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Arabelle: All the time. I love watching girls bond over make up—it makes me so happy! My favorite Sephora is the one at Union Square. I’ll literally sit down at one of those demonstration tables and people watch. It’s really creepy of me.If I’m out of the house for a long time, I’ll come reapply makeup at Sephora. Do you think most of these makeup brands are made in the same place?
Tayler:Yeah, because a lot of them are owned by the same company, LVMH.Arabelle: Sephora itself is owned by LVMH. It’s all very political, like what gets promoted first, what’s on the kiosk endcaps. There was a really good piece in Business of Fashion about their business strategy. I like being aware of corporate agendas so I'm able to apply appropriate skepticism to the latest brands and beauty trends. I especially like knowing what products, colors, and smells are most popular where so I can test them out before everyone else around me. I'm just really nosy.How do you two know each other?
Tayler: The Internet.Arabelle: Tumblr. I needed someone to help me take photos for my fashion blog after my old photographer moved to Japan. I saw that Tayler had really cool stuff on her website, so I was like asked her if she was interested in working on this project.

Arabelle: Some of them. Many are my readers. I did a open casting call on my site.
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Arabelle: Our main girl is Indigo. She’s the girl with the biggest photo in the show, she's on the show cards and everything too. I wanted her from the beginning and we're going to work on a lot of stuff together in the future. And there's Hari Nef. The first time we met was actually at that 285 Kent show I just told you about. There's Eri Wakiyama too. She was the ultimate Monster in the series. Doing her makeup was hard because she's already quite self-actualized into what we were trying to pull out of everyone else through questions. She wasn't afraid at all so there was little to make her anxious about. She is an end goal of identity because she's so free.Tayler: Shooting Indigo was definitely the biggest moment for me. She's self-actualized as her own type of monster. When I was shooting her, Arabelle was standing really close to me, and when I got the picture, we both collapsed onto the floor.

Arabelle: I came up with the questions during a panic attack in Sephora a year ago, about. I was in a bad place and I wanted to ask myself how I got there and how I should get out. I started asking them to other people and it helped both of us figure out what we hated and needed to change about our lives.
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No, I think this is the first day I’ve worn makeup in a week. I have to be in a certain mindset to wear makeup but it gets my shit together, do you know what I mean?Not really…
Makeup helps me get my shit together. It gives me purpose, a plan, and process. I’ll sit and listen to Missy Elliott and, like, get my paint on. I was listening to My Chemical Romance this morning and I think it shows in my makeup.

Tayler: Thank you! Color is my vice—hah! I feel the most confident and safe when I'm wearing bold colors.Do you feel like bold makeup is a power?
Arabelle: Definitely. That’s the whole point of the project: to harness the power of monstrosity. I would say "feminine" monstrosity but this project isn't so much about being femme or being a girl as it is about something outside of gender. Actually, we purposely included trans and non-binary portraits and changed the original title, Girlmonsters, to Most Important Ugly. It fits into the narrative arc of how I came up with the idea in the first place, from something reactionary and resistant to something bigger. The first time I ever did resistance makeup in the way that the project uses it was after a show at 285 Kent. Traveling home from Brooklyn to where I live in Jersey is a nightmare: it’s a two hour commute at two in the morning, you’re alone, it's terrifying. Knowing I’d have this long way home, I put on big red eyeshadow for the show, messy red glitter, smudged purple lipstick that made my teeth yellow looking. And no one bothered me on the way home. It was great. They couldn't understand what I was doing with my face. I felt safe.What's your "Most Important Beautiful"?
My friends! My chosen family. I don't care too much about my own body identity and disassociate from it a lot, ironically. But I focus on being supportive to my friends and their journeys. We have to take care of each other. Our stories and friends are what keep us afloat.Tayler: My most important beautiful is not human.