1 day Ago By Margaux Anbouba
“I'm channeling Glinda today,” Ariana Grande tells me over Zoom. She's wearing a fuzzy pink sweater, her blonde hair pulled up into her signature taut ponytail, all part of the method dressing she's been doing (and living) since being cast as Glinda in the film adaptation of Wicked . Coincidentally, I'm her foil—wearing a black Simone Rocha puff sleeve dress with a smudgey cat-eye, slightly annoyed by the jostling of my yellow taxi while heading downtown—very Elphaba.
“Pink was never really a part of my life until I started collecting a lot of pink pieces during the audition process three years ago.” The good witch-ification of the star started earlier this year, and since then we've only seen Grande in shades of blush designed by Thom Browne and Giambattista Valli . Today, she takes it all a step further: Grande's three-year-old beauty brand R.
E.M. Beauty is announcing a Wicked collection exclusively here, inspired by the founder's upcoming role.
“I pulled inspiration for the collection from the stage show, the movie, and the books,” Grande says. “I am very much a nerd who likes to document things, like my fittings and hair and makeup tests.” And while her iPhone came in handy for certain moments, it's the Hermès Kelly-sized notebook—yes, that's pink, too—that's waiting right off-screen where much of that documentation lives.
There's deep cuts for the fans, too—like the packaging, which combines R.E.M.
Beauty shapes with both illustrations seen in the original L. Frank Baum books and on the scrim from the musical. Some of the products in the 9-piece collection, like the pH adaptive lip oil that changes colors, are first-ever for the brand.
“Of course, we had to come up with something magical for the witches,” Grande tells me. “I have a funny story about this product. One of my best friends, Doug [Middlebrook] had all of the testers because he loves to try everything and help me.
He had the Glinda lip oil in his bathroom, and his friend saw it and thought ‘oh, a beautiful little sheer shimmery moment’ and put it on. They looked in the mirror right before they walked out the door and had hot pink lips!” When it came to Grande's own metamorphasis to Glinda, she had two iconic women who lit the way: Billie Burke in 1939's The Wizard of Oz and Kristin Chenoweth, who played Glinda in the first rendition of Wicked . “We wanted to pay homage to the gorgeous Glindas who have come before me while also creating our own version,” she says.
And she was willing to go much further than just swiping on a lip gloss. Today, the subtle glimmer of her face can be detected through my phone screen—and she credits prepping her skin with the new Galinda Glow Drops (topped with core collection Sweetener Foundation and Concealer), the Ozdust palette on her eyes, and the lipstick from the Galinda set. “My pop persona is such a characterized version on its own,” she says.
“Beauty really helped me deconstruct that person and find Glinda.” Step one was dyeing her hair, she says. “Even though I was wearing wigs, I needed to be blonde, too,” adding that the brows needed to match because there was “a softness that Glinda has with the lighter brows.
It didn't make any sense when I had my dark brows.” It all just fell into place from there, with a little help from the Glinda glam team, which includes Frances Hannon and Gabor Kerekes. Naturally, then came a whole lot of pink.
“Cynthia [Erivo, her co-star in Wicked ] and I have really loved to shop in character,” she says. “I just wanted to live in the DNA and mindset of the character. Now I love the color pink and it feels like part of me.
I think it's something I'll be forever intertwined with in a very special way.” The R.E.
M. Beauty x Wicked collection will be available to shop on the brand's website at midnight EST on October 1st. It will also be available in Ulta Beauty stores and on ulta.
com in early October..
