Indianapolis makeup artist, photographer, writer, and cosmetic entrepreneur Sarah Murrell is out to change the way we see beauty. An Evansville native and Butler graduate, the 25 year old quadruple threat is designing a line of gender-neutral, portable, locally-sourced, and eco-friendly cosmetics.
The product is a totally customizable multi tool designed for busy men and women with an artistic bent. Murrell describes her palette-esque product as “kind of like a passport. You arrange it how you like, and take it with you wherever you’re going. Then you can open it up and look at all the colors from a moment in time. It’s this really beautiful notion that you can have a souvenir of that season or that mood.”
The brand’s marriage of high-quality pigments and high-fashion colors with unfussy application is a natural fit for the burgeoning Indy fashion scene. Like Pattern, Murrell says, her line “is selling an idea; it’s polished and fashion forward while still being accessible and inviting.”
Accessible may be the perfect descriptor for Murrell’s upcoming line. Not only will it be designed and marketed with the currently underrepresented men’s demographic in mind (“It seems kind of last-century,” according to Murrell, “to see cosmetics as a female-only pursuit”), but it will also be available to the consumer at the click of the mouse. In addition to traditional retailers, Murrell is placing her line in the online marketplace. “It’s going to be incredibly useful for people on the go,” she says. “You won’t have to go to the mall to refill your expensive makeup. Even now, the cosmetics market is not set up for people who need to quickly shop and replace their products.”
Sarah Murrell is not exactly one to idle in her downtime. When she’s not designing her cosmetic line, she writes a “Weird Beauty Ritual” column for the Indianapolis-based blog Punchnels, creates and sells custom nail art on Etsy, and works as a freelance makeup artist and photographer.
At the core of every project lies one addictive idea for Murrell: transformation. After she “borrowed” Kevyn Aucoin’s book Making Faces from her sister as a child, she was hooked on the possibilities makeup and photography held. “I was like the kid who sees a magic trick and then goes home and spends years learning how to recreate it,” she says. Fifteen years later, she shows no signs of slowing down.
