Where Beauty and Science Come Together

Empowering women, like you, to see what I see as a professional Makeup Artist, by highlighting your best features for a timeless, natural, and elegant makeup look.

Karyn Carlson Makeup & Hair Artistry offers makeup and hair styling services for weddings, micro weddings, elopements, special occasions, and photo and video shoots as well as virtual and in-person education. Whether you are getting your makeup applied by me or you are applying it yourself, my mission is to help women look and feel like their most beautiful self.

If we haven’t met, I’m Karyn Carlson. As a San Francisco Bay Area native, with a passion for beauty and science, I have been providing makeup services to discerning clients for more than 15 years. Inspired by my love of fine art, color, and science, I create timeless, natural, and elegant makeup looks that are unique and beautiful; customized for every client. How, you might ask? I am able to highlight each woman’s best features along with her natural beauty and anatomy. I don’t believe there is a place for heavy makeup or the need for extravagant transformation when you are looking for beauty and confidence.

Do you like what you hear?

If so, you are in the right place.

I strive to maintain the highest standards in both professionalism and technique. I am obsessed with researching new products and techniques to allow for the best possible results. In my kit, I carry a variety of professional grade products as well as high-end consumer products, all meticulously researched for the results they produce for the job in which they are used.

How do I incorporate science into makeup you might ask? Well, that can be a long conversation but I’ll condense it down to a few key points. Color theory. Anatomy. And formulations (which is technically several in one). Color theory is both the science and art of using color and its definition could fill many pages. In brief, it explains how humans perceive color; and the visual effects of how colors mix, match or contrast with each other. Colors are grouped into primary, secondary and tertiary colors on a color wheel, which I use regularly. Although I focus on human anatomy, technically anatomy is the identification and description of the structures of all living things. I am fascinated with the human body but in makeup I focus on the skeletal systems and sometimes the muscular and lymphatic systems. Lastly, there are the formulations of the skincare and makeup products themselves which are scientifically based.