Violette: From Paris to the World

Violette is going to tell us her story and you’re going to love it. I know I did. How did this young, beautiful and stylish Parisian land the title of Global Beauty Director of Estée Lauder with no connections, no mentors and a job she learned on her own? She’s just street smart, honest and completely passionate about what she does.

I’ll keep this intro short because I know you’re going to get hooked on Violette the second you hear her beautiful French accent. So, thank you Violette and thank you so much Estée Lauder for making this podcast happen.

On having pride in her work…
I was always very hard on myself. I think it’s amazing because now I have no ego in my work. I have pride and I have a good opinion of myself and am confident, but no ego. I’m the first one on set to say this makeup is terrible and let me get rid of it and do something else.

On what shocked her about the makeup industry…
One thing that really shocked me was you couldn’t be pretty or stylish because you’re the makeup artist. You’re not the stylist or the model and I never understood that. I’d hear indirect comments. I wasn’t that dressed up. I had jeans, a tshirt, lipstick on, a hat and my suitcase was very nice and my nails were always done. I wasn’t fancy, I just took care of myself.

On the importance of having people who support you…
You need to have someone who believes in you. It’s hard sometimes to have a good vision of yourself all the time, so if you have someone and you can see this through their eyes, it’s very helpful.

On how she got onto Instagram…
It was very late in my career. I did editorial work for years and the one who put me on Instagram was Emily Weiss. She grabbed my phone and said, “Ok, you need to be on this new thing, it’s a new app.” And I thought what? Instagram? Does it calculate your weight or something? But Emily is the one who found my name on Instagram, @Violette_fr. And then it became my thing and it’s funny that she really put this out there for me!