DONIELLA DAVY A MAKE UP ARTIST'S ODE TO GEN Z
Glitter Tears Galaxy Skin
Inside the face of Euphoria, with the makeup artist who turned eyeliner into a character.
The last time a show or a film shocked me the way Euphoria did, it was watching Larry Clark's Kids for the first time, a long time ago. HBO's teen drama has everyone asking the same question on repeat: are the kids alright? But underneath the shock value is something more interesting happening on screen, a face that talks as much as the dialogue does.
That face belongs to Doniella Davy, Euphoria's makeup department head and the person responsible for nearly every glitter tear, painted brow, and rhinestone constellation in the show. Her looks aren't just pretty. They're doing narrative work. Jules's makeup, for instance, is deliberately artsy and unresolved, built to make the audience sit with questions about masculinity and femininity rather than answer them for us.
acid green era
Davy has said this whole style already existed before the show gave it a name, out on Instagram. She wasn't inventing a new look so much as translating one, calling the result her "ode to what Gen Z is doing right now," filtered through her own eye as a designer.
My favorite moment so far is the scene where Rue and Jules take pills and lie under a blanket, staring at each other. Davy has described it as one of the most inspiring days she's had on set: Jules's face dusted head to toe in gold glitter, Rue's face streaked in glitter tears. She built the galaxy effect on Hunter Schafer by layering shimmer foundation under several kinds of loose glitter, then mixed water with a heavy dose of gold glitter and let it run slowly down Zendaya's face for the tears. Stunning artistry.
The full story on how that scene came together is worth reading over at Interview magazine.
rhinestone detail
IRL euphoria
Who is Doniella Davy
Doniella grew up in Venice, California, raised by two artists, and studied photography at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. After graduating, she cold called a well established makeup artist working in film and within months had talked her way into a crash course in cinematic makeup techniques, followed by a three month apprenticeship in the makeup department on a Michael Mann production shooting in Hong Kong.
From there her career moved fast. Credits include Under the Silver Lake with Andrew Garfield, and two Barry Jenkins films, Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk. Her work on Moonlight, the film that won Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards, got a nod from Vogue before Euphoria had even started shooting.
the emmy shelf
Why it mattered
When Euphoria premiered in 2019, the effect on the beauty world was almost immediate. Rhinestones and graphic eyeliner started showing up everywhere: on the runways of fashion week, across TikTok, on the street. Davy went on to win an Emmy for the show's makeup, but the bigger shift was in how people started thinking about the category altogether. Beauty became a storytelling tool that could carry as much emotional weight as a line of dialogue or a costume choice, a legitimate outlet for identity and self expression rather than a set of rules to follow.
"I hate restrictions, rules and authority."
Davy has been open about coming to makeup without formal training, and she treats that as an asset rather than a gap. Her reference points run all over the twentieth century: sixties eyeliner and pastel shades, the smudged glitter of seventies glam rock, disco's sparkle, the blue mascara and frosted shadow of the early 2000s. What she actively avoids is the aesthetic she associates with a specific mid-2010s Instagram look: heavy drawn on brows, a concealer triangle under the eyes, an aggressively sharp crease. Skipping all of that, on purpose, is part of what makes her work feel unbothered by trend cycles.
Leila Antakly is an independent cultural interviewer, editor, and founder of Antakly Projects, the platform she launched in New York in 2003 as Ninu Nina. For more than two decades, she has interviewed artists, musicians, photographers, designers, and creative thinkers across art, music, fashion, photography, film, and contemporary culture.
Her interviews are driven by curiosity, research, and direct conversation rather than celebrity, trend, or algorithm. Antakly looks for the people, ideas, and creative practices shaping culture, with particular attention to artists who deserve a deeper conversation beyond the usual press cycle.
