Ernesto Casillas on Creating Zendaya’s Viral Red Carpet Beauty

Makeup artist Ernesto Casillas had arrived in New York City on July 14 with one clear vision: simplicity with impact. When Zendaya walked out for the premiere of The Odyssey at the Lincoln Center, her face told the story of a carefully considered aesthetic—flushed cheeks, barely-there eye makeup, and a glow that felt almost effortless despite months of strategic thinking. The internet erupted within hours. His direct messages flooded with requests for tutorials and product breakdowns, hundreds of beauty enthusiasts tagging him in their attempts to recreate what they saw on the red carpet.

For Casillas, the moment was years in the making, though his recent season had been defined by back-to-back viral successes. Before Zendaya’s minimalist triumph, there was Zara Larsson at Billboard’s Women in Music event in April, her eyes brushed with rosy lids that sparked equal conversation. The makeup artist had been traveling almost continuously for eight weeks when he sat down with Allure to discuss his process—a conversation that would soon become far more relevant than either party anticipated.

Dressing the Face to Match the Dress

The creative path to Zendaya’s July 14 look began, as it always does in Casillas’s process, with the outfit. Her dress came from Matières Fécales, a piece that demanded a beauty approach specifically calibrated to its design. Casillas didn’t reach for inspiration boards or mood boards; instead, he thought about the garment itself.

“I was thinking of beautiful, sunkissed, bronzy skin,” he explained. “I knew that she was going to wear a lot of white, so I started thinking about how to incorporate color in order to break that up.”

Collaboration as Foundation

The look wasn’t conceived in isolation. On the day of the premiere, Casillas consulted directly with Zendaya and her longtime stylist Law Roach. This wasn’t a hierarchical arrangement where the makeup artist executed a predetermined vision; rather, all three brought their perspectives to shape the final result. The collaboration revealed Casillas’s underlying philosophy: the makeup must serve three entities simultaneously—the face, the outfit, and the moment.

“We have a dress, and we all have a similar vision,” he said. “It’s been about beautiful, bronzy skin, and if she’s wearing a blue sapphire necklace, maybe we’ll use a pot of blue eyeshadow, just for a pop of color.” This method of thinking about complementary colors and visual breaks extended to his other recent work—the white and blue washes he’d created for Zendaya’s rounds of press for The Odyssey and Spiderman: Brand New Day demonstrated this same principle of palette coordination with clothing.

Red Carpet Over Cinema

Though The Odyssey draws from mythical ancient Greece, Casillas made a deliberate choice not to mine Greek aesthetics for his makeup direction. The fictional world of the film remained secondary to the real world of fashion photography and social media engagement.

“At the end of the day, we’re doing makeup for the carpet, not for the film,” he stated. “We want to create a moment on the carpet that is both a fashion and a beauty moment, for sure.” This distinction revealed something fundamental about his approach: the makeup exists first to serve the photograph and the digital moment, not the narrative context of the film itself.

From Costco Discovery to Celebrity Clientele

Read also: Pearl Frosted Nails: Florence Pugh’s Ice Queen Premiere Look · Shay Mitchell Explains the Backlash Behind Rini’s Children’s Sheet Masks · The Cost of Living Young: Why Longevity Goals Feel Out of Reach for Millennials · Kaia Gerber’s Brunette Summer Hair Inspired by Cindy Crawford’s ’90s Look

Casillas’s entry into makeup came not through formal training or family legacy, but through a Costco purchase. Browsing the big-box retailer’s book section, he encountered works by Kevyn Aucoin, a legendary makeup artist whose transformations sparked something in him. “Seeing those transformations really had an impact on me,” he recalled.

His cultural background amplified that initial spark. Growing up Mexican-American gave him exposure to pageant culture and telenovelas—visual traditions built on glamour and dramatic beauty. These influences shaped his aesthetic sensibility long before he chose makeup as a career. During college, he initially aimed for fashion and beauty photography, but found himself drawn instead to the models themselves, specifically to the makeup he was applying to their faces.

Los Angeles in the 2000s as Training Ground

Casillas grew up in Los Angeles during the early 2000s, a period and place that became his visual reference library. “Hollywood was my playground, and basically my backyard,” he reflected. The fashion of that era—dark, smoky eyes, barely-there brows, heavy contouring—shaped his foundational understanding of makeup craft. Yet he recognized early that he couldn’t simply replicate those trends; he needed to find his own voice.

“Fashion [back then] was very dark, smoky eyes, barely-there brows, a lot of contour,” he remembered. “I was very into that but at the same time, I had that touch of glamour to me.” Eventually, he realized that the market for makeup divided between editorial cleanness and full glamour, and that celebrities wanted the latter. “I started leaning into it more because I thought I had to be more fashion and clean and editorial, but I realized there was a market for full glam.”

Building a Roster Through Persistence

His first major celebrity client came through a direct approach. Casillas reached out to Mel B’s hairstylist via Model Mayhem, an online networking platform for beauty professionals. One bronzed look paired with a smoky eye convinced the former Spice Girl to keep him on. Mel B remained his client for two years, long enough for him to build confidence and refine his method. From there, his roster expanded to include Jennifer Lopez and, eventually, Zendaya.

The consistency of his repeat clients, Casillas believed, came down to something less tangible than technical skill. “A lot of these girls can hire the best of the best, when it comes to technically proficient makeup artists. At the end of the day, most of them want someone whose energy they like around them—someone whose energy is calming or matches theirs.”

The Philosophy: Maximalist Versus Minimal

Casillas observed that celebrity beauty divides into two camps: the maximalists and the minimalists. Zara Larsson embodied the first category—bold, statement-making eyes that demand attention. Hailey Bieber represented the second—restrained, skin-focused beauty that whispers rather than shouts. Rather than choose between these poles, Casillas made his reputation by occupying the space between them.

“I like that merge and in-between, which is more of what I’ve been doing now,” he said. “It is more toned-down face makeup with a lightweight foundation, sunkissed skin, and a pop of color around the eyes.” This middle path allowed him to offer something his clients couldn’t find elsewhere: a beauty approach that honored both their individual preferences and the demands of red-carpet visibility. The strategy worked. His recent work demonstrated mastery of this balance—the colorful eyelid paired with seamless bronzer, the dramatic lash paired with a softer brow.

Technique: Blending and Dimension

Learning From the 2000s, Refining for Today

Casillas drew heavily from the diffused complexions of the 2000s, but with a crucial update: perfect blending. The beauty of that era, he observed, suffered from visible demarcation lines—you could see where one color ended and another began. Modern technique demanded something more sophisticated.

“Whether it’s bronzy, frosty, peachy or glowy, the idea is to still carve out your face and add tons of dimension,” he explained. “It’s just about making sure it is all blended with perfect transitions. You shouldn’t be able to tell where a color ends and starts. The technique is in diffusing all of it.” This commitment to seamless transitions separated his work from simpler interpretations of the 2000s aesthetic that had resurged in recent seasons.

The Lash Question and Brow Philosophy

Recent work had introduced signature elements that showcased his understanding of proportion and balance. For Zendaya, he applied spider-like lashes and introduced highlighted inner corners—techniques that had gone dormant in makeup culture but felt fresh when executed with precision. These bolder eye elements, however, required counterbalance elsewhere on the face.

Casillas expressed a desire to see softer, more natural brows return to prominence. “We have been really focused on a strong eyebrow, a perfectly symmetrical, perfectly manicured brow,” he said. “I miss the days when you could do a really impactful eye and the brows were kind of an afterthought, maybe filled in a little and brushed to the side. That was a very effortless look. I would like to see more of that more natural, softer brow come back.” The tension between bold eyes and minimal brows represented another iteration of his broader philosophy: balance across the face rather than equal intensity everywhere.

Adaptability as Currency

The viral attention following The Odyssey premiere represented a shift in Casillas’s career visibility, but not in his working method. His ability to move fluidly between editorial minimalism and full-glam pageantry had always been his competitive advantage. This adaptability allowed him to serve different clients on different days without losing his signature aesthetic.

“Being able to do both clean, editorial work and transitioning to full beats speaks to my adaptability and versatility as an artist,” he noted. When asked about the sudden influx of attention, he remained measured: “It’s not something I expect or want, but means so much to me.” His final reflection on success resonated beyond makeup: “I don’t think you need to be the most versatile artist to find success, you can find your own lane. But adaptability will take you a long way.”