Urban Decay Cosmetics,
Born to Run and more...

Julia Kuzmenko McKim photographed and retouched the beauty and macro beauty imagery for a multitude of Urban Decay’s projects for face, eye, and lip makeup products.

Between 2016 and 2019, I had the privilege and honor of shooting and retouching most of the web and social beauty and macro beauty imagery for one of the L’Oréal Luxe division brands most known among beauty lovers around the world, Urban Decay Cosmetics.

In 2019, a corporate reorganization by L’Oréal prompted significant changes in the brand, leading to the departure of many key personnel that I had enjoyed working with for years prior. As with most production dynamics, the new members of the creative team arrived with their own vendors whose aesthetics they loved and were comfortable working with.

Despite that shift, I consider myself fortunate to have experienced the unique and dynamic culture of boundless creativity that the original Urban Decay was renowned for among creatives. This culture was a testament to the brand’s origins and the visionary influence of one of its founders, Wende Zomnir, a legend in the makeup world.

Below, I added some of the preview files I often send to my clients during the final color-matching stage to ensure the product colors and texture are shown correctly in the images. When I am color correcting makeup shots before delivery, I always add approved product shots into my beauty shot files for an “uncontaminated” color judgment. From there, the client provides final directions, for example, to bump up saturation 20%, or increase highlights 5%, or darken shadows 10%, etc.