Kevyn Aucoin

Kevyn Aucoin: Beauty & The Beast In Me, a documentary film directed by Lori Kaye & produced by Putti Media that features Aucoin's own personal videos to tell his life story, premiered as the documentary centerpiece at Outfest in July 2017 and had its U.S. TV debut on Logo TV on September 14, 2017. The film was featured in the 125th anniversary (September 2017) issue of Vogue Magazine.

Aucoin was interested in makeup from the time he was a child, and frequently did his sisters' makeup and photographed the results with a Polaroid camera—something he'd do throughout his career. Afraid to buy makeup, he would shoplift it. The guilt of stealing and fear of getting caught made him stop.

Kevyn Aucoin: A Beautiful Life—The Success, Struggles, and Beauty Secrets of a Legendary Makeup Artist was published in 2003 by Atria Books and Simon and Schuster. The book was edited by Kerry Diamond and reviewed Aucoin's career through celebrity interviews, his beauty tips and techniques, and over 250 photographs. The Kevyn Aucoin Beauty brand continues his legacy to this day and is available at Barneys New York, Beauty.com, Bergdorf Goodman, Beautylish.com, Nigel Beauty Emporium, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Sephora, Space.NK, b-glowing.com and other retailers.

Aucoin died on May 7, 2002 at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York of kidney and liver failure due to acetaminophen toxicity, caused by prescription painkillers. Despite his instructions that his ashes be scattered in Hawaii where he was married, Aucoin's remains are buried with his mother in Louisiana.

The Tori Amos song "Taxi Ride" from her 2002 album Scarlet's Walk is a partial homage to Aucoin. He made a cameo appearance in a fourth season episode (Episode 2: "The Real Me") of the long-running HBO series Sex and the City. He was a major fan of the Comedy Central show Strangers With Candy and appeared in an episode alongside Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert as a funeral makeup artist (Season 2, Episode 4: The Goodbye Guy).

Later, Aucoin would work with Japanese cosmetics giant Shiseido on their Inoui line. He would later be approached by both Vincent Longo and Laura Mercier to endorse their eponymous lines, but decided to launch his own brand, Kevyn Aucoin Beauty, in 2001 instead.

In September 2001, after having increasing amounts of back pain and headaches, Aucoin was diagnosed with a rare pituitary tumor. He had been suffering from acromegaly resulting from the tumor for much of his life, but it had gone undiagnosed. He underwent a successful surgery and had the tumor removed, but continued to experience pain.

His motto was that it was far more important to help a woman feel beautiful no matter what, and that makeup was simply his tool for helping her discover herself. A proponent of the philosophy that every woman is beautiful within, he was one of the best-paid celebrity make-up artists in history. He began writing a column for Allure. A comment he made in a 2000 column, calling members of the National Rifle Association "morons" drew a record amount of mail for the column and a few death threats. He would refuse to do the make-up of models he felt were too young.

In 1999 he received an honorary degree from the Harvey Milk School for his support.

Aucoin lived with his partner, Jeremy Antunes, whom he began dating in 1999, married in an unofficial ceremony in Hawaii in 2000 and thereafter referred to as his husband. He had also previously been romantically involved with Eric Sakas, who remained a close friend after their breakup and became president and creative director of Kevyn Aucoin Beauty.

Director Tiffany Bartok's feature-length documentary Larger Than Life: The Kevyn Aucoin Story portrays Aucoin's rich, beautiful and complicated life through the story of his groundbreaking career and the inspiring legacy he left behind. The film depicts Aucoin as the pivotal individual who made beauty a cutthroat, high-stakes profession set amidst the 1990s supermodel era as well as the rise of Hollywood's red carpet phenomenon at the turn of the new millennium and explosion of the global beauty business. Bartok also reveals Aucoin's role as an early LGBTQ activist struggling to live openly as a young gay man in his hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana and then, near the end of his life, forming a same-sex partnership and a family of his own. It also uncovers the mystery surrounding Aucoin's untimely death in 2002. Larger Than Life: The Kevyn Aucoin Story held its world premiere at the 25th Hamptons Film Festival in October 2017 and its New York City premiere at DOC NYC in November 2017. The film was produced in association with Vinyl Foote Productions and Matador Content. Producers: Jayce Bartok, Bronwyn Cosgrave and Troy Surratt; Associate Producers: Kelli Reilly, Eric Sakas, Glenn Neely; Executive Producers: Todd Lubin, Jay Peterson, Bobby Kondrat, and Jack Turner.

When he first arrived in New York, Aucoin was putting makeup on test models for free to build up his portfolio before he was discovered by Vogue. For the next year and a half, he worked daily with Vogue photographer Steven Meisel. In the three years following his first Vogue shoot, he did a total of 18 more. In 1984, he collaborated on Revlon's Nakeds line, the first line based solely on skin tones. However, his Vogue cover shoot with supermodel Cindy Crawford in 1986 took his career in a new direction. During 1987–89, he did nine Vogue covers in a row, and an additional seven Cosmopolitan covers. At his peak, he would often be booked months in advance and could command as much as $6,000 for a makeup session.

In 1983, Revlon hired Kevyn Aucoin, at the age of 21, as Creative Director for their prestige Ultima II line of cosmetics. A year later, Aucoin would launch The New Nakeds (later renamed The Nakeds), a groundbreaking line that was a strong counterpoint to cosmetics available at the time. Says Linda Wells, editor of Allure magazine, of the line: "It may not seem like it, but it was a powerful moment. Before, there were makeup lines for white women and others for black women. But he worked to design makeup for all skin tones. The idea was to empower a woman by revealing her natural beauty, and not to cover her up with layers of product."

In 1982, Aucoin moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, hoping to start a career as a makeup artist. While in Baton Rouge, he was assaulted by a security guard at Godchaux's, a local department store. He was there with male friends to check out new makeup, when the guard approached them and said "upstairs or downtown," meaning they could be taken to the store's security office or be arrested. Aucoin and his friends opted for the security office, where they were beaten by security personnel. Fearing for his life, he decided to move to New York City with his then-boyfriend Jed Root (who sometimes posed as his manager) to begin his career.

Kevyn James Aucoin (/oʊ ˈ k w æ̃ / ; February 14, 1962 – May 7, 2002) was an American make-up artist, photographer and author. In the 1990s, Aucoin was wholly responsible for the "sculpted" look of many celebrities and top models, including Whitney Houston, Cher, Madonna, Cindy Crawford, and Naomi Campbell. He published a number of industry defining cosmetics books, which are now widely accepted as introducing makeup contouring to the general public for the first time.