much. Like coconut oil! It’s the best thing for your vagina. A lot of people are allergic to lube so they’ll use coconut oil instead. This is a cool trick — I get the little tiny ice trays and I put coconut oil in there and I put them in the fridge. At night before I go to bed I take the tiny cube and I put it in my vagina and I sleep with it. You have to do it at night otherwise it drips out. But it helps balance everything. It’s amazing.
Almost everybody knows I work in porn except my parents. I come from a really traditional family and they would just not understand. But I recently found out that my brother also works in porn. He works on the editing side with another company and his wife told me, “You know your brother does porn also.” I said, “Oh, our parents would love that!”
With some of my mainstream celebrity clients, when they get comfortable with me, I tell them that I work in porn and everyone just wants to come to set. That’s the first thing they say: “Can you take us with you? I just want to watch. I want to see what happens.”
If I start dating somebody, the production manager or the director will come up to me and suggest, “If you want to bring your significant other on set so they can see what it’s like and be more comfortable with you being here, we understand that.” But I haven’t taken anyone I’m dating to set with me. Sometimes I need an assistant and I take my sister. Some things shock her, but it’s the things that would shock anybody.
I was married for four and a half years and I was with my husband for a total of 13 years. I left him in November and started working at Penthouse in the beginning of January. There was so much I hadn’t seen. I knew so little about sex. I’ve definitely become much more open to sex, and much more comfortable talking about it and expressing myself to a partner. The girls are so open about their sexuality, and they have no problem talking to you about it.
Most of the girls who work in porn are really smart, professional, good people who happen to like to being naked and having sex. But once in a while you get someone who … well, for example, we were watching a Disney movie on set. A few of us were sitting on the couch, and a girl is behind us on the phone with her boyfriend having phone sex. She’s FaceTiming him and then she starts masturbating. There’s a time and place for that. You just don’t do it in the makeup room. We were sitting there watching a cartoon!