Akil McCoy is a makeup artist and the owner of AkilaFace who’s worked with people like rapper Sukihana, the Clermont Twins, City Girls, Megan Thee Stallion, Saucy Santana, and other celebrities.
McCoy recently received a call from the makeup brand thread beauty, founded by Melissa Butler, to create a makeup look for their first celebrity face, Saucy Santana.
The goal of the collaboration between Saucy Santana and thread beauty is to encourage inclusiveness in the industry.
McCoy shared his experience during the campaign and what inspired the makeup look.
What was it like being asked to create the makeup look to unveils Saucy Santana’s ambassadorship with thread beauty?
Saucy Santana and I have known each other before he became famous and got on RCA. Now he’s doing the things that he’s doing. … Thread beauty called me and said that he wanted me to do the makeup look. It was him that requested I do the campaign for them. I was shocked because it was another opportunity and another blessing from God. … Anything that’s for me is literally for me. I never feel l need to be in somebody else’s position. When I got the call from Thread Beauty, it was just like, “OK, this is for me.” Even though [Saucy Santana and I] haven’t spoken, I’m going to go ahead and kill it, and do what I do best, and it’s just to put AkilaFace on the floor; and that’s exactly what I did. If you just look at the Instagram Reels and the video from thread beauty in the campaign; you don’t see a lot of Black artists that can do this, especially on a man. It was just another opportunity that I was grateful to have, and I know it was for me because they came straight to me.
What inspired the makeup look you created?
The two colors that I know Saucy Santana loves are baby blue and yellow. His nails were blue, he had on a Rolex with a blue face. I wanted to make sure I served him his blues. That was what inspired the look. I could have gone crazy but he’s like a very simple boy. He loves the makeup but he doesn’t like to go too universal, at least not as of right now. I just gave him his simple blue eyeliner, which popped with the entire look, because sometimes simplicity is more than just going crazy. We both agreed on Tiffany blue and that’s what we did. I kept the makeup very simple and classy as well as very soft and pretty. It had nothing too hard because I didn’t want it to translate on camera as almost like drag makeup. I wanted to keep the essence of what thread beauty is and its softness.
