Makeover Montage: A Fashion in Film Podcast · Marie Lodi and Blaire Bercy

Building Bruises and Bad Makeup: An Interview with Bottoms' Makeup Artist Natalie Johnson

June 13, 2025·45 min·2 clips

Johnson says she wanted the Bottoms girls to stay "young looking as possible" while still being beautiful.

1. Makeover Montage turns to Bottoms makeup artist Natalie Johnson for a discussion of the film's bruises, blood, and teen-character looks. 2. Natalie Johnson appears as the guest makeup artist, and the hosts talk to her because she designed the looks for Bottoms and has credits on Claws, Haunted Mansion, and Passenger. 3. The episode asks how Bottoms balanced 90s teen-movie makeup with fight-scene damage and realistic high-school faces. 4. Johnson says she read the Bottoms script after an "email of interest" and had to "make Emma fall in love with me" to work on it. 5. She says her mood board pulled from 90s teen comedies and rom-coms, then she names Bring It On, Jawbreaker, She's All That, and Never Been Kissed. 6. Johnson describes wanting "an explosion of color" while still making the characters feel unique once she saw the actors in costume and hair. 7. She says she did not want the teen characters to look too old, too disheveled, or too distracting. 8. Johnson says she preferred a look that was "very real, but very beautiful" instead of the more age-mismatched styles she notices in other high-school movies. 9. She names Skinfix, Kula, and The Ordinary as skincare products she used on Bottoms and later added to her own routine. 10. Johnson says Kula's setting spray with SPF 30 does "two jobs" at once, and she calls The Ordinary's caffeine solution a favorite eye product. 11. On lip color, she identifies MAC Russian Red and says it sits next to Ruby Woo as one of her favorite reds. 12. She recommends Laneige lip mask and a quick scrub before liner and lipstick for better lip prep. 13. For stunts and blood, Johnson says she works with department heads and the stunt coordinator so the punch marks and blood placement look intentional. 14. She says the last fight scene took about a week and a half to film because of scattered thunderstorms and all-night shoots. 15. Johnson explains that the crew had to keep the girls' makeup at multiple bruise stages, including clean, mid-bloody, and fully bloody looks. 16. She says PPI's Fleet Street drying blood was her preferred fake blood because of its bright red color and easier reset, and she uses water wipes to remove it. 17. Johnson says European Body Art alcohol-activated palettes gave the bruises their fresh-to-healing progression, and she liked that the product would not move until removal. 18. The interview moves at a conversational pace, with product names, personal anecdotes, and film-crew logistics mixed together. 19. Listeners who like makeup-kit specifics, film continuity, and horror-adjacent beauty talk. 20. Listeners looking for a formal technique breakdown or a spoiler-free narrative arc.

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