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Patrick Ta has come a long way from the MAC counter, where he started working over 12 years ago in Scottsdale, Arizona. Today, the brand founder and full-time makeup artist travels the country creating looks for Gigi Hadid, Sydney Sweeney, Camila Cabello and Alix Earle, among other well-known names. He often documents the process or the finished looks for his following of 3.4 million on Instagram and 1.2 million on TikTok.
In 2019, Ta launched his namesake brand with a small array of products including a body oil, a lip gloss, a face mist and a fan to set the makeup in place. Since then, the brand has expanded to foundation, blush, contour, lipliner, lipsticks and a brow collection.
In the past few months, Ta has been active on TikTok, documenting a TikTok tour of sorts that took him from Alix Earle’s Miami dorm room to Bretman Rock’s Paris Fashion Week suite to his own hometown of L.A. for stops with Glamzilla, Kensington Tillo (aka @kensnation) and Patrick Starrr.
In this month’s Glossy Pop edition of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, Ta speaks about how he made it as a celebrity makeup artist, what celebrity makeup artists owe to the Kardashians and how Earle changed his perspective on TikTok.
Leveraging social media to get big breaks
“[With] social media, I would see [who followed me], or I would go on to the page of a certain celebrity I really admired or really wanted to work with. If someone started following you, it meant they [were showing] some sort of interest — getting a follow back was a little bit easier [back] then. Back then, if a celebrity followed me, they would eventually get in contact somehow, whether it was through DM or through their publicist. Social media was definitely key. When I first moved to Los Angeles, there were a few articles written about me [that described me as] ‘selfie-made,’ because I would always take photos with my clients.”
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How the Kardashians changed the game for makeup artists
“I started working with the Kardashians, and working with them was such a magical experience. I believe they were the ones who paved the way for artists to get recognition because they would be like, ‘Glam by blah blah blah’ or ‘Makeup or hair by this [person].’ And it started this whole trend that put us artists on a pedestal. I’m so grateful for that experience with them. They’re a family that gets makeup every single day. So I would work with different people in that family five to seven days a week, and that was my life for almost five years.”
How Alix Earle changed TikTok
“Alix has made me fall in love with TikTok, and she is a big reason why I restarted [posting]. … She shined a light on a different way to use the app because, in the beginning, it was all about dancing. … I’m too old for that. And now, I get to actually showcase what I do in my work: It’s me traveling. It’s me doing makeup. And it’s real conversation that is happening within that process. Being a makeup [artist] is such a personal thing. You’re standing less than a foot away from someone’s face. … I’m in your face looking at you, and you’re looking right into my eyes. It’s like, ‘What else do you want to talk about? Let’s get personal.’ It’s different filming with different people, and [these are] real moments.”
