A strong foundation: Senior makeup artist balances degree with creative enterprise

For rising senior and entertainment beauty YouTuber Amanda Elimian, multidimensional doesn’t just describe her makeup repertoire. When Elimian isn’t creating dramatic navy smoky eyes, bright clearly defined cut creases or even a Harry Styles-inspired pearl bead look, or discussing white beauty influencers’ privilege, the pre-health student is brushing up on the MCAT in hopes of bringing lasting change to a health care system that often fails Black women.

“Makeup right now is just a creative outlet because you need something to make you feel joy when you’re studying for a big exam,” said Elimian, who is majoring in health and human sciences. “Being pre-med is hard. It’s as hard as people think.”

Elimian’s enthusiasm for makeup similarly stemmed from a simple desire for change: After her introduction to the field through the garish looks required by her All Star cheerleading competitions, she decided to pick up a palette and improve. As she perfected her craft, she saw a distinct lack of Black representation in the beauty community, and her camera became her second tool of choice to make a difference.

“A lot of the smaller artists with smaller YouTube channels that did specifically beauty reviews — none of them were Black,” Elimian said. “When I went to go buy a palette and I put it into YouTube, I wouldn’t see any sort of review or swatches or stuff on dark skin.”

Elimian, who has since amassed 132,000 subscribers on YouTube, started her channel in 2018, after her freshman year of college. Following a hiatus during sophomore year due to her busy class schedule, she returned to the video platform last summer.

“I want to stress myself as a regular person who wears makeup,” Elimian said. “Most people who buy makeup are just regular people who wear makeup. So now you can trust, I guess, my opinions and my thoughts on products.”

Keviette Minor, who was Elimian’s roommate freshman year at Fluor Tower’s Somerville Place, a special interest floor for Black students, said she watched Elimian grow as she delved into a wide range of topics, including makeup tutorials, entertainment news and her life as a pre-health student at USC. As her roommate, Minor, a rising senior majoring in design, would at times serve as Elimian’s practice client for makeup looks. 

Sydney Starkes, who also met Elimian while they both lived in Somerville Place, said she grew closer with Elimian because they both enjoyed pop culture. Starkes, who hails from Austin, Texas, said she and Elimian, who is from Westchester County, N.Y., were glad to have lived in Somerville Place having come from predominantly white neighborhoods.

Like Minor and Starkes, Aiyonna White, a rising senior majoring in journalism, found community in Somerville Place and developed a close bond with Elimian. White said she was drawn to Elimian because of their similar introverted personalities, growing closer with shared interests in music.

“I cannot imagine USC without living on Somerville,” White said. “It’s really nice to have a built-in community … With Somerville, we’re called the Somerville family … we were always hanging out with each other.”

While Elimian has always been known for her lively, fun and charismatic personality among friends, White said it has been refreshing seeing her friend come even more out of her shell as a result of her YouTube channel.

“It’s been really exciting watching Amanda grow into herself,” White said. “She talks more, she’s more confident … YouTube has something to do with it, but YouTube didn’t like, give her that confidence. She just matured and was able to fully be herself and project that.”

Starkes, who roomed with Elimian sophomore year, along with Minor and White, attested to Elimian’s work ethic. Elimian adheres to a strict schedule, dedicating the morning to her studies and the evening to her YouTube channel.

“I really don’t know how she does it,” White said. “She wakes up every day at 7 a.m. and studies all day. And then at night, she does her YouTube stuff.”

Although Elimian has had to adapt her workflow due to the pandemic, she often keeps track of both her academic and YouTube responsibilities through compartmentalization, completing her schoolwork at Leavey Library and filming videos at home. 

Her secret for successfully balancing her studies with her makeup career? Elimian’s self-described saving grace is being a morning person.

“I don’t do school work past 9 p.m.,” Elimian said. “Never have, never will. My brain shuts off around 8, so I can’t concentrate on schoolwork past that time.”

While Starkes and Elimian had different schedules sophomore year and Starkes rarely saw her creating content for YouTube, she said Elimian would often reach out to friends for feedback on video ideas. 

“She’s also just a very organized person in general,” said Starkes, a rising senior majoring in cinema and media studies. “She plans out her day completely, and she kind of treats YouTube as she treats her schoolwork because all of her videos, she researches them, she has a little script for them and she puts a lot of effort into it.”

With the coronavirus outbreak, Elimian has become more determined to enter the medical field, as she wants to be on the front lines providing health care services to marginalized groups.

Elimian, who is a first-generation student and whose father is a doctor, said she aims to improve the health care Black women receive in the United States. She recalled an experience while volunteering at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica as an 18-year-old when a Black woman patient asked her to stay in the room, as she felt uncomfortable with the doctor treating her.

“When I talk to other people, especially other Black girls, the relationship with the doctors is not the same,” Elimian said. “And it’s never sat right with me. It’s very worrisome that you can’t go to the doctor without fear of like, they might not want you here.”

Aside from her channel, Elimian is also a member of the Black Student Assembly and its Creative Experience as well as the Pan African Student Association. While she couldn’t attend the former club’s meetings due to a conflict with her MCAT prep class, she helped coordinate makeup for a fashion show in PASA’s Afro Ball hosted in February.

“Most of the eye looks that we did were nontraditional,” Elimian said. “Heavy shine, heavy reflect was the eye look that I did on all my girls. It was stressful. I hadn’t done a big like makeup for a big event with that in a minute since high school … but I think the makeup was incredible.”

Elimian also did the makeup for 2020 graduate and musician Amir Kelly’s music video for his single “Eden.” The makeup artist, who had previously done makeup for photoshoots but not videos, said the experience pushed her out of her comfort zone, allowing her to experiment with more editorial glossy makeup.

The beauty YouTuber also provides makeup services to the USC community with a tiered system that makes it easier for clients to navigate the looks they want. The Headshot, the lowest priced full-face look at $30, includes lightweight foundation, bronzer, cream highlight and contour and powder. The Shoot, the highest tier at more than $55, pulls out all the stops with false lashes and a themed editorial eye look.

“I think my creativity shines more in just focusing on a dramatic eye look … and I like doing that ’cause it really transforms people, and they seem to like the way they look after I do that one,” Elimian said.

Minor said she believes Elimian’s dedication to her craft, regardless of her subscriber count or popularity, secured her success. According to her friends, Elimian was bound to attain recognition, as they said she was constantly innovating her channel and coming up with new ideas. 

Elimian garnered a large increase in following after her video about @EmoBlackThot, a popular Twitter account thought to be run by a Black woman with dark skin but later exposed as a Black man with light skin, released in October. 

“[The video] just happened to break the algorithm. Ever since that time in October, it’s just been kind of exponential growth,” Minor said. “Sydney, she was studying abroad in the fall, she was in London and we were all on the call together … and Sydney was like ‘Oh yeah, like, they know your name out here, and you have fans out here all the way in London.’”

Elimian cited Jackie Aina and Nyma Tang, two Black beauty YouTubers with large followings, as people she looks up to. When Aina, whom she has been watching on YouTube for four years, recently expressed her appreciation for Elimian’s videos, it marked a milestone of how far she had come.

“I’m extremely proud of her,” Starkes said. “At the same time I’m not surprised at her success at all because she’s such a charismatic person and just a nice and caring person … It was only kind of a matter of time before she blew up.” 

Elimian also pointed to fellow makeup artist Vanessa Funes as a content creator she draws inspiration from. Like Elimian, Funes sees makeup as an artform through which she can express herself and improve her mental well-being.

While Funes, who started following Elimian last year when they both got on Anastasia Beverly Hills’ PR list, has not collaborated with Elimian on any videos, she said she would love to work with her on future projects given Elimian’s commitment to speaking out on issues that matter to her, whether that be the lack of diverse shade ranges catering to Black people with darker skin or celebrities’ problematic behavior.

“I feel like her makeup journey has become something much bigger than makeup,” Funes said. “She’s probably … the best YouTuber right now that stands out the most from the beauty community because she doesn’t just touch on the makeup community stuff, she touches on everything in between. Anything that she cares about, she talks about, and I think that’s really important. And she needs to be highlighted as much as she can because she really does deserve it.”

Keviette Minor is an opinion cartoonist for the Daily Trojan.