January 4th, 2023
The IBI Awards Are Paving A New Way For Breakout Makeup Artisans Around The World
The 2023 IBI (International Beauty Industry) Awards for Hair and Makeup Artistry have just announced the 2023 Student Winner and Finalists—and it’s an exciting moment for the future of the next generation of talented Hair Stylists and Makeup Artists.
Warpaint can now exclusively reveal that this year’s global winner of Best Student Makeup is British artist Rachel Hawkins. Rachel is studying Makeup for Media and Performance at Arts University in Bournemouth.
“Inner Courage” by Rachel Hawkins, winner Best Student Makeup
Rachel described her award-winning entry:
“I wanted to try to make this piece as realistic as possible… I have worked on myself to produce this piece and so there’s only so long you can sit and complete a painted makeup. I find working with monochrome particularly difficult as the shades are so similar but so different therefore I wanted to challenge myself to create something I was pretty unfamiliar with.”
A member of the Independent Judging Council who reviewed Rachel’s work commented:
“I love the lion, it’s incredible. Keep up the great work!”
If you’ve never heard of the IBI Awards before, then this is definitely an online event to sit up and take notice of (but for deeper and more meaningful reasons than you might expect).
The IBI Awards were founded to celebrate the craft of beauty artisans around the world — artists from 55 countries entered the recent competition, and they’re creating unique and potentially life-changing opportunities for student artisans (this includes many students currently studying in the UK, and contributing to the British makeup and cosmetic scene).
This isn’t your typical beauty Award Competition.
The iconic IBI Statuette represents the canvas of the hair and makeup artist and is designed to transcend gender, age and race.
This is an award created by people who passionately believe that artists don’t have to work with celebrities (or have millions of followers) to deserve recognition for award-worthy work.
The IBI Awards is an artist-funded platform that isn’t influenced by any brand, organisation, or sponsor. Their mission is to give beauty artisans an international platform to be recognized, offer an all-inclusive outlet for opportunity, and cultivate a global community of discovery and inspiration.
This truly makes it the fairest beauty artisan competition in the world — and anyone can enter regardless of who they are, where they live, what products they can afford, who their clients are, or what professional organisations they belong to.
In other words, it all comes down to skill, talent, creative inspiration, and brilliant execution.
“Gold Marries Black” by Dari Leon, a student makeup artist from India, placed as a Finalist in the 2023 competition.
But what is perhaps most exciting about what the IBI Awards is striving to do in the hair and makeup industry is the fact that as part of their ongoing commitment to the artists (and to the future of the craft), they give students the opportunity to enter the ‘student category’ at no cost.
Students from all around the world (including many from the UK) who are still developing their skills—who have a vision that they’d like to display—can showcase their fresh takes, flashes of brilliance, and limitless potential before a worldwide audience…
All without being required to spend vast sums of money on expensive registration fees, or to find an ‘in’ with some kind of powerful corporate conglomerate or gatekeeping industry mogul just for a chance to be noticed.
Why is it important to give opportunities to students and young people?
Because young people are literally the future of our industry.
The students attending beauty, aesthetics, cosmetology, hairdressing, or barber school today—the ‘up and coming’ within this fantastic artistic and stylistic medium—are going to be the boundary-breakers of tomorrow’s beauty and makeup industry.
It’s refreshing to see a platform like the IBI Awards investing in the cosmetic artisans of tomorrow—while at the same time creating an infrastructure for fair recognition and achievement that’s actually based on each artist’s creative work.
Of course, the student category isn’t the only category to enter for the awards. There are over 40 specialized categories encompassing the many disciplines within Makeup and Hair artistry – from Avant-garde and Editorial, to Bridal and Natural, to On-screen and Special Effects.
There’s even a Reparative category for artists helping those with physical injury, disease, or disfigurement. Many MUAs and Stylists donate their time and skills to help those in need feel confident again—and this is another category that IBI charges no registration fees for.
Central to The IBI Awards are the principles of fairness, inclusivity, and accessibility. All work is submitted and judged entirely online, creating an equal opportunity for all artists regardless of where they live.
The IBI Awards Statuette is awarded to the highest-scoring entry in each category. The next two highest-scoring entries are awarded Finalist certificates. Plus, all finalists and winners gain recognition for their achievements and contributions on a global online stage, with social media attention and credit given where it’s truly due—to the artisans themselves.
“Jack & Sally” by student makeup artist Rickxymarie Ortiz Valdivieso of Puerto Rico also placed as a Finalist this year.
So take a moment to not only admire some of the exclusive artisan work we’re showcasing here, in our own editorial coverage of the event—but to also visit their website and their Instagram for up-to-date information on the latest entries, finalists, and winners.
And of course, if you’re a UK student who’d like to take your craft to the next level, and spring for the opportunity to have your incredible cosmetic skills showcased all over the world—then you should definitely consider entering the 2024 competition this summer.
We’ll be watching with keen interest as this event unfolds. And are definitely looking forward to how it’ll grow as we enter 2023 and beyond.
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